Our first morning in the UK was brighter, a communal breakfast taken in the conservatory and garden, bunkhouse style in the way everyone clubbed together. I still felt like shit, my usual reaction to long haul flights, but Maz and I had been woken by our daughter at about seven, Maz pretending to be asleep even after a prod from the girl. I understood why when LC finally turned to me for permission.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

The slightest of twitches from her, and then that surge of confidence, or maybe hope, that warmed my heart.

“Can I play with the dogs again?”

“If they are awake, love. You need to ask their owners if it’s okay first, though”

“Am I allowed to speak to them?”

That bastard’s dead, Rhodes. Deal with what he’s left behind, but nicely.

“Want me to come with you?”

“Want Mum to”

I looked down at Maz, who had her back to LC but was wide awake, and she mouthed ‘You go’ at me.

“Your Mum’s asleep, love”

I lip read ‘hangover’ and wriggled out of my side of the duvet, thankful I was wearing sleep shorts and a T-shirt, and slipped my feet into my trainers.

“Leave Mum to sleep, and I will come downstairs with you. Get Mum a cup of tea for when she wakes up, and see what the doggies are doing”

We padded down the stairs to find a reasonable number of people getting outside their own hot drinks, the two hounds curled up against each other right in the doorway. So typical of dogs: won’t play with me? I’ll just get right in your way till you do. LC walked up to them and bent down to pat the tops of their heads, one hand for each of them. One of the younger people called out to her.

“If I say the word, Pie will go mad, so do you want me to get the thing to throw?”

LC looked at me for permission yet again, and I nodded.

“Yes please, Tuan”

The lad laughed happily.

“I’m not Dwayne, or whatever. I’m Jim”

He waved her forward, slipping her a tennis ball and telling her to keep it out of sight, then called “Pie!”

The collie sat up, the spaniel looking a little aggrieved.

“Go with Carolyn!”

Once she was in the garden, he added, “Now let him see the ball”

That brought both dogs to their feet and outside, and all I then heard of them was a mixture of yips and laughter. No dogs at that slave camp, then.

I nodded my thanks and quickly assembled a cuppa for my wife, who sat up in bed to take it from me.

“How is she doing, darling?”

“Out with those two dogs. What does ‘Tuan’ mean?”

“Oh, Malay for ‘Sir’. Who did she call that?”

“Lad with the dogs. Jim”

“Fits. We were both… we quickly learned to be polite to them”

So many bruises.

“In the past, love, so let’s keep it there. What do you remember from last night?”

“I—oh! What is happening with our car? Hire car?”

“You were out of it, then. We have an offer of a loan rather than a hire, from one of the collective. He runs a hire business, and he just offered, out of the blue. He’s sorting us a reasonable estate car, and we’ve got about eighty offers of tents, sleeping bags, et cetera. And a lot of questions about the end of August, for some reason”

She slurped her tea, sighing in satisfaction, and I pointed to the bedroom door.

“Looks like they are starting a big fry-up, love. You okay for that?”

She stared into her mug for a moment.

“Still doesn’t seem real, my love. Sleeping in a bed, not on the floor of a hole in the ground. Proper drink. Proper food. Having you with me again… I need a Full English; prove this is real”

We had our Full And Extended English, before most of the visitors packed up and left for their homes, but Jim and his family, with their dog, stayed another night, which brought more happy laughter from a giggly girl, and that night Maz and I found an old, traditional way of proving that things really were as they seemed.

She was still so horribly thin, though.

Stewie’s temporary present arrived two days later, a well-worn Vauxhall that he assured us was in perfect condition, or at least as perfect as Vauxhalls could ever be. I got used to it with a few shopping trips into Crawley, where we picked up extra bits and pieces for our journey that included fleece jackets and walking boots for Carolyn, along with another childhood necessity in the shape of a bear. LC was fascinated by the Italian Kitchen place, with its multitude of salads and sandwich fillings, and the whole food court seemed to put her at risk of over-stimulation in offering too many new things at once.

She never asked for anything, though. Beaten out of her, I realised.

Our time with the Woodruffs was over far too soon, but they were storing our cases and some other bits ready for our return flight home in September. It was an emotional departure, of course, but this time the emotions were positive ones. LC was gradually emerging, helped immensely by such treats as a half day on Brighton’s remaining pier with its rides and games, where she finally decided to make a positive statement about, of all things, ice cream. Specifically, how her favourite flavour was choc-chip mint.

The drive up country was not exactly pleasurable, as it involved almost entirely motorways, but things improved a little north of the Dartford Tunnel. Ish was navigating for me, using my phone and a UK SIM, not that I needed it, and I was fretting slightly, as Auds and Alan, who were putting us up, had moved from That Place to Toddington some years before, so I would miss the opportunity to drive through the scenic wonders that are Chapel Street and Hockwell Ring, and so confirm that said That Place deserves not to be named fully.

