‘I’m sorry,’ Ursula said again. Once, she thought, I would have been able to deal with this. I might even have enjoyed it. What has happened to me?

Still the woman would not get into her car and drive away. A crowd had gathered and most of the shoppers stared at Ursula. She struck a strange and compelling figure and realised suddenly how different she was from the rest of them. The girls wore designer track suits and smart white trainers, and the middle-aged women were smart enough to be at a Conservatives Ladies’ Luncheon. No one, it seemed, was as old as she.

She was as tall and strong as a man, dressed in loose corduroy trousers, working boots and a thick woollen jersey. I should have changed before I came out, she thought desperately, but none of her clothes would have appeased these hostile women. At least she had taken off Fred’s old tweed jacket before getting out of the Land Rover to face them. She knew it had holes in the elbows and smelled of sheep.

Eventually the woman had run out of steam and the audience had disappeared, leaving Ursula bewildered and frightened in the middle of the carpark. Each time she returned to the supermarket the memory of the confrontation returned, making her blush with shame and embarrassment.

Then she had to face the hot, airless shop. She could, she supposed, go to the small, family-run stores in Appleworth High Street, but she had a horror that there she would meet someone she knew, someone who would trap her in conversation. The supermarket at least was anonymous. She recognised none of the women who jostled past her, disdainful of her inability to make a choice between the competing brands of cat food.

She always bought the cat food first. She had nothing of value left now but the cats. The other residents of Crowford thought she was mad to stay in Back Rigg after her husband had died. How could she survive up there on the fells, all alone? Especially in the winter. Some family could move in there, make a proper go of it. But for the cats it was home and she could not consider moving them elsewhere.

The thought of the cats cheered her and prompted her to move. She started the Land Rover and began to drive along the track to the farmhouse.