There was this difference between himself and Capa. Capa had photographed the moment of death. The shot. A Republican soldier thrown back by the impact of the bullet, arms outstretched, rifle just let go. The most famous photo he ever took. (If the photograph was true, of course, if Capa, who somewhat invented himself anyway, who invented his name and the life that went with his name, if Capa had not somehow set up the shot which was so like a Goya, which might have been composed by Goya.) Jonathan saw the scene after the shot, but it was only the aftermath; the image imprinted on him but never exposed to the world.

Go-aan, you up there

Now Jonny was taking her off to the Lakes. He saw his mother drive them away then he walked across the yards to the barns; out of the back door, across the cobbles there and past the empty stables and the mounting block, past the old flint barn and through to the wide concrete yard and the new barns where the machinery was kept.

He had one of the lads working with him and they were servicing the combine. The combine came out once a year, and once it was out you didn’t want to lose a minute of its working time. You wanted it to run without a fault twelve hours a day, if you could go that long, intensively over just a couple of weeks. You brought it out from the barn. You washed it down, vacuumed the drum, checked sieves, straw runners, knives, belts; tightened and oiled and replaced. You put your hand to a spanner, wrenched at a too-tight nut. Hammered out a bent piece of metal. The work was purposeful, physical, absorbing in its way. The sound of it clattered between all the hard surfaces of the yard. In an hour or so – longer depending on how much shopping she decided to do – she would be home from dropping them off.

When they came back from their holiday there would be pictures. He could imagine how they would be. The girl on hilltops blown by the wind, her smile in the sunshine, her black hair across her face, her hand reaching to pull the hair back. Or perhaps there would be only rain. It was the Lakes they were going to, after all.