I dreamed of Jane that night. I knew I would. Too many emotions had been stirred and too many memories revived for the most vital of them all to remain latent any longer. I slept a deep and troubled sleep and in the dark of the night she came to me, as shimmeringly beautiful as ever: Jane, poor Jane.

And from that point, though I didn't know it then, our fate was sealed.

Earlier, we had needed an ambulance to get me back from the Ripley House. My shin had quickly become bruised and swollen and it could barely take my weight. Carlee was concerned it might even be fractured, although she was still nonplussed about how it could have happened.

"I don't understand," she said repeatedly. I was becoming cross with her, principally because I had no answer: the truth would not serve, and no fiction could be made to sound plausible. "I saw everything: you just fell over. Nothing happened to your shin. I don't understand."

In the end I snapped. "Carlee," I shouted. "Just drop it. I think I can explain it to you. But not now, I'm in too much pain to think straight. Please, drop it." It was a cruel thing to do, playing on my injury to make her feel guilty. I knew she was genuinely concerned and trying to help, but at that moment I was in no position to confront her with reality. We called on my mobile phone for an ambulance and spent some minutes trying to explain our whereabouts: it was hard giving directions to a house which hadn't existed for thirty-six years, and even when we had finished I doubted whether they would ever find us. As we waited I hugged Carlee gently.

"I'm still glad I came," I said.

"I think you had to, babe. I don't understand about this place, but you've talked about it so often I know that somehow it's special for you. I just kinda think you have unfinished business here, or something."

I was beginning to think so too. That was what frightened me.

Eighteen years before, as a callow and confused child, I had never come close to understanding the secret of the Hallow Road. Now the nervous hammering of my heart, the sense of gloomy anticipation which was seeping into my bones, suggested that perhaps, deep down, I felt I was finally in a position to unravel the mystery.

But did I want to?

By the time the ambulance had arrived - about thirty minutes later - and despatched us to Accident and Emergency, I had become extremely cold and agitated, my whole leg stiffening painfully. The nurse who attended me took one look at my injury and realised it had not happened accidentally. She stared recriminatingly at Carlee, seemingly the only possible suspect, and I shook my head.

"It's not my place," she said, "but you should report this to the police."

"It's not what you think." My answer satisfied neither the nurse nor Carlee, who was glowering by my bed, aware of the silent accusation being cast at her.

"I didn't do this, you know. You can stop looking at me like I'm Charles bloody Manson."

"I never suggested you did."

"Your eyes, honey, your eyes suggested it."

"My eyes see what my eyes see."

"So do mine. And what I see is a nasty lesion, possibly even a fracture, and a goddamned nurse who is too busy playing Hercule Poirot to attend to it. Just remember, honey, I'm a trained nurse and a half trained lawyer: I can spot medical negligence and sue your ass for it in the same breath."

Carlee was beautiful when she was angry. Her solemn, hazel eyes were blazing, the normally beneficent smile replaced by a scowl which enveloped her whole face. Chestnut brown hair hung straight and fine to her shoulder, the delicate strands gathered in a thick and sleek curtain which shimmered as she bobbed her head in agitation. Ordinarily, she was the most serene person I had ever known, a calm, gentle soul who radiated affection and love, but when she was angered she could employ a withering turn of phrase and display blistering aggression. Right now, though, I didn't need confrontation.

I fell on my injured martyr routine again, groaning piteously and saying I felt faint. I was taken to x-ray, which showed nothing more than severe bruising, after which I was cleaned up, bandaged and sent on my way. Carlee and I did not have much to say to one another that evening, and it was with feelings of sadness and guilt that I retired early to bed. A small wedge had been driven between us, emotions had been stirred, and no matter how much we both regretted it, the resultant waves would not easily be smoothed: only time could allow that. This was our first argument, and what made it worse was that Carlee could have had no understanding of the reason for it. I longed to take her in my arms and explain, but I wasn't sure enough in my own mind what was happening. It is a curious thing that arguments which participants are reluctant to pursue are often the most difficult to resolve: there is a lack of tension, of the normal dynamics of disagreement, which leaves people tiptoeing around the problem rather than confronting it. Carlee was tense as I kissed her cheek goodnight and I hesitated, almost reaching out and making the first move, but I couldn't; I was crying as I fell asleep.

