I dragged my brown suitcase out from under the bed and stuck my toothbrush in my pocket. I was putting my tired clothes in it when I felt John attach the caravan to the towbar on the tractor. It started to move as soon as I closed the door. He was a man taking no chances that I would have anywhere to lay my head except beside his. Having a little cry down by the river in the gathering dark did no good; the blackbirds got on with their lives, I saw a fox slink along the stone walls on his way to terrorise the chickens. I ran at him flapping my arms and shouting as if it would make any difference to his dinner plans. I was a dog with no bark; Foxy Woxy kept pace with me half a field away. Even the owls laughed in the shadowy trees.

The house was quiet, the kettle sang on the range and everything else was fresh-painted plaster. John had come back and was nowhere in sight. I got out my nightie and, despite the heat of the night, put on every stitch I had to hand ’til I was like the Michelin Man. John was reading by the brass bed when I slipped under the blankets and clung to the outside edge in case he touched me in the night. By the by, he slipped in beside me and switched the light off and I swear I could feel him smiling in the dark.

The embarrassment of having him laugh at me rose up from my toes and I was boiling over with it, never mind the two pairs of socks, three pairs of knickers, four jumpers, my jeans and a hat in the mildness of September.

–  Are you cold, Mary?

–  Yes!

–  We can fix that …

Oh, the lousy bastard! He went off and got another heavy blanket, doubled it and put it on top of me. I was going to be smoked out! Then he got back in so I could enjoy him cracking up fit to burst. I broke after about thirty minutes and clawed the soggy clothes off my back and ran for the bathroom to sponge down the heat rash. Oh, but the joy of just turning a tap! I looked more like a fresh-boiled ham than a girl so I hiccuped my way back to his room and got in beside him. He’d had his fun so he kept his back to me and we must have fallen asleep, a space between us you could have driven a baler down.