Simone didn't surface for another half hour, and in the meantime I went down to the shop to cadge two cups of tea and buy some fresh rolls.

"Morning, sleepy," I said.

"Ugh, I'm stiff all over. How long have you been up?"

"Couple of hours. I had a quick march up to Hollins Cross to watch the dawn."

"You didn't?"

"No, I didn't. What do you think? Got you a cup of tea, though."

"Fantastic. Do I need that."

"Buttered roll?"

"Yes, please. I'm starving."

"It's the country air."

"No, actually, it's the alcohol. I always wake up starving when I've been drinking."

"Honestly, where's the romance in that? You're supposed to say the country air is good for you, gives you an appetite, stimulates the body, activates the senses."

"Stimulates the body? Makes it stiff as a bloody board, more like. My back is aching."

"You'll be alright once you've had a shower. Ease it off."

"Oh, I don't know if I fancy those showers."

"Stop being such a wuss."

Simone slapped me hard on the shoulder.

"Oh, I'm really sorry," she said, laughing, "I didn't mean that to be so hard. Let me make it better." She leaned over and kissed my shoulder through my tee shirt, then rubbed it gently with her hand.

"Damn, if only you'd slapped my backside."

"Oh really? You'd like me kissing your arse, would you?"

"Darling, the whole world can kiss my arse. But you would be especially welcome. As long as you didn't bite." I paused. "Well, not too hard, anyway."

Simone finally agreed to use the showers, and we prepared for the day's walk, packing our rucksacks and slipping into our extra-thick socks and chunky boots. Simone was wearing shorts and a light blue tee-shirt with 'nobody's poppet' emblazoned across it, and in the morning sun she looked adorable, willowy and slight, a prepossessing, winsome Grace.

"All set, then?" she said.

"Thunderbirds are go."

There are two ways of getting to Hollins Cross from Edale: the easy way, following the alarmingly eroded path which meanders gently upwards, or the hard way, up the steep side of the hill. In tribute to the Scottish genes we both harboured, we chose the hard way, and scrabbled upwards through the gorse and heather and grass, finding the occasional sheep track to follow, slowly, achingly, making our way to the top. Hollins Cross is a crossroads, with the startling ridge path from Mam Tor to Lose Hill running east to west, intersected by a path joining the villages of Castleton and Edale. We stopped for a couple of minutes to catch our breath, resting by the memorial stone set in the middle of the crossroads and looking at the world around us.

"What's that ruin over there?" asked Simone, pointing towards Castleton.

"That's Peveril Castle. That's where we're going next. Up the hill to the top, and then we're going cross country and swinging round to here." I turned to my right and pointed at the summit of the ridge path on which we were standing. "That's Mam Tor."

"Christ, that'll take hours."

"About five, I reckon."

"Best get going then," she replied, and skipped down the sharply descending path, which was scarred deep in the landscape. We took about thirty minutes to reach the bottom of Peveril Castle, on the outskirts of Castleton. High above us, on a triangular spur, overlooking the village, sat the ruins of the castle, built on an almost sheer rock face.

"We're going up there, are we?" asked Simone, pointing to the almost perpendicular gorge ahead of us. I nodded. "Fantastic, let's go."

The path was hard, rising up a narrow gorge, with enormous, limestone rocks towering over us; rocky underfoot and very steep, it was extremely wearing on the knees, and by the time we reached the top, both of us were struggling, out of breath and wheezing like a pair of old hags.

"What I'd give for a can of lager now," I gasped.

"Bugger that, a feather mattress and someone to waft a giant fan over me."

"Hmm, yeah, that'd do instead."

We continued up the rocky path to the head of the dale and found ourselves in wild, open country, a huge expanse of gently undulating, grassy slopes, divided by a number of limestone walls soldiering across the landscape, stolid and lovely. Turning northwards, we followed a trail through several disused quarries and mines, all now gradually turning back to nature, the scars repairing themselves, reviving, renewing. All the while, as we walked, we talked freely, an endless dialogue about this and that, things of no consequence, plans, visions, ideas. The conversation was unforced, bearing that instinctive intimacy which marks true friendship; such familiarity cannot be replicated, cannot be manufactured; it is an entente to be treasured.

