He said he’d no idea, any old job, there’d likely not be much opening for a Red: I’m sorry to have upset your plans, you know, mother.

Chris asked What plans? and he asked with a grin hadn’t she wanted him to be respectable, genteel, with no silly notions and a nice office suit? Chris didn’t laugh, just said she hadn’t known she’d mothered a gowk: if he knew as little of the beliefs that had made him a Red as he knew of her—faith, it would be long before he and Mr Trease ruled in Duncairn.

He sat and listened to that with a smile: Faith, it’ll be long anyway, I’m afraid. And as for what you call my beliefs, they’re just plain hell—but then—they ARE real. And you ought to like them, you’re so much alike!

She asked what he meant, and he said Why, you’re both real, and stood up and cuddled her, laughing down at her, Ewan who’d once had no sense of humour, had he found that in torment in a prison cell? Didn’t you know you were real, Chris, realer than ever? And stepfather Ake’s pretty real as well.

Real? She watched through the days that followed, manner and act, gesture and gley, with a kind, quiet curiosity. Like Ewan he was tramping Duncairn for a job, she’d listen to his feet on the stairs as he went, and the stride never altered, an unhastening swing. And at evening they’d sit long hours in the kitchen, Chris sewing, him reading, hardly speaking a word, Chris because she had nothing to say, Ake because he’d no mind for claik. Then he’d drink his cocoa and look at the clock, and say Lass, it’s time we went off to bed, and off he’d go, in his socks, no slippers or shoes, she’d follow and find him winding his watch, feet apart, independent, green-eyed, curled mousered, taking a bit glance at the night-time sky. And even while they undressed he’d say no word, getting cannily into the bed and lying down. Then he’d swing over on his pillow and off to sleep without a good night or a single remark: would a man be as daft as say good night to his own wife?

And Chris as those nights went by, padding at the heels of unchanging days, slept well enough now without fears at all on that matter that had set her shivering at first, she shivered no longer, he came to her rarely, eidently, coolly; and with a kind honesty, unhurtable now, she awaited him, paying her share of the price of things, another function for the woman-body who did the cooking and attended the house while he still kept up his hunt for a job.

Kisses there were none, or caresses even, except a rare pat as she leaned over to set a plate in front of him. They said bare things one to the other: Ay, it’s clearing…. Rain in the lift…. Eggs up in price…. That’ll be Ewan….