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said. ‘We had to look after it until we found the owner.’
    Danny stopped laughing. He frowned. ‘No I didn’t.’
    ‘You did,’ Rita said. ‘It was OK, though, you didn’t hit it hard.’
    ‘That cat was just lost.’ He wiped at his fogged-up window. Snow had gathered on the pane. He frowned again and wiped the window.
    Rita wiped her own window with her glove, ended up smearing it more. ‘You’re right,’ she said at last. ‘I think it probably was just lost.’
    The road turned into a wide, residential street. They were almost back. She needed more salt. When they pulled in outside Danny’s flat, it was almost three o’ clock. She was desperate for more salt. She went inside with Danny and while he was taking off his shoes and coat, she went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water and tipped salt into it. Her hands were stiff and cracked. She fumbled with the glass and the tap. Danny came in just as she was finishing it, saw the salt pot out on the table. ‘Rita,’ he said. She shook her head. He looked at her feet, imagining the stone inside her boots.
    He walked her to the door. He was tall; he had to stoop in doorways.
    Her own house was cold. She kept her coat and scarf on. Already, as it always did when this happened, the house felt not quite her own: the furniture, the wallpaper, the small noises. She didn’t have long. She didn’t have time to phone work or to lock all the windows. She took out the bin bag but she couldn’t tie it up so she just folded the top over as well as she could. She clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to loosen them. Bending down was becoming difficult because of her hips and back. Her whole body was aching and tightening. As she bent, she could feel the discs in her back grating over one another, like an old gate opening over stones.
    Rita locked the door, left the key under the mat and went back outside. It was snowing harder now and flakes fell in fat patches on her shoulders and in her hair. She walked down the road and past all the houses. It wasn’t a long walk. She was glad it wasn’t long. Soon, the houses turned to fields and then cliffs and she walked up along the cliff path. The cliffs were covered in a light, ridged coating of snow. It hadn’t settled as thickly on them as it had in town. The sea was light grey and still and the sky was light grey and still and it was hard to tell one from the other.
    It was a struggle to walk now. It was difficult to breathe. Her legs grated together and her hips didn’t rotate. Her back was locked and rigid. She had her hands in her pockets and she clenched them and then couldn’t unclench them again. They stayed in tight fists in her pockets.
    The standing stones loomed out ahead through the snow. They made up a large, rough circle, set back from the edge of the cliff in a patch of long grass. Some were tall, some short, some leaning outwards, one had fallen over completely. There were fifteen stones there, but the number changed all the time. Some of them looked new, others were covered in lichen, which was white and webbed and looked as if the snow were creeping up the stone. There was an extra quietness that hovered around the circle, especially today, surrounded by the weather. Rita could imagine how cold each stone would feel if she touched them.
    She felt exhausted. She dragged herself down the path and reached the stones. She stood in a gap and waited. Snow was falling lightly and whirling in the wind up on the cliffs. The wind pushed the flakes in one direction like lines of static. Over the sea, the water and the snow and sky were one grey haze. The wind keened faintly and when Rita looked up she saw a buzzard, circling and rising above her.
    She could feel the little clicks of stone against stone as her shoulders seized up and turned rigid. She made sure she was facing out to sea. The stone moved up into her neck and soon she couldn’t turn it at all. She chose a spot on the horizon to