Mam Tor is the Shivering Mountain, so called because of the alternate layers of soft shale and hard grit which run horizontally along it; unstable, the shale constantly shifts and slips, giving the impression that the mountain is shivering. The ascent is relatively easy, and made easier by a series of steps built into it, although one assumes they were designed by giants since the depth of each step caused both Simone and me great difficulty. It is worth it, though, because at the peak the view is unsurpassed anywhere in England. Southwards, and Castleton village, watched over by the looming sentinel, Peveril Castle; Cave Dale, running down to the castle, and down further still, into the village itself; and beyond, into the Hope valley, an endless vista of English beauty. To the north, the vale of Edale, with Edale village, where our campsite, and even our tent was visible; and beyond it the start of the Pennine Way, snaking round the side of Kinder Scout and up, onwards over 250 miles to the Pennines; and all around a swathe of green, a patchwork of man and nature in harmony, fields on fields on fields, edged by hedges and limestone walls, with sheep grazing and cows herding, and birds banking and wheeling above them; clumps of trees lie dotted about, relief impressions standing proud of the land beneath them; with small farmhouses punctuating the scene, bringing it to life, demonstrating the symbiosis of people and country. And then beyond, following the rise of the Dark Peak, the moorland, bleak and alone, unambiguous, baleful in its casual, primitive certainty, civilisation giving way to raw nature.

As we stood on the summit and gazed in wonder at our world, I reached out and grabbed Simone's hand, pressing it tightly against mine, two minds, two bodies, joined as one in awed contemplation of the beauty around us.

"I know why you brought me here," she said.

"You do?"

"I do. And you're so clever. Sometimes we need to see the broader perspective, stop living in our own little box. Coming here, seeing all this beauty, all this wonderful country, makes you realise."

"Robert Burns said what a gift it would be 'to see ourselves as others see us.' Sometimes, though, we have to stop seeing ourselves at all. Step aside, look around, forget about ourselves. We get too caught up in ourselves, too fixed on 'me', blind to what's happening around us. We burrow into ourselves, shut ourselves away, become recluses in our own imaginations. So yes, a bit of perspective is a good thing. But that's not really the problem. Thousands of people get by perfectly happily with absolutely no sense of perspective whatsoever. Either they think only of themselves, or never of themselves, and they can be still be perfectly happy in their own little world. Rampant egotists or downtrodden mice, maybe, but perfectly happy. So that's not the problem.

"Uh-huh," she said edgily.

"The real trouble comes when you shut yourself into your own little cocoon and start to think that nobody can help you, that you have to do everything alone. You forget there's a world out there, and that that world can help you. You forget that you have friends out there who care for you, and will do anything for you."

"Interesting change of case there; we're in the second person, now, I notice." From the very first time we met, Simone had demonstrated a great capacity to take any comment personally. I was used to the trait by now; and in any case, on this occasion, it was meant personally.

"Sorry, that was unintentional."

"Yes, I'm sure." Simone sounded prickly, and I knew I was hitting a sore spot again. "You have to admit, though, sometimes it's just easier to get on with things yourself, sort them out yourself."

"Easier, but not necessarily better."

"Not necessarily worse, either."

"Well, I think it possibly is. If you don't realise what's happening, I mean. If you don't realise how serious things have become, how much you need to talk to others. You can end up trying to soldier on and getting more and more bogged down, deeper and deeper into trouble, without ever realising that it was happening."

"But sometimes it's too painful to talk about things. Even to think about things. Sometimes it's easier to bottle them up. Easier to tell yourself they never happened."

"It would take a very raw experience to make you try to do that, surely?"

"Maybe."

"And it won't work. Whatever you bury will always come back to you. In the night, in the dark, in the time of doubt and worry; it'll gnaw at you, it'll always be there, lurking, waiting to pounce, waiting to drag you down again." Simone tensed, and I knew that once again I had found the fault line which ran all the way through her. 'There are things you don't know about her', Don had said, and whatever these 'things' were, they had formed an angry, seething ball of pain within her. She stepped away from me, turning towards Kinder Scout, and I knew she had started crying.

"I take it you're talking about me again?"

