It was about half an hour before I realized the other girls had gone.

My sister found me, there in the centre of the maze, sometime later, long after the stars had been obscured by the night clouds. As I said, she’s pretty smart. Smarter than me, anyway.

She’s the only person I ever knew who could find her way out of the maze safely.

‘This will make you laugh. I’ve joined the library.’

Will was over by his CD collection. He swivelled the chair round, and waited while I put his drink in his cup holder. ‘Really? What are you reading?’

‘Oh, nothing sensible. You wouldn’t like it. Just boy-meets-girl stuff. But I’m enjoying it.’

‘You were reading my Flannery O’Connor the other day.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘When I was ill.’

‘The short stories? I can’t believe you noticed that.’

‘I couldn’t help but notice. You left the book out on the side. I can’t pick it up.’

‘Ah.’

‘So don’t read rubbish. Take the O’Connor stories home. Read them instead.’

I was about to say no, and then I realized I didn’t really know why I was refusing. ‘All right. I’ll bring them back as soon as I’ve finished.’

‘Put some music on for me, Clark?’

‘What do you want?’

He told me, nodding at its rough location, and I flicked through until I found it.

‘I have a friend who plays lead violin in the Albert Symphonia. He called to say he’s playing near here next week. This piece of music. Do you know it?’

‘I don’t know anything about classical music. I mean, sometimes my dad accidentally tunes into Classic FM, but –’

‘You’ve never been to a concert?’

‘No.’

He looked genuinely shocked.

‘Well, I did go to see Westlife once. But I’m not sure if that counts. It was my sister’s choice. Oh, and I was meant to go see Robbie Williams on my twenty-second birthday, but I got food poisoning.’

Will gave me one of his looks – the kind of looks that suggest I may actually have been locked up in somebody’s cellar for several years.

‘You should go. He’s offered me tickets. This will be really good. Take your mother.’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. My mum doesn’t really go out. And it’s not my cup of tea.’

‘Like films with subtitles weren’t your cup of tea?’

I frowned at him. ‘I’m not your project, Will. This isn’t My Fair Lady.’

‘Pygmalion.’

‘What?’

‘The play you’re referring to. It’s Pygmalion. My Fair Lady is just its bastard offspring.’

I glared at him. It didn’t work. I put the CD on. When I turned round he was still shaking his head.

‘You’re the most terrible snob, Clark.’

‘What? Me?’

‘You cut yourself off from all sorts of experiences because you tell yourself you are “not that sort of person”.’

‘But, I’m not.’

‘How do you know? You’ve done nothing, been nowhere. How do you have the faintest idea what kind of person you are?’

How could someone like him have the slightest clue what it felt like to be me? I felt almost cross with him for wilfully not getting it.

‘Go on. Open your mind.’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d be uncomfortable. I feel like … I feel like they’d know.’

‘Who? Know what?’

‘Everyone else would know, that I didn’t belong.’

‘How do you think I feel?’

We looked at each other.

‘Clark, every single place I go to now people look at me like I don’t belong.’

We sat in silence as the music started. Will’s father was on the telephone in his hall, and the sound of muffled laughter carried through it into the annexe, as if from a long way away. The disabled entrance is over there, the woman at the racecourse had said. As if he were a different species.

I stared at the CD cover. ‘I’ll go if you come with me.’

‘But you won’t go on your own.’

‘Not a chance.’

We sat there, while he digested this. ‘Jesus, you’re a pain in the arse.’

‘So you keep telling me.’

I made no plans this time. I expected nothing. I was just quietly hopeful that, after the racing debacle, Will was still prepared to leave the annexe. His friend, the violinist, sent us the promised free tickets, with an information leaflet on the venue attached. It was forty minutes’ drive away. I did my homework, checked the location of the disabled parking, rang the venue beforehand to assess the best way to get Will’s chair to his seat. They would seat us at the front, with me on a folding chair beside Will.

‘It’s actually the best place to be,’ the woman in the box office said, cheerfully. ‘You somehow get more of an impact when you’re right in the pit near the orchestra. I’ve often been tempted to sit there myself.’

She even asked if I would like someone to meet us in the car park, to help us to our seats. Afraid that Will would feel too conspicuous, I thanked her and said no.

As the evening approached, I don’t know who grew more nervous about it, Will or me. I felt the failure of our last outing keenly, and Mrs Traynor didn’t help, coming in and out of the annexe fourteen times to confirm where and when it would be taking place and what exactly we would be doing.

Will’s evening routine took some time, she said. She needed to ensure someone was there to help. Nathan had other plans. Mr Traynor was apparently out for the evening. ‘It’s an hour and a half minimum,’ she said.

‘And it’s incredibly tedious,’ Will said.