This was where they had used to come. Where he had stood beside his father, with the dog. With Richard too, waiting for the birds to come in. Late on a winter’s afternoon. His fingers chilling in woollen mittens. Getting cold, wanting to go in, but Richard was not going in, Richard was staying, and he had to do whatever Richard did, he would not have come out if Richard had not come out and now he had to stay and watch as Richard did, although he was so much younger and not ready to learn to shoot himself for some years yet; he stood still and chill beside his brother and his father and the dog, and felt the cold seep into him until it hurt and yet he didn’t move an inch. And at last his father would raise the gun at the oncoming birds. Or on himself. Hard to believe, in this little wood, so very green and humming, with the rooks overhead, how bare it had been that day he saw him lying there. It was all covered over now, so many years’ leaves fallen beneath the tree, layer upon layer, and grass, nettles impinging, spreading, tall, reaching for the light. There should have been no sign of what had occurred. No evidence. Any chance-scattered shot from that day also long covered over within the tree, so many rings deep.

That’s not right, he said. It says ‘Rosie’. That’s not right.

Who’s Rosie?

It’s not right.

What’s not right?

Rosie was a dog, he said. Rosie was Billy’s dog.

His hands and knees stung as he knelt to push aside the last of the nettles. Stung almost to numbness. He traced the letters that were amateurishly carved into the wood.

What could Billy have been thinking, to do that? Billy, the one who found him, that day. It was Billy who had brought the news home. Billy had come with the news, and their dog Jess, and Rosie too, he must have had Rosie with him, only Jess on the lead he had to put her on to bring her away. He had trusted Billy. Of all of them he had trusted Billy the most. So how could Billy have buried the dog here? And his mother, too? How could they do something so very – he looked for the word, holding himself back, holding emotion in check, choosing the plainest, the least expressive word that came to him – so puzzling, so very – inappropriate?

There had been no nettles then, in November. The nettles at that time of year had died back to ghostly stalks and the ground was brown with fallen leaves. Grey sky above the bare trees. Fog low across the fields.

This is where he was, you see. My father, I told you about my father. Well, this is where it happened.