The new window is a magnet for small birds. So much so that, morbidly, the children take to keeping a Chart of Death which they mark with gold stars as PAM! one after the other, starlings, hummingbirds, tiny blue-grey things I can’t identify – even with the help of a bird book I buy in Ague – thud into the glass like feathered kamikaze pilots, blinded by the awful reflection of the sun. Under the watchful eye of ravens, which now constantly circle the perimeter of the cabin like grim reapers, we try everything – positioning hideous plastic owls from the hardware store on the outside rail, hanging bird feeders from the porch beams – but the birds are simply too stupid, too short-sighted, or both.

The systematic obliteration of Arizona’s petit oiseau population is not the only window-related problem. By two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun, on its travels east to west, hits its highest point over the mountains and the temperature in the room soars to an unbearable level, only beginning to dissipate again around seven when the cool night air and the baking heat pass each other stealthily through the gaps between glass and wood. Duval does not comment on either the dead birds, the white sheet I eventually nail over the window to save them or the fluctuating temperature conditions in my bedroom. But then it doesn’t appear to be in Duval’s nature to comment on much. He listens, he responds in kind, but social chit-chat is not exactly his forte. Nevertheless we fall into some kind of modus operandi. Every morning at first light, Duval’s truck drives along the windy path, tyres throwing up clouds of dust in its wake. In the back, the men sit hunched together, knees held tight to chests, heads down against the grit. By the time we leave for school, the beat of hammers and the monotonous whine of the drill has broken the peace and silence of the town.

Now that the children are at school, southern Arizona is my oyster. With a view to at least getting our own cabin together, I begin to explore the country, driving further and further afield, weaving around dirt roads, barrelling through tiny towns with no more than a post office and gas station to show for themselves. I stop in at yard sales and trawl through tables of dirty glass bottles, battered cowboy boots, boxes of naked Cindy dolls with tangled hair and missing limbs, jars of stewed apricots, embroidered dishcloths, lethal-looking knives and watches that no longer tick. I stop off at pawn shops and watch skinny teenagers racked with pustulating acne sidle round the counters where the guns are kept while Mexican children offer flea-bitten kittens for sale for a dollar.

As the days fly by, the back of the truck begins to fill up with an eclectic assortment of 1950s furniture, frosted beer glasses, funky lights and box after box of unused linen sheets.