He nodded. “It had big gates. There were swings and a slide. It was private.”

“And I want to go by that shop where we bought halfpenny drinks and liquorice and lollies. It won’t be open. I just want to see it.”

“Why won’t it be open?”

“Because the owner died.”

He hesitated. “Can I ask you something before we go?”

“Of course.”

“Mam keeps telling me about a big garage where I can mend the cars.”

“Nearby?”

“Not far from us, along the Wakefield Road. The owner is retiring to Morecambe.”

“And what does your mam say about it?”

“She wants me to think it over. The owner, Mr. Battersby, he wants me to think about it too. Why should I go to another garage? I like to be in my own garage.”

“I know you do. Your mam knows you like your own garage. You are used to it.”

“Yes. I’m used to it. Is she fed up of me? Is she fed up of seeing me when she looks out of the kitchen window?”

“Oh no! She thinks you might like a bigger garage.”

“Well I won’t.”

“No one will make you move. Your mam will never be fed up of you.”

This satisfied him. Without another word, he started the van.

Perhaps I had said the wrong thing. His mother must be trying to plan for when she was no longer here. What Philip would do without her, I couldn’t imagine.

Whenever I drive myself in the Jowett, I attract attention. I congratulated myself on the good idea of exploring the area this way. No one would look twice at a passenger in a grocery van.

Chapter Nine

As we left Wakefield, driving along winding lanes, a vivid memory came to me from childhood. We used to cycle to the rhubarb fields, do battle with sticks of rhubarb as swords.

“Do you remember, Philip, when we played at the Trojan Wars?”

“We played at the Battle of Waterloo. Sometimes we were supposed to be fighting marauding Scots.”

“And when we got hungry, we could eat our rhubarb swords.”

Philip drove on, passing the fields with the sheds where the forced rhubarb grew, each shed with a track leading from gate to shed.

“I am in the process of counting the rhubarb sheds,” he announced, “all of them.”

“How long will that take you, driving round?”

“I am counting them on the Ordnance Survey maps. After that, I will drive round to confirm my findings. I have counted three hundred and five so far.”

That was a lot of rhubarb. Was there rivalry among growers, perhaps? Or some nasty landowner who had decided he did not want unsightly sheds to mar his view? New and daunting possibilities sprang to mind.

We passed the first coal mine, its winding gear stark against a sky streaked with grey.

“I’ve written about that pit,” Philip said.

“Are you counting coal mines?”

“Not yet.”

“What did you write?”

“All its facts. How deep it is, how much coal it gives, the names of men who died there.”