Somehow he lifted her, cradled her in his arms, began the steep slippery descent. Miraculously he kept his footing, every minute an hour, the sweat running freely out of his pores. Until finally he reached level ground, followed the snow-topped hedges all the way back to the cottage, a journey that ended up in the bedroom where he lowered her gently on to the bed and removed the rest of her clothing. Only then did he kiss her.

It was still a dream. He braced himself for the awakening, the return to reality. A twinge of guilt as he remembered that hare, prayed that it was dead by now.

The thaw came in late February, the first hint of spring towards the middle of March, warm winds that brought with them the stench of rotting corpses in the hills. The corvines and their fellow predators were busy justifying their role in Nature's plans, the big cleaning-up operation.

Jackie had not regained consciousness for a week, and for a fortnight after that Jon fed her with fresh warm goats' milk. Gradually her strength returned and then began the makings of a new relationship which both realised that they would have to work at, developing their own means of understanding and communication. Adaptation. It wasn't easy but, as Jon reminded himself, they had to stick together because they might never see another human being again, civilised or throwback.

Spring eased its way into summer and with it came the knowledge that Jackie was pregnant. And something else . . .

He had not been feeling well for a day or two, nothing which he could be absolutely positive about, more a kind of lethargy, having to exert his will power to complete even the simplest chore. His reasoning was dulled, a simple

lifestyle suddenly taking on complications. And throughout it all Jackie seemed closer, their understanding so much easier.

A casual glance in the mirror brought on that same sensation of shock that he had experienced the day he had looked down upon Jackie's features on those snowy slopes, his flesh goosepimpling, his brain reeling. Staring into the cracked and dirt-streaked mirror over the kitchen sink, seeing a reflection that he barely recognised as his own.

The skin was coarser, seemed to be afflicted with some kind of allergy rash; eyes sunken and red-rimmed, a beard that was coarse and straggling. Lips thicker, nose squashed as though at some time it had been pushed back, broken by a heavy blow. Changed . . .

Wrestling with realisation, giving up. Accepting it. He went outside into the yard. The hillsides were starting to green over again with the lush surge of a new growth. A new beginning to a new world.

He breathed deeply, no longer smelled the odour of putrefaction. He sensed Jackie by his side, both of them standing there looking up towards the forest on the skyline. A wilderness, just the two of them left in it.

Suddenly this was how it had always been, how it would go on. Nothing would change, they did not want it to.