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leave axes lying about, not around ‘youths with potential’. They gave me a rubber mallet, though. Maybe that’s why they sent me out last? They’d given me twenty-five kilometres of isolation in case I went on a rubber-mallet rampage.
    I took a long time setting up the tent – one elephant, two elephant between each strike of the pegs with the mallet. I enjoyed building my nest. I suppose that’s why they left it packed up like this – to give us a sense of ownership.
    In the duffel bag there were vegetarian sausages wrapped in plastic, three raw potatoes, half a loaf of bread, a first-aid kit, two cans of baked beans, a tin of peaches, a carton of long-life milk, two packets of cereal, three apples and five teabags. There was a plastic plate, some tinfoil, plastic cutlery, and an enamel cup.
    No chocolate.
    They’ve given me matches too. They must think I’m safer with matches than hammers.
    The tent was taut and ready, the sleeping bag rolled out neatly inside, and my belongings set in symmetrical rows.
    Now what?
    I sat on the rock platform and stared at the water. The needles from the casuarinas dropped like light rain into the river, where they floated on the surface in sluggish swirls and corkscrews.
    Sometimes I could hear a branch crashing through trees on its way to the ground. It could have been a fox or a wild pig. Maybe a dingo.
    Or a monster.
    The river was loud and after a while I had the sensation that there was a noise under it that I couldn’t quite hear, like a baby crying, a car approaching, or a mobile ringtone. I tilted my head on the side to listen, but there was nothing but the roar of water over stones and the occasional birdcall.
    Lying back against the rock I watched the clouds drift over. Tiny biting midges hovered around my forehead, irritating like a forgotten word.
    I sat up suddenly, brushing the leaves and seedpods from my clothing, with no sense of how much time had passed.
    I built the fire and kept it going, feeding it one stick at a time – rationing it, and being attentive. Every now and then I would stand up and collect another stick, singing all the time, or humming to let the snakes know I was about.
    What did I sing? Something annoying. It was a jingle, ‘Be sure to go to Carroll’s, for the whole lock, stock and barrel. Be sure to go to Carroll’s, you’ll be fine’ – over and over.
    Although I wasn’t really hungry, I started to peel the plastic off the sausages I found in the duffel bag. Then I stopped and put them back.
    It seemed ridiculous that I was trying so hard to avoid what I’d been sent out here to do. What I’d come out here to do. (I hadn’t been sent. I’d volunteered. I could have done finger-painting.)
    I thought about Callum first. I imagined his face from every angle. I imagined him smiling at me over some shared joke. Better still, one that I’d instigated, shocking him into a delighted laugh – tipping the balance in my favour just for an instant.
    Good thoughts. The Solo had been a good idea.
    Then ugly, perverse thoughts barged in like bullies. All those thoughts I’d pushed aside, dammed, saw their opportunity to come out with renewed vigour. Refreshed, distilled and potent.
    In normal life there were all kinds of routines, obligations and distractions that I could use to push those thoughts back into their corner, until they were almost a ‘Where’s Wally?’ bad thought hidden amongst all the others, but out here there wasn’t a thing to distract me.
    That was the whole idea of going solo, wasn’t it? Still, I wondered if isolation could send you mad. Or is that the point? I’m already nutty and I’m out here to go sane.
    You can travel in your mind, if you give it the chance to do so. Faster than the speed of light. Tripping. Astral projection.
    I’d already been to three of those secret hiding places that I’d avoided for a year at least. Each detail returned and magnified.
    The chemist’s shop. Dinner with the Winters.