It was as if he’d never before seen green. There was green of course in the suburbs of Melbourne, in the mothy kind of grass which edged the curbs and carpeted the parks, before it turned tobacco-coloured in the summer sun. There was the deeper, thicker green of the waxy, big-leafed plants people grew around their houses; and then over in the distance was the green-grey of the Dandenong Ranges. But nothing like this. This was a crazy sort of green, shiny and thick as poster-paint, or like the stiff strips of bright plastic grass that separated the cuts of meat in the butcher’s shop window at home. Here the sloping pasture caught the light in places, and ruffled and paled in the breeze, like fur. It was everywhere you looked. It was like the green in a cartoon.

As if intuiting Stephen’s thoughts, Nick spoke.

‘Lovely, isn’t it? But you don’t get this green without a lot of rain. Like Ireland. This part of Cornwall is green for a reason.’

Stephen kept looking out of the car window to his left and didn’t answer. He was appreciating the softness of the hills. Nick was unperturbed by the boy’s silence. He’d only just got here, after all, and he was a complete stranger; he was probably shy. Probably hungry, too. Weren’t boys always hungry? Stephen was tall and gangly – six foot three, Nick guessed – with longish auburn hair flopping over eyes which were flecked with dark green, like moss agate. As soon as he’d spotted him getting off the train, Nick had thought what a good head the boy had, perfect for a sculpture. His profile was especially fine, with a nose that was just a fraction too big, like an old portrait of a Doge. If there wasn’t enough for Stephen to do on the farm, Nick thought, he could get him into the studio to sit for him for a morning.

‘I can’t remember if you’ve ever done any farm work before?’ he asked.

‘Just a little bit. My uncle – well, he’s my dad’s uncle really – has a farm.’

‘Livestock or arable?’

‘Pardon me?’

Nick grimaced inwardly. Although he prided himself for being unconventional, no one he knew said pardon.

‘Animals or growing crops?’

‘Ah. Yeah. Animals. Cattle.’

‘Our farm is probably different from what you’re used to. It’s mainly sheep. Being on a slope, it’s mostly grazing land. We keep a few hens, beehives in the orchards. We’ve got a lot of fruit trees up behind the house. The flatter fields below, closer to the river, are ploughed, but our neighbour – he’s what you might call a proper farmer – he sees to the arable side of things. He’s got all the machinery. Well, you’ll see.’