Then he says, in a guarded way, ‘If you wanted a hand with those sheep, I’d be happy to …’

‘I’m on top of it, thanks.’

‘No worries. But you could just give me a call if an extra pair of hands would help.’

‘Thanks.’

He makes a face that does its best to say, It’s nothing. And then, in an offhanded change of topic, he says, ‘Terrible news about Elaine Slade,’ and pushes his lips together.

‘Why? What happened?’

‘She’s dead. They found her body this morning, in her house, bashed. Bloody awful.’

‘Shit.’ Reality has smashed its way into my rainbow bubble. ‘She’s dead?’

‘According to the local paper.’ He reaches across to his passenger seat, and picks up a newspaper. It is the local weekly. The Waterglen Times. Barely news, and only just a paper. No one knows how it still functions. He flattens the paper out to show me the front page, and shows me the article with its headline: ‘Local Woman Found Dead in House’. ‘I didn’t know her very well. Hardly spoken to her. But something like that is just terrible.’

He examines me, sees my distress, and says, ‘Sorry, mate. I didn’t realise you knew her that well.’

‘I don’t. I didn’t. It’s just that …’

‘Shit. Sorry. How bloody insensitive of me. What you’ve been through. I should have thought before I spoke.’ He looks wretched.

‘No. No. That’s not it. She called in here the other day. Before that, it’s maybe a year since I’d seen her. And now this.’

‘Strange, isn’t it? The way that happens. You don’t see someone for ages, and then you see them once, and suddenly it feels like they’re everywhere. The violence, though. We’re normally shielded from that sort of stuff. I don’t like to think it’s come this way.’ I think he realises that talking about death is bad territory, so he says, ‘Anyway, I’d better get going before that storm catches me,’ and points at the clouds that have become black and noisy.

Any other time I would be glad of the rain to make the grass and the oats grow and stay green before winter and its frosts arrive. Now it only means me, and my boxes, will get wet. Ian leaves, and I watch him drive towards the storm. I try not to think on the life that will never be.