The webs made all the surface of the field glisten. There were bales piled here and there, rectangular bales in regular square towers. Where the combine had most recently cut, the straw still lay loose in its rows, where it had not been baled before the rain and must be left to dry for some days after. In the far field before the spinney most of the crop was still standing.

I have to think when we should get out and finish that field, he said. With all this dew it’ll take the longer to dry. Though it’ll hardly be worth the effort.

Why’s that? she said.

Because of the ergot.

Oh yes. It was clear that she had forgotten the ergot.

He thought by the tone of her voice, what I say doesn’t matter. She’s not interested in whatever I can think of to say. Definitely, they were pretending.

There were big birds flying up from the stubble where they had been the night before. Buzzards, Richard said. They had been feeding on the dead rabbits. There were crows on the field also, but they stayed on the ground and didn’t fly up.

People didn’t like carrion birds, Richard said. People didn’t see that they had a purpose and kept the place clean.

There were skylarks overhead. Climbing in the pale air, beginning to sing. Should he talk to her about the skylarks? That would have been a nicer thing to talk about. Why was it that skylarks climbed in stages? Had he not noticed that before? Or had he always noticed it, known it, and only thought about it now because she was here with him? Because she was from outside, and made him see things differently. The spiders’ webs. The birds. Up the larks went to some level, and then they held there and sang, and then they climbed again, level by level, until they were lost to the eye. He was going to get someone out to plough the stubble next week. His mother said that he shouldn’t, because of the skylarks. She said that the skylarks needed the stubble to live in through the winter. But he had told her they seemed to do well enough.

See how blue the sky is now, Kumiko was saying.

Yes, it’ll be a fine day.

They were close to the spinney.

Come this way, come here. Let me show you something.