"Yes, I am."

"You make it sound like I'm completely bloody miserable."

"No, of course you're not."

"If I'm so pathetic why do you bother with me at all?" Simone's voice was trembling, on the verge of breaking down.

"That's not what I'm saying. Quite the opposite, in fact. You're a very happy person, you're a joy to be with, everyone says so, everyone feels it. I don't think you have the vaguest notion how popular you are. You're one of those people who bring happiness into a room; you've got a very special gift, Simone, a way of touching people. Look at last night, in the pub. What you did was extraordinary..."

"I only played a few fiddle tunes."

"No, you did more than that. You brought the pub together. You created a shared moment. Everyone who was there last night will be talking about that today. Every single one of them will be telling their friends about it: 'You should have been there, it was fantastic, what a night'. You make people feel good. I felt it the first time I saw you. I don't know what it is: you radiate kindness, and warmth, and understanding. You're calm, you make everything right. You're the soul of the Jenny Dangs, you know you are; it would fall apart without you."

"No, I don't think it would..." I knew what she was doing; she was trying to deflect the conversation from herself again, only this time I wouldn't let her.

"What you do is watch out for people. Quite simply, you minister to them. And that's why they respond to you, because you connect with them. You're watching after them, helping them." Simone still stood with her back to me, her jaw held grimly, trying to hold back the tears; her arms were folded across her chest and she looked more vulnerable than anything I'd ever seen, laid bare and unshepherded. It broke my heart to see her like this, and I hated myself for putting her through it, but I would not give up.

"But somehow, somewhere, I'm convinced you're feeling some pain. And so I come back to the question I asked you in Derby," I continued, "who supports Simone?"

"And I give you the same answer: I don't need it. You've just said I'm happy, I'm the life and soul of the party, I bring warmth to a room, blah blah blah. I don't need any fucking support."

"Yes you do, love," I said softly. I stepped behind her and held her arms lightly. A tear coursed down her cheek into the corner of her mouth, and she sniffed loudly, biting her lip to prevent any more tears; she failed, and another, and another trickled down her pale, dew-soft skin.

"You're okay," I continued, "day to day, on a superficial level. Your life is ordered, compartmentalised, you cope with everyday things. That's the easy bit. That's the bit down there." I pointed down into the vale of Edale, the soft, green expanse below us. "That's the bit we control, the bit that humans manage. And it's all beautiful. And it all works. The small farms, the little village, the holiday makers and ramblers. Everyone going about their business, working together, looking out for each other.

"But what's happening up there?" I pointed upwards, towards Kinder Scout, towards the start of the moorland. "What's happening in the wilds, in the areas we don't cultivate? What's happening at the edges? D'you know it can be beautiful weather down in the valley, and a couple of miles up there you can't see a yard in front of your face? Up there you're not in control; you're at nature's mercy. Anything can happen, if you're not careful.

"What's going on in that zone, Simone? What's going on in the area you don't control? What's going on in your mind? That's where you're not happy, my love, that's where you need support."

Simone stood silently, her body tensed and shaking. "'Heather and grass, and rocks and grouse, and nothing to find but your soul,'" she said.

"What?"

"It's what you said yesterday. I thought it was lovely. Out on the moors, nothing to find but your soul. Unexplored and unexplained and misunderstood. Confront your fears. Is this what you're trying to tell me?"

"Yes."

"I've got my own beast running rampant on the moors, terrorising my mind, is that what you're saying?

"Not a beast, no. Nothing so melodramatic. Just something that's frightening you; something you're not in control of."

Simone sat down on the heather and hid her face in her hands. I sat beside her and stroked her thigh comfortingly.

"What happened to you, Simone? Something happened, didn't it?" Her body was quaking. She sat with her knees in the air, and leaned forward, resting her elbows on them, staring sightlessly into the vale below, her eyes awash, tears streaming down her face. Huge sobs rent the air, each one sending a tremor through her body. She seemed so utterly, ineffably alone, older than time and burdened by the weight of the world.

"No paseran," she whispered.

I cradled her to me and felt in my pocket for a tissue. For five minutes we sat, rocking together, looking out over the valley, and gradually Simone's tears subsided; she felt so small in my arms, fragile like a winter's sun. I ran my hand through her hair, sweeping it back from her delicate face, now puffy with emotion.

