By the time he returned home in the late afternoon, he was exhausted and soaked, smelling strongly of sheep, all his muscles aching. He found Tommy sitting on the sofa in the living room, wearing Malcolm’s clothes and reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Malcolm hovered in the doorway and, when Tommy looked up, gestured at the book. “Any good?”

“He likes the colour red,” Tommy said. “Blood. Fate. You know.”

Malcolm didn’t know. He wasn’t sure even Heather would have known what to do with this comment. She always said she just liked the plots.

“What did you study at university?” he asked Tommy suddenly. “Was it English?”

Tommy smiled. “No. History.”

“Oh.” There seemed nowhere left to go with this conversation. “Did you enjoy it?”

“It was all right.”

If Malcolm had thought their exchange the previous evening might have shaken something loose between him and Tommy, at least stripped away one layer of reserve, he appeared to have been wrong. He felt more paralysed with awkwardness than ever.

“I’m going to change,” he said, and left the room.

When he finally came back downstairs, having taken rather longer than he needed (he was ready to acknowledge now that he might possibly be avoiding Tommy), he found Tommy in the kitchen, frying onions. The smell made Malcolm’s eyes sting.

“I went to the shop earlier,” Tommy said, turning as he entered.

“Really? Long walk on a day like this.” Malcolm hovered in the doorway for a moment, then, seeing no escape, went to sit at the table.

“I wanted the exercise. I picked up some things. Thought I’d make tea.”

“Right,” Malcolm said. Then, rallying, “That’s nice. Thanks.”

“Pasta with a mushroom sauce. Hope that’s O.K. I don’t have a very wide repertoire.”

“Did Kathy serve you?”

“No. It was Fiona.”

Malcolm was silent, wondering what it had cost Tommy to make that visit, to endure that interaction. Tommy’s face gave nothing away.

“I told her thanks for last night,” Tommy said, turning back to the pan.

“Good. That’s good.”

So they were mentioning it then.

“Told her they were the best lamb shanks I’d ever had.”

Malcolm found it difficult to imagine Tommy making this comment. “They were certainly good,” he said. He felt a sudden and uncharacteristic need for a drink, and went to get the old bottle of whisky down from the cupboard. It would do, in the absence of anything else.

“I’m going to have a wee dram,” he said. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Tommy said. He added mushrooms to the onions in the pan.

Malcolm sat down at the table and sipped his whisky. He’d forgotten how steadying drink could be sometimes.

Tommy said, his back to Malcolm, “Look, I’m sorry about last night.”

Caught off guard, Malcolm didn’t immediately reply. After a moment, he said, “Nothing to be sorry for.”