His mother knew as well as he did that if Richard was angry, he had to act. Do something. Take the anger and use it to fuel some other action. That was what he had always done. Don’t think about it any more, just do something. Go outside. Get on your bike. Climb a tree. Throw a stone. Break pots. Smash your mother’s greenhouse. They did that once when something was wrong. Richard’s idea – not that it was ever spoken, but only done. Richard had led him there and begun it. He didn’t even know if Richard had thought the thought before the first pot hit the ground. And he had followed because he did. Because he too understood what was wrong and because smashing things seemed to right it, the sound, the shattering terracotta, the spilled black soil.

This problem was nothing compared with that other one. This was a material problem from Richard’s material world. And not so very terrible, when it came down to it. Action was simple. You scraped the chair back and sat down and drank your tea, then slammed the mug on the table and pushed the chair back again, and went out to the barn and checked again the grain that you had already brought in, to reassure yourself that that grain at least, that you had brought in earlier from other fields, was all right, free of the fungus, that that grain would sell all right, get a good price; and your brother went with you because really, despite the differences, he wanted to help. So they did that. Then they went out later in the day and cut the headland of that last field, even though there was probably too much moisture in it. There was no point in doing any more. They packed up after that and went in, and because he still couldn’t rest, Richard suggested that after supper they might go out lamping.

What’s lamping? Kumiko said.

I’m not sure it’s your sort of thing, Jonathan said. He wasn’t sure it was his either, not any more. So why did he say he’d go? Old times’ sake. Richard’s momentum. Because rabbits were a pest and this was the best moment to get them. Because they were brothers and lamping was fun.

Going with them felt like a dare. She liked the feeling of going with the brothers, doing what they did, being the third, the girl in the men’s world. They waited until it was dark and then they went out. It was very black outside, no moon or stars. The farm was very quiet, out all alone in the countryside. It was one of those nights when the rest of the world didn’t seem to exist.