And, vulnerable and emotional as I was, it was inevitable that Jane would join my dreams.

Jane. Although I thought about her often - and had done particularly in those last few days - she hadn't featured in my dreams for years. Once, back in those painful times eighteen years ago, Jane was a constant companion in my stardust nightimes, my fair and beautiful love who showed me a kinder world; but as the years passed and my link to the Hallow Road grew weaker she had grown more distant, her beauty a pale echo in my mind.

She came to me as I tossed in bed, laying her hand on my forehead, trailing her fingers down my cheek and drawing her thumb loosely across my lip. Her hand was cold, no more than a vague and fragile impression on my fevered skin. As I became aware of her presence she twisted her thumb through ninety degrees and pressed it to my mouth, imploring me to remain quiet. She smiled her melancholy smile, the ache in her eyes glinting in the darkness.

"Hello, Harriet," she said. "I knew you'd come back one day." She perched on the edge of the bed and stroked her hand down my shoulder and arm, a fleeting, silvery touch which made me shiver with the recollection of different days, different times. Her familiar necklace, a large, incongruously clunky key, hung round her neck, flickering as the moonlight caught its edges. The years melted away and I sensed, once more, the heady, intoxicating rush of elation I always felt in her company: Jane, my first love, my true love, ill-starred companion of my youth. And following the elation, as it always did, came the guilt, and the pity and, finally, an overwhelming, uncontrollable wellspring of love.

Her hair was long and dark, curling down her face in voluptuous tresses, sensuous to a degree quite at odds with her uncomplicated, girlish face. Such dark eyes, small and round and sparkling with intensity, nestled beneath bushy eyebrows and above a childlike, snubbed nose. Her lips were poutingly full but oddly pallid. It was a face of contradictions: siren or waif, woman or child? She looked down at me shyly, but the delight in her expression was evident and it swelled my heart and brought a tear to my eye. My beautiful Jane, dark and elusive.

And quite unchanged in the eighteen years since I had last seen her.

She took my hand and pulled me from the bed. I turned and allowed her to ease me into my dressing gown and, with her hand rested lightly on the small of my back, gently guiding, she led me to the living room, her ever-present walking stick clicking rhythmically on the floor. We sat together on the settee, the milk light of the moon caressing her sallow cheek, and I felt light-headed and skittish, my stomach lurching like a teenager in love. We stared at one another, and her eyes were at once serious and sprightly, reflecting, it seemed, my own nervous confusion. Such was the tumult of emotion I was experiencing no adequate words formed themselves in my head, and instead I reached forward and stroked her arm, mimicking the gesture with which she had reintroduced herself to me. I nestled close and folded myself around her, pulling her slight body to mine, my hand on her head, fingers deep in dense, gentle hair, guiding her towards me. I felt her cheek on mine, cool, soft and smooth, and her ear, icy cold against my nose. Instinctively, I kissed it and felt her shiver against me, her breath trickling down my neck. We were both tense, our bodies awkward and angular, trying to inhabit the same space, knees clashing against one another and arms colliding: strangers in love, intimate yet remote.

I nestled my face in her hair, feeling it warm and protective around me, shielding me from the intensity of the moment, and my mind was transported to days gone, to a different time, to afternoons by the river, on the Hallow Road, arm in arm and cheek to cheek, heart to heart with darling Jane: how we walked and talked and kissed and caressed; how we lay in the long grass and wallowed in love; and we sang, and our spirits soared, miles in the air, free and together, unencumbered by leaden mundanity.

And I smiled as I remembered: skimming stones into the water, spotting birds, watching deer; girlish dreams and childish hopes, elaborate plans and intimate gestures; a kiss by the river, under the beech, with nature looking on indulgently. All of it I remembered. I remembered the spirit of the times, the way I felt, the way my heart soared as I skipped to the Hallow Road to meet my darling; I remembered the sensation of sheer happiness, a triumphant emotion which hijacked every nerve and inhabited every bone in my body, flooding them with its tireless sense of wonder. Oh, to love a girl, and one so beautiful; and more, that she should love me, too.

