‘Have you the habit?’ She had a stranger’s voice.

He blushed and shook his head.

She put the box away again and lit a match. It struggled with the wind for a moment without success.

‘I suppose I shouldn’t have asked you really. I should have had more … er … concern.’ She laughed. He could see she enjoyed laughing.

She tried another match, this time defending the flame with a crooked hand. Blue smoke crept up through her fingers.

‘You have the look of a kid who might have the habit.’

He wondered if that was a compliment or not.

‘I tried it once, but I couldn’t see what was so great about it.’

‘I’ve seen you here before.’

There was a long pause.

‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I like it here.’

He watched her pulling at the cigarette and the smoke trickling gently from her nose.

‘I’ve seen you too. Here.’

‘Long ago people used to gather on the tops of hills to watch battles. That was before battles became …’ she hesitated a moment … ‘as … all-embracing as they are now.’

‘Is that what you’re doing? Watching battles?’ He wondered if she was some sort of journalist or what.

‘Not really. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I’m not quite sure why I said that anyway … about battles, I mean. And you?’

‘I just don’t like going home.’

She turned and stared at him.

‘Why don’t you go and play with the others?’

She nodded off to the right where below them some boys were kicking a ball around a concrete playground.

He shrugged.

‘I don’t know. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I just don’t feel like it.’

The conversation fell apart and lay between them on the wall with his schoolbag and her briefcase. They sat in silence for about fifteen minutes. The rising smoke and the thickening light turned the day into evening. It became impossible to keep out the cold. He got up. She sat on, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders slightly hunched.

He picked up his satchel.

‘Goodbye.’ He spoke nervously as if their brief conversation had never happened. She didn’t answer. He could see by her face that she wasn’t there to answer. He waited a moment and then began to walk away.

‘Oh, hey. You there,’ she called after him. ‘Boy with the face.’ She laughed again.

He turned and waved, a flip of his hand it was really, as he had seen the older boys do.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Joe. Joseph Logan. Well … Joe.’

‘Goodbye, Joe. It was nice meeting you.’

His father was up and sitting by the kitchen table when he got home.

‘Were you kept in again?’

‘No.’

‘You took your time then.’

‘Aye.’

He opened his schoolbag and spread his books on the table.

‘Were you with friends?’

Joe shook his head.

‘You can tell me. I’ll not let on.’ The voice had a whine in it.

‘I was alone, Dad. Just alone. Have you done the stove?’