That was when I first heard about his imaginary animals. When he started to describe what he’d been doing—I didn’t actually see anything until a few weeks later—I found it hard to show much enthusiasm. In fact, I have to admit, I was reminded of the original elephant-in-the-grass picture that had started off all Tommy’s problems at Hailsham. The inspiration, he explained, had come from an old children’s book with the back cover missing which he’d found behind one of the sofas at the Cottages. He’d then persuaded Keffers to give him one of the little black notebooks he scribbled his figures in, and since then, Tommy had finished at least a dozen of his fantastic creatures.

“The thing is, I’m doing them really small. Tiny. I’d never thought of that at Hailsham. I think maybe that’s where I went wrong. If you make them tiny, and you have to because the pages are only about this big, then everything changes. It’s like they come to life by themselves. Then you have to draw in all these different details for them. You have to think about how they’d protect themselves, how they’d reach things. Honest, Kath, it’s nothing like anything I ever did at Hailsham.”

He started describing his favourites, but I couldn’t really concentrate; the more excited he got telling me about his animals, the more uneasy I was growing. “Tommy,” I wanted to say to him, “you’re going to make yourself a laughing stock all over again. Imaginary animals? What’s up with you?” But I didn’t. I just looked at him cautiously and kept saying: “That sounds really good, Tommy.”

Then he said at one point: “Like I said, Kath, Ruth doesn’t know about the animals.” And when he said this, he seemed to remember everything else, and why we’d been talking about his animals in the first place, and the energy faded from his face. Then we were walking in silence again, and as we came out onto the High Street, I said:

“Well, even if there’s something to your theory, Tommy, there’s a lot more we’ll have to find out. For one thing, how’s a couple supposed to apply? What are they supposed to do? There aren’t exactly forms lying about.”

“I’ve been wondering about all of that too.” His voice was quiet and solemn again. “As far as I can see, there’s only one obvious way forward. And that’s to find Madame.”

I gave this a think, then said: “That might not be so easy. We don’t really know a thing about her. We don’t even know her name. And you remember how she was? She didn’t like us even coming near her. Even if we did ever track her down, I don’t see her helping much.”

Tommy sighed. “I know,” he said. “Well, I suppose we’ve got time. None of us are in any particular hurry.”

By the time we got back to the car park, the afternoon had clouded over and was growing pretty chilly. There was no sign of the others yet, so Tommy and I leaned against our car and looked towards the mini-golf course. No one was playing and the flags were fluttering away in the wind. I didn’t want to talk any more about Madame, the Gallery or any of the rest of it, so I got the Judy Bridgewater tape out from its little bag and gave it a good look-over.

“Thanks for buying this for me,” I said.

Tommy smiled. “If I’d got to that tape box and you were on the LPs, I’d have found it first. It was bad luck for poor old Tommy.”

“It doesn’t make any difference. We only found it because you said to look for it. I’d forgotten about all this lost-corner stuff. After Ruth going on like that, I was in such a mood. Judy Bridgewater. My old friend. It’s like she’s never been away. I wonder who stole it back then?”

For a moment, we turned towards the street, looking for the others.

“You know,” Tommy said, “when Ruth said what she did earl-ier on, and I saw how upset you looked…”

“Leave it, Tommy. I’m all right about it now. And I’m not going to bring it up with her when she comes back.”

“No, that’s not what I was getting at.” He took his weight off the car, turned and pressed a foot against the front tyre as though to test it. “What I meant was, I realised then, when Ruth came out with all that, I realised why you keep looking through those porn mags. Okay, I haven’t realised. It’s just a theory. Another of my theories. But when Ruth said what she did earlier on, it kind of clicked.”

I knew he was looking at me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead and made no response.

“But I still don’t really get it, Kath,” he said eventually. “Even if what Ruth says is right, and I don’t think it is, why are you looking through old porn mags for your possibles? Why would your model have to be one of those girls?”

I shrugged, still not looking at him. “I don’t claim it makes sense. It’s just something I do.” There were tears filling my eyes now and I tried to hide them from Tommy. But my voice wobbled as I said: “If it annoys you so much, I won’t do it any more.”

I don’t know if Tommy saw the tears. In any case, I’d got them under control by the time he came close to me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. This was something he’d done before from time to time, it wasn’t anything special or new. But somehow I did feel better and gave a little laugh. He let go of me then, but we stayed almost touching, side by side again, our backs to the car.

“Okay, there’s no sense in it,” I said. “But we all do it, don’t we? We all wonder about our model. After all, that’s why we came out here today. We all do it.”

“Kath, you know, don’t you, I haven’t told anyone. About that time in the boiler hut. Not Ruth, not anyone. But I just don’t get it. I don’t get what it’s about.”

“All right, Tommy. I’ll tell you. It may not make any more sense after you’ve heard it, but you can hear it anyway. It’s just that sometimes, every now and again, I get these really strong feelings when I want to have sex. Sometimes it just comes over me and for an hour or two it’s scary. For all I know, I could end up doing it with old Keffers, it’s that bad. That’s why… that’s the only reason I did it with Hughie. And with Oliver. It didn’t mean anything deep down. I don’t even like them much. I don’t know what it is, and afterwards, when it’s passed over, it’s just scary. That’s why I started thinking, well, it has to come from somewhere. It must be to do with the way I am.” I stopped, but when Tommy didn’t say anything, I went on: “So I thought if I find her picture, in one of those magazines, it’ll at least explain it. I wouldn’t want to go and find her or anything. It would just, you know, kind of explain why I am the way I am.”

“I get it too sometimes,” said Tommy. “When I really feel like doing it. I reckon everyone does, if they’re honest. I don’t think there’s anything different about you, Kath. In fact, I get like that quite a lot…” He broke off and laughed, but I didn’t laugh with him.

“What I’m talking about’s different,” I said. “I’ve watched other people. They get in the mood for it, but that doesn’t make them do things. They never do things like I’ve done, going with people like that Hughie…”

I might have started crying again, because I felt Tommy’s arm going back around my shoulders. Upset as I was, I remained conscious of where we were, and I made a kind of check in my mind that if Ruth and the others came up the street, even if they saw us at that moment, there’d be no room for misunderstanding. We were still side by side, leaning against the car, and they’d see I was upset about something and Tommy was just comforting me. Then I heard him say:

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Once you find someone, Kath, someone you really want to be with, then it could be really good. Remember what the guardians used to tell us? If it’s with the right person, it makes you feel really good.”

I made a movement with my shoulder to get Tommy’s arm off me, then took a deep breath. “Let’s forget it. Anyway, I’ve got much better at controlling these moods when they come on. So let’s just forget it.”