His voice was very clear, as if he was speaking a poem or something, not speaking to her, a girl across a room, or as if he was speaking out loud to himself because inside he was deaf. When my mother told us, she said something different. I knew that what she said was wrong because she said he was in a different place. She just made up a story. To protect us, I guess. And the story is still there. We all go along with it.

Later, in bed, in the dark, with whatever wasn’t yet packed scattered on the floor around them, and the two of them sleepless, she had asked him, Why did you tell me that?

I think I just wanted to tell someone, before I could go home.

So you’ve done it. You can go now.

Yes, he said, I can. And you must come and see me there.

But he had said what he said for himself and not for her. And what he said next made her a little afraid to go. I think my mother blames it on the war, he said, like people do. That he had a terrible time in the war.

Well, people did, didn’t they?

What?

Have a terrible time.

Yes.

And they brought it home with them.

Yes.

I don’t think it was only the war, he said then. I think it was more complicated than that. But it’s easiest to say, isn’t it? And turning to her, his head close, his hands about her hair. My mum might find it strange that you’re Japanese. Don’t worry though, she’s all right, my mum, she’ll like you, you’ll see.

And your brother?

He’ll like you too.

Perhaps they all three liked her for coming from outside.

She slept on the plane, and woke and thought of the house burning. She looked down and there was only Siberia, vast and bare, and the shining wing of the plane. She saw the house on fire down there, flames leaping from old long-dry timber, beams, floors, furniture, the flames so bright and the smoke so thick that it could not fail to be seen, however high the plane flew. And she saw the three of them, tiny smoke-blackened figures running out from the flames. Like the figures in the photos Jonathan once showed her. It suddenly seemed like arson, what she had done.

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

So many thanks, on this book and always, to a constantly wonderful team of editor and agent, Alexandra Pringle and Victoria Hobbs, for their thoughtfulness and faith in my work. Also to the rest at Bloomsbury, to Mary Tomlinson, and Jessica Sinyor at A M Heath. And to the farmers, David and Nell.

ALSO AVAILABLE BY GEORGINA HARDING

LAND OF THE LIVING