The Hallow Road felt different according to my mood. And that summer - the summer of Jane - it was a cherished confidante, complicit in our budding romance. It was more than just a backdrop, it was the very fabric of our story, its twists and turns and shallow banks the warp and weft of our lovers' tapestry. It celebrated our love, tracking the first, tentative strokes of romance, those early shoots and tendrils spreading coyly across the ground; and then the early flowerings, those May columbines and stitchworts, still delicate in the spindly warmth of early summer, and wood anemones in profusion, a carpet of purple-veined white beneath the canvas of trees; and as our love transformed, the Road festooned itself with colour, with radiance, delight, with purple orpine and yellow agrimony, with melilot in the clearings and vetch in the hedges. And now, holding Jane, as her sweet aroma filled my nostrils, her body thrilling against mine, those memories flooded through me, and I felt, once more, the joy of love. It settled on me, a cumulo-nimbus, light and airy and beautiful.

But even as I wallowed in the sensual delight of remembrance I knew things were not the same: never, no matter how much the spirit of love flowed through me, could I recreate the innocent delight of those bright, early days.

Not with the knowledge of what happened later.

And as my memories unfolded, as I knew they would, they flowed ineluctably onwards in time, onwards to that day.

It came as a flash, a frozen snapshot of a frozen moment in time; a single, hateful image, bleached hard and grey. It came without warning, an instant chill which invaded those warm recollections of heady days; and as quickly as it came it was gone, but I knew it would return. I buried my head in Jane's hair, my heart pounding. A single, solitary image - icy cold and harrowing - filled my mind, time on time: the panicked hand clutching at nothing, the rictus grin of fear, the moment of descent, and the slide, slow and unstoppable, into the waters of hell.

And I cried as I remembered, guilt racking my soul, that dismal, shocking memory supplanting all those treasured moments. I cried as I held Jane, eyes screwed shut while my hand cast up and down her hair in search of comfort. Her body was cool against my own fevered skin, so calm, a luminous sheen bathing her in lambent glory. I wanted to escape, but couldn't decide whether my escape was from the past or the present. The ages of my life melted and merged: my mature body was assailed by teenage pain, while the innocence of first love was filtered through the experience of years. We drew back and held one another, hands cupped round each other's chins.

"I'm sorry," I said. I had said it a thousand times, but each time felt like a new confession, burning my conscience, searing my soul.

"No need, no need," she crooned, dipping her head and resting her brow on mine.

"I'll never understand."

"It just happened. No more."

"But how?"

"No more."

Oh God, she looked so sad, just then. She kissed me, her lips pouting and full on mine, the sweetest drag of her flesh causing me to shiver. Her hand held my cheek, palm flat in surrender as she opened herself to me. I closed my eyes, banished hate and embraced beauty, allowing myself to dissolve under her spell.

"I've missed you," I whispered, gaze fixed on her necklace for fear of what her eyes might relate.

"I've always been there. If you needed me. If you wanted me."

She said it utterly without reproach, and the very lack of recrimination in her demeanour made me shiver with remorse. She smiled encouragingly, her eyes glinting but mouth strained. I traced my finger across her lip.

"I've thought about you so often. And longed for you to come again. You don't know how often I've wanted just to talk to you, but I don't know how to make you come to me. I wish I could just call you and you'd be there. But I have to wait for you to appear." She smiled again and lowered her head. Blinking upwards, she fixed her dark eyes on mine, a vision of solemn serenity, and I immediately regretted my exhibition of self-pity. "But I'm so glad you're here," I continued. "Just to be able to touch you again." My hand was on her waist, stroking gently through the flimsy fabric of her dress. I could feel the shape of her body, the turn, the flare of her hip, the sweet, girlish mound of her stomach. I ached to touch her breast, but daren't: it seemed improper, after all these years, as though we required a period of courtship again. Reading my thoughts, Jane pressed her hand lightly to mine and slid it upwards, across her stomach, round her side, approaching the swell of her breast, and my fingers stretched, imploringly, sliding around until finally my hand cupped the slight, firm breast, my thumb soft on the shadow of the nipple pressing through her dress. And, at last, I felt some peace, felt the connection, felt our orbits become conjoined: Jane and I, our fates were entwined. I rested my head on her shoulder and we lay, side by side, listening to our breaths and breathing our love.

