‘Isn’t … who …? I’m sorry, what – what are we talking about again?’ She sounds as if she has just woken up from a deep sleep. She loves to meddle in other people’s business but she has crossed a line that astonishes him.

‘You really want me to believe that? You see some woman, walking her dog or whatever, fuck knows, in your fucking garden and you have the gall to phone me up—’

‘Oh! Remind me again, what is it you are phoning about?’

‘Angela, you phoned me.’ It is taking everything he has to rein in his anger. Still, he can’t help but think he’d like to go over there and talk some sense into her.

‘I phoned you?’

‘You’ve lost it. You’ve actually lost it.’

‘I – I’m not sure what you mean. Sorry, I have a headache …’ He can sense she is trying to straighten herself up. ‘What is it you wanted to talk about, Niall?’

4

Outside, the sun has gone down and rain is battering the cloud-coloured sheets on the washing line. Niall watches them but doesn’t move; the drip in the utility room increases in speed. He switches the radio off and turns on the TV. A woman is taking small glass bowls from the countertop of a polished studio kitchen and tipping their contents into a larger glass bowl and stirring. She looks at the camera seductively and shows him how to turn flour and butter into breadcrumbs. She explains how to make pastry, leaning gently over the bowl. Is this for men or women? he thinks. She is making a chicken pie and smiling with straight white teeth. He pulls the quilt further over him and falls asleep and in his dream Christine is cooking on TV, smiling at him, with her henna-red hair, holding an electric whisk. He wakes up. He fights the quilt off and punches the sofa cushions. His headache punches him back. How could she be in the apple trees? he thinks.

On the TV screen now, tiny skiers are crossing a white mountain track between miniature coloured flags. He catches the same rotten smell again and wonders if a dead mouse is trapped in the walls. He turns the TV off and goes outside without a coat in the dark gale. He slams an axe into logs in the garden, one by one, on the huge oak trunk he uses for chopping wood. When he has finished all the logs he swings the axe into a bush that springs back at him with thorns. He gathers the firewood in his arms, takes it inside through the patio door and throws pieces into the fire so that sparks rise. He watches the flames creep up. Outside, a buzzard is sitting on the fence post. He has never seen one so close before.