The poor man retreated even farther, unsure if cool was something he wanted to be. A creamy drool leaked through the corner of his mouth. Eyes were lifeless prosthetics as he lifted an arm and pointed over Chloe’s shoulder. There was nothing remarkable there that she could see. Chloe waited for the man to explain himself but he seemed incapable of the simplest speech.

‘What’s over there?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t that where your church is?’

‘Carol,’ he said, directing his finger towards Chloe’s sunglasses.

‘Who’s Carol?’

‘Come now,’ Nora butted in, pinching him by the neck. ‘You know that Carol won’t be talking to these people, don’t you?’

The man was guided away, as though he had embarrassed the whole village and was being sent to bed early without his supper.

‘Steady on, Nora,’ Chloe whispered. ‘The poor lad was trying his best.’

Whoever Carol was, she wasn’t going to feature heavily in this project. Not so long as Nora had her way.

*

The village resembled an abandoned building site. Buckets, farming tools, and sodden clumps of wood and other debris had gathered in its centre, piled together like some avant-garde art installation.

There was scarce space between the cottages to even sidle between them. Tangled clots of briars filled in the gaps. No effort had been made to make this plot of mud any less miserable. Their homes were perhaps too poky to fit anything other than their bodies, and so their possessions were thrown by their doors like rubbish waiting to be collected. The whole scene was enough to darken one’s spirit. To live there must have been to know no light at all. Even the sun could only do so much without colour or laughter.

The girl from the field had sided with the other children. There was no telling which child belonged to which parent or what the blood bonds were between them, though it was safe to assume that everyone was related in some way. It was difficult to identify even the children’s genders as they were all dressed the same. They lay on the ground, picking at stones, basking lazily in the low sun like opium addicts. They all looked so similar, but only one of them had those dark eyes. Such was the sternness of her pudgy little face that it made her smile of earlier seem like a false memory.

Their isolation had taken its irreparable damage on these people, undermining more than the physical. Some of them watched Ben with glassy eyes, their mouths hanging agape, like puppets abandoned by their masters.

‘Are you good to get started?’ Chloe asked. ‘We don’t have much time left before nightfall and I’ve got a survey to run.’

‘You’re going off by yourself?’ Ben asked.

‘Well, if muggins over there wants us gone tomorrow, I’ve no choice, do I?’