And time rolled by, as roll it must, although I fancied, I hoped, it might pass us by, leave us in our lovers' cocoon. I stretched my neck and kissed her again, the brush of her lip, the flash of her tongue firing darts of hope into my body and mind, my heart and soul. Through the window the first murmur of dawn was adorning the roses in the garden with a ghostly sheen and Jane was bathed in silver, a haunting, luminous veil which seemed at once to highlight the intimacy of our embrace and betray the distance between us. She was never more beautiful than in the dawn. Our breath intermingled, our bodies as one. She broke the kiss, a tear sparkling in her eye.

"I love you," she said. "And I need you to know that." She took my hand and held it to her cheek, kissing my fingers one by one. She smiled, a flimsy smile, redolent of past pain.

"I know it."

"Whatever happens, you mustn't forget." Tears slid down her alabaster cheek, spiriting their way to the corner of her mouth.

"What do you mean, whatever happens?"

"Just what I say. No more. I love you, forever and always. Whatever happens." Her dark eyes were glinting with emotion, tears streaking from them and an ambivalent expression - sorrow or love? - animating them and making them resonate in the slow changing light of early morning. "I have to go now," she finished, reaching for her stick. The morning light was waxing, sliding over the shadows in the room and slyly erasing their mystery. Jane, my moon child, my ethereal, luminous soul, looked suddenly out of place and the intimacy of our reverie was lost. "Daybreak," she said. "Janus Pater's moment." She was shaking as she rose from the settee. Taking my hands, she stood before me and nodded, smiling bravely. Her hair hung round her face, dark and beautiful, curling delicately over her cheeks and down her neck. It was the saddest sight in the world: beauty and hope, a fragile pact helpless against the tide of experience. I was lost - lost in love for my darling girl.

"Will I see you again?" I asked.

"Oh yes, have no doubt." And with that declaration of certainty she was gone, the vaguest scent of her body hanging in the air as a gossamer memory. I curled into a ball, hugging myself, tears falling down my face. Love and guilt, hope and despair, discovery and loss: how close they were, those colossi of existence. I snuffled and cried and wept for Jane; and yes, I know, I wept for myself. And hearing a noise, I turned and looked round to see Carlee approach, her face a study of concern. She sat beside me and hugged me close.

"Babe, are you okay? Are you crying?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "Just thinking. And remembering."

My attempt at bravery proved overwhelming and I broke down in heaving sobs, my head buried in Carlee's breast. She smoothed my hair and hugged me close, the warmth of her body making me realise how cold I had become.

"Ssh," she whispered. "Easy babe, easy." She held me until my tears subsided, rocking me gently, calming me with her soothing voice and smoothing hands, supporting me in my moment of need. And at that moment I needed Carlee more than anybody or anything in the world; and yet, at the same time I was riven by doubt, the nearness of my unsettling encounter with my former lover hovering curiously, casting a shadow over me as I lay in Carlee's arms. My thoughts were spinning out of control, twisting my mind and torturing my body.

"I don't know what's going on, love," she said, "but I know this: whatever it is, you can't do this on your own. You need help, babe."

"I know."

"I can help you. You know I will. But you've got to explain to me what's happening."

Oh, beautiful Carlee: she was my present, my rock, my inspiration.

"I wish I knew what was happening," I told her, mollified by the gentle touch of her hands. "But yes, okay, I'll try." I paused while I considered whether I could truly explain to her what was happening. "Tomorrow," I concluded. I stared into her eyes, so big and round and full of care. I felt a rush of love as I contemplated her serene beauty, my lovely, lively American friend. She smiled encouragingly, a heavenly glow lighting her face. "But now," I whispered, "please take me to bed."