‘When I was little, I was given a bird-spotting book by my great aunt one Christmas. Each page was dedicated to an individual bird – you know the sort of thing, a little bit about its habits and where it could be found, what it ate and so on – and each had a watercolour illustration. I spent hours going through that book, but out of all the birds it was the nuthatch that caught my eye.’

She leans against the wall beside him, her shoulders curving against the render. ‘I said to Dad, “I’d love to see a nuthatch” and he just laughed and said, “Spend some time in the garden with your eyes open and you’ll see your nuthatch.” I didn’t believe him – I wouldn’t accept that I could have missed something so beautiful. How could that bird be found in our very own garden and me not notice it? But I did as he said, and sure enough a couple of days later I saw one skittering over the bark of the apple tree, and it was even more beautiful in the flesh than it was in the book.’ She shades her eyes with her flattened hand. ‘Isn’t it funny how sometimes the very thing we long for can be right in front of us and we just never see it?’

Jack says nothing. He keeps a steady watch on the grey-blue bird hugging the rippled bark, his heart too full to muster a response. In a rapid flutter of wings the bird is gone and the moment is lost. Gwen pushes herself from the wall.

‘Come on, work to do.’

They have been set the task of weeding the sugar beet. They work a few rows apart, their hoes scraping against the flints in the soil as they prise out the charlock and the groundsel, the chickweed and the shepherd’s purse. They bend and pull, and shake the earth loose from the roots, before tossing the vanquished growth into a pile to be burnt later. They are easy with each other and the silence between them is comfortable. A buzzard glides above them, its plaintive mew drawing their attention. They watch it land on a fractured branch of the dead elm that stands in the corner of the field and Gwen tells him how the tree, now the colour of weathered bone, was struck by lightning when she was a little girl. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with the heel of her hand, leaving a streak of dirt. It is all Jack can do to stop himself reaching over to brush it away.

They work on. Every so often Gwen straightens up, poised to speak, but then appears to change her mind and, blushing furiously, returns to her task with renewed vigour. Her behaviour strikes Jack as curious. She reminds him of the nuthatch – striking, but nervous.

‘Jack …’ she starts at last, resting on her hoe.