"Can I ask a question?" I asked.

"As long as it changes the subject," she said, laughing through her tears.

"Sort of. You said before, when we were at Rutland Water, that love was a myth. Do you believe that?"

"Yes. I don't believe in love. I think the notion of romantic love is impossible. And d'you know why? Your 'once and forever' so-called unrequited love proves it: it can't be love if it isn't reciprocated. That's just infatuation. Sure, one person can "love" another, but that's not the same thing as romantic love, that's not a union of bodies and minds. True love, real love is about sharing, and understanding, and knowing, about being together. What it's really about, it's about trust, and in this world you can't ever trust anybody, so therefore it must be impossible to love them. QED."

There was a horrifying logic to everything she said, but it was so cold, so hollow, I could scarcely believe it was coming from Simone.

"It's not love you don't believe in then, it's trust."

"I don't believe in either. You can't have one without the other, and if the other is impossible, the one must be, too. It's perfectly simple."

"You don't believe it is possible to trust anyone? What, never? Nobody?"

"No."

"Not me?"

She laughed. "D'you know, I've been asking myself that question for weeks, now."

"And the answer?"

She made no answer, and that, in itself, was the answer.

"You said you'd been in love once," I said at length. "What happened?" Simone was picking distractedly at the heather between her thighs, her eyes red-rimmed but dry now, a couple of silvery, salty tear-tracks still evident on her cheek. She didn't look up as she spoke.

"His name was Steve," she said. "My childhood sweetheart. Sent each other valentines from Primary Five onwards, got engaged when we were eleven." I smiled. "Our families went on holiday together, and we would stroll along the beach in Hunstanton, hand in hand, kissing and running off into the sand dunes. We had no idea what we were doing, but we rolled about in the sand, cuddling, kissing, pretending we were lovers. We'd go to the cinema, sit hand in hand, not able to concentrate on the film at all, because we were just thinking about each other, and kissing, and fumbling. And you know. All very normal, all very adolescent. He was really nice. I think I did love him, from an early age. My heart used to go ping! when I saw him, if that's what love is; even just watching him walk down the street would set my heart racing. He was very handsome. Tall, even at sixteen he was over six feet, and very strong. He was the games champion at school. Oh we were the perfect couple, the sports champion and Little Miss Goody Two Shoes, star of the school orchestra. He had really thick, dark hair, curly, incredibly curly; I used to love running my fingers through it, I could do it for hours. Used to drive him mad, and he'd storm off in a huff. 'I'm not a bloody doll," he'd shout. And he had blue eyes, lovely blue eyes, blue like you've never seen, blue like the ocean, and they seemed deep, too, like the ocean, and he held you in his gaze, and you couldn't look away, it was like he was hypnotising you, like you were under his spell. And he had the gentlest touch, that was the strange thing, because he was so strong, so muscular, but he was gentle as a dove, and he used to stroke my chin, and my cheek, like this, and tell me I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and he'd do anything for me, and he loved me, and he'd always love me, for ever and ever. And I loved that. A gawky, ugly girl with a huge nose loves to hear that. And he bought me things. Only little things, with his paper-round money, ear-rings which made my ears go septic, and a necklace, and a ring, and he'd say "you're mine now, Simone, you're mine." Yes, and then he started to get jealous. I never knew why. He didn't like me going out with Marie, my fiddle sister, wanted me to spend my time with him, wanted me with him all the time, except when he was out with the boys, of course, then he wanted me to be at home, alone. And he started accusing me of going out with other boys, started to say terrible things, accuse me of things I'd never do, and he'd get all angry, and shout, and break things. And. But he never hit me. He never hurt me. He never did that."

She looked away. Tears were forming in her eyes again, and her arms were goose-pimpled. She appeared to be on automatic pilot, barely conscious of what she was saying, a stream of thoughts and memories rising to the surface and jostling for prominence.

"And then, it was my seventeenth birthday." She stopped and dabbed her nose with her tissue again. Tears were flooding down her cheek and she stared, unblinking, at the ground. Her voice was husky and quiet. "It was my seventeenth birthday..."

