God, he really wasn’t going to be the one to speak first. He just stood there, looking towards the river, one hand in his pocket.

‘It’s very quiet here,’ I said.

‘Aye.’ There was a big scar slicing from the join of his thumb down to the raised bone on his wrist and under his sleeve. ‘It usually is.’

I shot a glance up at him. That sounded like a hint. Right. I started trying to think of good excuses to leave.

He turned to me, slightly formally. ‘Thanks for the cactus.’ He immediately took a sip from his mug.

So he did find it. I looked at my tea, feeling a bit petulant. ‘How do you know it was me?’

He took a short breath in, clamped his mouth shut and made a noise in the back of his throat that might have been a laugh. ‘People don’t tend to leave me plants.’

I pulled the cuffs of my jumper down to my nails and spoke to the grass. ‘I just wanted to say sorry for – I wasn’t really in a very good state. The other night. Morning.’

His head went up, following the flight of the bird still tumbling about. ‘You haven’t seen any more trouble, then?’

I shook my head, remembering the dried sick on my cheek, and the way Rocky had moved before he nutted Fraser. I didn’t really want to talk about that. ‘So, what do you do out here?’ Besides walking around at sunrise and getting dead bird under your fingernails.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘I just wondered, I don’t know, what you get up to.’ My voice trailed off a bit.

‘Just …’ he scratched the beard at his cheek. ‘Getting on with living.’

He wasn’t exactly dinner party material.

I looked up the track and tried again. ‘How long have you lived here?’

A silence. ‘Five years now.’

‘Do you like it?’

He rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip as if wiping something off it. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

‘Sorry.’ I turned slightly away from him and let the heat from the cup sweat into my palms, pressing hard.

He put his mug down in the grass and went back inside. Way to go, Polly. I dipped my head to my tea. Drink it quick and fuck off.

It tasted really sweet. He’d remembered to put sugar in it.

The door opened again and he walked past me, carrying a small bucket and a khaki-green cloth rucksack with bits of wood poking out of the top. He was wearing the sleeveless puffer jacket and the woolly hat again and was halfway to the river when he stopped. For a second I thought he was stalking something in front of him, but then I realised. He was waiting for me.

I slid off the wheelbarrow.

We followed the river along the valley, my boots darkening in the damp of the high grass. He walked slightly ahead of me but seemed to hang back occasionally, just enough for me to catch up.