‘Shall I show you your room, or do you want to see around downstairs first?’ she turned and asked him.

‘Your dad showed me, before.’

‘Oh. Well, we could go for a walk, then? We could go down to the river if you like?’

‘That’d be great.’

They skirted the kitchen side of the house and went across an apron of rough lawn to the front. The dog from the kitchen appeared, following them.

‘This field is called the snowdrop field,’ Cass announced, pointing.

Stephen saw only the thick pelt of bright grass, but he didn’t want to reveal his ignorance with a question.

‘’Cause in February or March it’s covered with them. I actually don’t like them. I don’t like the way they face down, as if they’re sad. And they make you think it’s soon going to be spring when it isn’t. Not for ages.’

There was a steep drop from the garden into the field. Cass crouched down before jumping and Stephen followed suit.

‘Do you know what that’s called?’ she asked him.

‘What what’s called?’

‘That thing we just jumped off. It’s called a ha-ha.’ And she smiled. He realized that she hadn’t smiled in greeting, that he hadn’t seen her smile until now. Her teeth were smaller than he would have expected.

‘Like, ha-ha-ha funny?’ he asked, smiling back at her.

‘Yes. It’s a really silly name, isn’t it?’

‘Lots of words don’t sound like the things they are, I guess.’

‘Mm. Like perpendicular. Or rococo.’

‘Or, I don’t know, rubella.’

‘Rubella?’

‘My mum’s a nurse,’ he said, as if in explanation.

They both laughed.

‘Lumbago, that’s another,’ he ventured, hoping she’d laugh again. But the moment seemed to have passed.

‘What does your father do?’ Cass asked.

‘Engineering. Bridges and stuff. Roads.’

‘And what about you? What do you want to be?’

Stephen felt shy again. ‘I thought I wanted to design album covers, but now I’m not so sure. I think maybe I want to do something I can do in the open. I don’t know if I’d be good in an office. Cooped up. Yourself?’

‘It changes. Sometimes I think I’d like to be an architect; that’s what I’ve been thinking recently.’

‘Your dad’s unusual – doing, you know, his figures as well as the farm.’

‘He’s actually an art teacher. The sculpting is a sideline. And the farm’s more of a hobby.’

They came to a band of trees which grew along the river bank. They had to duck beneath low mossy branches to reach the big, smooth rocks at the water’s side. Cass’s hair was the colour of the shade beneath the trees.

‘We sometimes see salmon jump, just over there.’ Cass pointed.

‘Do you swim in it?’ Stephen asked.