It simply meant driving two junctions further up the M1 before once more pulling off onto rural roads.

“Nearly there, girls! How are you finding it?”

Maz shouted something about boring motorways, and I had to agree.

“I’m afraid it’s like that a lot, but some of the places we are going are much nicer, but those blocks to your right there, they are Hockwell Ring, and that is definitely not one of the nice places”

“What are the nice places like, Dad?”

I had to concentrate just then, as Carolyn had asked that question, totally out of the blue. Thank you, god, fate, whatever.

“There are a few of them, my darling. One in particular has a lot of friends, and a lot of mountains”

Ish laughed, saying “And a lot of sheep, and a lot of rain, so a lot of wet sheep”, but LC hadn’t finished.

“Will there be music there again?”

Oh wow.

“Do you mean like the music that Steph and Annie and their friends played?”

“Where I got my dress, and met the dogs, yes. It was nice. Will there be more?”

“Ish?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“I don’t need the maps. Could you use my phone to call Audrey for me? Number’s already entered”

“Okay… Hi! This is Ish Rhodes! Fine, thank you. Just passed a place Dad called Hockwell Ring. Yeah… Looked it. Anyway, Dad has a question. Dad?”

“Just ask when the folk club’s next on, or if it’s already the Summer break”

“He says is the folk club on, or is it Summer… right. Who’s on? Okay, we know him. Jimmy Kerr, Dad. Tonight”

I concentrated on getting us safely off the M1, as that exit has quite a tight bend and I certainly didn’t want to lose a family I had only just regained. Ish chuckled.

“Dad hasn’t said it out loud, but I know he’s thinking it. We’re just leaving the motorway, so is the kettle on?”

A couple more jokes, and he hung up.

“She said the club’s moved, Dad. Really awkward to get to now”

“Where to?”

“Pub called the Sow and Pigs. Where’s that, do you know?”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“I suspect it is now their local, as it is in the same village! Sorry, son, but Auds has always been a joker. She…”

I bit down hard on what I was about to say, for while Carolyn needed to know where her name came from, it wasn’t the right time. We would say hello as a family, and that information could wait until we were all ready.

“Carolyn?”

“Yes… Dad?”

“There will be music tonight, and it will be very good. A man who plays the fiddle, like the lady with the long red hair”

Maz added, “Just not as mad, I would guess”

‘At least Steph speaks English’ was my silent response, but they would find out the simple way. Leighton Road… Right! They had plenty of room out front of their house, and before I had turned the engine off, Auds was waiting for her hug, and it was nothing subtle. Alan held back slightly after a brief squeeze of Ish, and then softly asked Maz if a hug would be okay, and to my horror she started to weep before answering the question by embracing Alan as she tried to explain.

“I am sorry, but it was two things, together, and I am still not, you know, recovered. Someone asking me for permission, to do anything at all to me, that… It hasn’t been a feature of my recent life. And then, sorry, but your name. I lost another Alan”

She squeezed him again.

“I will be fine. It is simply that everything is still a bit raw, a bit sensory overload. I heard someone say ‘kettle’, I believe”

Auds led the way in, and there was indeed tea waiting for us. I settled into the sofa with a sigh, LC bookending her mother as always, and looked at our hosts.

“The kids?”

Alan laughed happily, pointing at some graduation photos on the wall by the door to the dining room.

“Not been ‘kids’ for some years, mate. Al’s on a dig up near York, and Gina’s counting beavers in Devon. Things they couldn’t get out of, I’m afraid, but they send their best. You’re looking well, Mike”

“Boy here pronounces that as ‘old’, Alan. Carolyn, what Mum and I explained to you, these are friends… I met the lady you are named after because she was a friend of this lady here. We all used to go and listen to music together. The man who is playing tonight is a friend of the lady with the red hair”

Audrey looked at her husband for a second before turning to me.

“Mike, this friend of yours, would she be called Steph?”

I nodded.

“Well, muggins here ended up running the club when we lost the grant. That’s how it ended up here rather than staying in Lu—”

I think I was first, but both wife and son matched my shout of ‘Don’t say the name!’. Auds gave me a funny look, so I simply suggested she think of ‘Candyman’ films and ‘P Fairies’, which got the message across, and she chuckled.

“Point taken, then. Well, we had to leave That Place That Begins With L, and the landlord here is amenable. What I was going to say was that we didn’t book the act, the act asked us to book him, and he said he’d been asked by someone called Steph. At least, that’s what I think he said. Steph?”