He peered past me into the sun and looked at me in a way I couldn’t quite read, like I was a Sudoku puzzle, the hardest type, from The Times or something. He probably didn’t do Sudoku. Or get The Times delivered. Coming here suddenly felt like a very stupid idea.

He took a breath in and held it, still looking at me. ‘Give me a sec.’

The door shut and I thought about running away, except he’d still have been able to see me a mile up the track, my legs having turned to wet cement. The clouds were dragging over the hills like a white sheet being snagged, and a single bird, a gull maybe, wheeled underneath them, its wings tipping and turning.

Around the corner, tools lay scattered among tufts of grass. The beer bottles were still there. The one at the end of the row with the least water in gave a dull clang when I nudged it with my toe. I picked up a two-foot-long pipe, bright blue, and gently hit the bottle just below the neck with it. A sound like a bell underwater. The next one along had a slightly lower note. I ran the tube along all of them slowly, letting it bounce on the glass, and it made a little falling pattern.

He was there at the corner of the house, watching me. I tossed the pipe away and tried not to look too sheepish.

Lines appeared in his forehead. ‘Did you come here on foot, then?’

I nodded. ‘Except—’ he followed my eyes up the hill. ‘On the track this time. Got a lift to the end of your road.’

He nodded a few too many times and eyed the bottles. There was a faint, muffled sound, a whimper. First of all I thought it was the gull, or maybe a flock of them. But the whimper rose and got louder.

He saw my freaked-out look. ‘Kettle,’ he said, and disappeared back around the corner.

I sat on the upturned wheelbarrow, one ridge digging into my thigh. Above me, it was as if someone had pressed pause, the clouds caught mid-blur. Over to my right, the river had a nervous blink.

It was so empty out here. Way more so than at our cottage. At least there you had people close enough to help if your car battery went flat, or to hold a parcel for you, but here – you definitely couldn’t borrow a cup of sugar from anyone. You could yell and scream all day long. About not having any sugar. I tried to imagine him doing that.

A mug appeared next to my ear. It had an out-of-focus picture of trees and birds on it, the sort of mug you find in charity shops. I smiled up at him and curved my hands round it as he stood next to me with his own cup, holding the rim with the tips of his fingers. He didn’t smile back.