A chill swept through me, an icy, excoriating blast which penetrated my soul. With dismal clarity, I realised what was happening.

Simone was telling me her story.

I sat, unable to move, and listened.

"It was my seventeenth birthday, and we'd been out at the cinema. We went back to my house, and went upstairs, and put on some records, some smoochy stuff, and he pulled me onto the bed. We hadn't done anything up to this point, hadn't done it, I mean, but I knew Steve wanted to. Over the last few weeks he'd been dropping hints, and he would kiss me harder, and his hands would wander, and he would press himself against me, so that I could feel his erection. It was making me nervous, because I didn't know if I was going to be able to go through with it. I didn't know if I wanted to. And so it put up a kind of barrier between us, which Steve didn't like. It seemed to make him more jealous, and if I made an excuse not to be alone with him, which I did, because I was scared, he would say it was because I was going out with someone else. And I'd deny it, obviously, and that would just make him all the more convinced. And so things were a bit strained that night, my birthday. But anyway, we put on the smoochy music, and started kissing, and he pulled me on to the bed and we started kissing again, and cuddling. And it was lovely. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, he was gentle, he never hurt me. It was nice. I was getting turned on, and I knew Steve was too, because I could feel him hard. He started groping at my clothing, running his hand up and down under my sweater, and that was nice, too. And he grabbed my boobs through my bra. And that was nice. He pulled my sweater up over my head, and I let him, but I was frightened now. I didn't know if I could go through with it. But he was gentle, and kind, and whispered in my ear how much he loved me. And he took my bra off and kissed me. And sucked me. And it was nice. Nice." She paused. "But I was, like, detached from it, somehow. I was there but I wasn't. His hands were on my crotch, rubbing me through the zip of my jeans. And I was excited. Really. He pulled the zip down and started fumbling in my panties, and I felt his hand on me. The first time anyone had ever touched me. And it was nice. But it was horrible, as well. I was less and less happy. I was being carried along, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. He pulled my jeans off and my panties, and I was naked, naked in front of a boy for the very first time, and I felt small and frightened, and then he started yanking at his clothes and pulled them off. And he was naked. And I saw his cock. It was really hard, and really big and I knew I didn't want to do it. He was on top of me, his hands all over me, his cock pressing into me, and I panicked. I screamed and yelled for him to get off me, and jumped up off the bed, crying and trying to cover myself up. He got really angry with me, angrier than I'd ever seen him, shouting and swearing. 'Cock teaser' and 'slut' and 'bitch' and 'whore' and telling me I'd sleep with anyone so why wouldn't I sleep with him. He flung his clothes back on and yelled 'if I can't have your rancid cunt I'll go and find another one' and he stormed out."

Simone stopped again. Her voice was low and steady, unemotional to an extraordinary degree considering what she was relating. She swallowed, still staring into space before her.

"Next day," she continued, "we heard that a young girl, sixteen or seventeen, like me, was raped. It was huge news. It's a small town, things like that don't happen. Only they did. It was Steve, of course. They caught him almost immediately."

I sat mute, shocked beyond words. Simone had been carrying this guilt for three years, guilt over a girl raped and a man driven to rape, driven to it, she thought, by her own act. It had been gnawing at her, scratching at her, insinuating itself in her mind, dragging at her self esteem, inveigling itself into her psyche, where it played tricks with her, lied to her, sneered in her ear that she could never trust anybody again, that she could never trust herself again, that it was a cold and hostile world. And Simone had borne that for three years. That single act of brutality had struck at everything she knew. The boy she loved, the person she trusted, had betrayed every civility known to humankind. How could she ever trust again? In that single act, that single moment of turning Steve away, her tortured mind told herself, she had ruined her own life, had ruined Steve's life, and had ruined the life of the innocent child he had raped. In her silence, in her voiceless acceptance of her complicity, Simone had assumed a mantle of guilt which was weighing down on her ever more heavily with every passing day. My poor, tormented darling, what must she have suffered? I put my arms around her and kissed her. We were both overcome, and neither could speak. We lay entwined on the heather, cheek to cheek, and wept into the clear and cloudless day.

On to next story: The Moment