In the plummeting darkness, the man's own anxiety began to mount. He could feel it gathering in the blackening chill: the aching certainty that already, only one year on from the separation, he has lost his son, his child. And the thought grew so strong that he could only half-listen to the child's earnest desperate voice.
     At last the child, tucked up in his sleeping-bag, chattered himself out.
     The man gently takes away the torch.
     It isn't long before the man, already expert at blanking out pain, falls asleep too.
 "What on earth are you reading?" she'd asked after a while.
     "It's a book by a philosopher called McTaggart. I'd heard about him but I've never actually read anything he wrote. He's famous for proving that time doesn't exist."
     "Oh yes. How does he do that?"
     "Well, he says that an event can be described as past, present or future, depending on our viewpoint. For example, having sex with you tonight is a future event for me now..."
     "If you're lucky."
     "If I'm lucky. But it's a present event while it's happening..."
     "If it lasts long enough for us to notice."
     "...and a past event when it's over."
     "All too soon, in my experience. And how does that prove that time doesn't exist, professor?"
     "Because in reality we can only place this event in time in terms of its relationship to other events. For example, I first have to take this hairdryer away from you and switch it off."
     "But my hair's still wet."
     "Then I have to take your tee-shirt off."
     "Well you don't actually have to but I suppose it's more fun if you do."    
Neither hears the horses moving round the tent in the night.
     For years to come, though, in his dreams the boy will see their wild fringed eyes and feel the deep thudding of their hooves.