Pip raised her eyebrows, and her mother pulled another face and shrugged. Pip pulled out a chair and sat down next to Jez. Her mother might feel awkward quizzing him, but Pip had no such qualms.

She laid a hand on her friend’s forearm and squeezed lightly. ‘How are you doing, mate?’ she asked, her voice gentle.

Jez made no reply, but he sighed deeply, his shoulders rising and falling heavily. Pip looked up at her mother and cocked her head towards the door. Her mother nodded, grateful to be excused, and disappeared.

It was the just the two of them now. Behind them, the Aga hummed away to itself and there was the sound of a tractor engine in the distance.

Pip waited. There was no point in rushing him. He would tell her in his own good time. Or maybe not at all; either was fine. It just felt very important that he knew she was there for him, no matter what had happened.

She felt him draw in another huge breath and let it out again as a deep sigh, as if he was expelling something from his body. Then he raised his head and ran his hands through his hair.

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Want to tell me?’ asked Pip.

He let out another big breath, blowing it through his lips.

‘Not much to tell,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dumped.’

Instinctively, Pip reached over, put her arms round his neck and pulled her into him in a tight squeeze. Totally compliant, he dropped his head on to her shoulder and let her hold him. They hadn’t been so close for over ten years, but the shape of him was immediately familiar. She knew exactly where his head would fit, where her hands should rest. Even the scent of him was the same, and for a second it tossed her back in time to a place that felt easy, comfortable, safe. It had been a while since Pip had experienced that feeling and she relished it, even as she knew that she should be trying to comfort Jez. This was about his pain, not hers. She continued to hold him tightly and hoped it was helping him as much as it was her.

After a couple of minutes, he drew away from her, his eyes focused on the yard beyond the kitchen window.

‘It’s my own stupid fault,’ he said.

‘How do you make that out?’ Pip asked. She might not know the details, but she wasn’t about to let Jez shoulder any of the blame.

‘Just look at me. I am a farmhand, son of a farmhand. I’m never going to add up to much else. I didn’t make it to uni, I settled for this life instead, and now I’m thirty and all I’ve done so far is work on the land less than five miles from where I was born.’