They fell into a pile of limbs, Joan’s legs tumbling round his very immodestly, and kissed excitedly in such a jumble. Finally, they unwrapped themselves, Joan blushing thoroughly again. ‘We’re not married yet, John Smith. Do you like blackberry jam?’

‘Jam? I don’t know. I wonder if I’ve tried it?’

‘Well, I make some every summer, so let us keep our hands to ourselves and see if we can find any early blackberries.’ She hopped up and picked up her hat from where it had fallen. Instead of replacing it on her head, she upturned it and headed off for the hedgerow.

Smith followed, his hands in his pockets, whistling a jaunty tune. He bent to pick a poppy and fixed it to his buttonhole.

‘That’s good!’ she called, wandering along the hedge and plucking at the occasional early berry. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Smith tried to remember the lyrics. ‘This old heart of mine… is weak for you… That’s the title, but I don’t know who sings it.’

‘A n-band, probably. We must go to London and see one, if we save up, and have a meal in some terribly precious cafe.’

‘Yes.’ Smith winced. His hand had contracted again for a moment then, as if something else had jarred. ‘I’ll just walk to the fence…’ He set off up the field, wishing that he could identify what it was that was curling him up inside. Perhaps it would get in the way of his marriage. Marriage! What a leap! How had he done that?

Ahead the field broadened out into a meadow with a few trees. At its end, up a light slope, was a wooden fence. And around the fence wheeled a flock of swallows. That was an odd sight at this time of day, there’d be no big concentration of insects for them to catch. And they were very low.

Something was shimmering in the air, a heat haze on a day too cool for one. It was actually getting closer, too, as he approached it, which was as impossible as walking through a rainbow.

He reached his wounded hand out to touch the phantom.

The shock rushed up his arm and thumped straight into his head.

A cat pinned down on a table, its skull open to show its brain. The folds of its head were pinned back and bloody white, like the skin on a roast chicken.

It was alive.

‘Who’s going to intervene?’ a woman shouted. ‘Who can save them now?’

He stepped back in fear and lost the vision. His hand plucked the poppy from his lapel and he sniffed it absently, his mind racing. There was a wall here. A real wall. Walls meant a prison. A prison meant guards. But what did the vision mean?

Joan wandered up to his shoulder, her hat full of blackberries, and he bounced the poppy off her nose, still frowning.