We were still a long way off when we heard the dog bark. The farmer was standing on the doorstep. He was a heavy man with reddish hair and big, misshapen hands. He had on knee-­length boots that were caked with earth. From behind him, inside the house, came the sound of a pot bubbling. I asked him if we could sleep in one of the sheds. He looked at us for a long time. There was nothing friendly in his eyes. But then he said yes, and I remember I laughed out loud and was instantly ashamed of my laughter.

The pigsty was empty. Perhaps he’d had to sell his pigs, or had slaughtered them himself. We lay down on the straw. He gave us a few boiled potatoes and a horse blanket. We held the potatoes in our hands for a long time before eating them. They warmed us more than the blanket. Before I fell asleep I heard the animals rustling and chomping in the neighbouring shed, and just for a moment I thought it might all soon be over.

It must have been after midnight when the farmer came into the shed. The door opened almost soundlessly, but I wasn’t sleeping deeply and I woke with a start. He came in and stopped in the middle of the room. The moon was at his back. His face was half in darkness and I couldn’t make out his eyes, but I knew he was staring down at us. He was breathing heavily, and I could see his breath in the moonlight.

‘Go away!’ I whispered. ‘Please, go!’

‘I’d like to ask something of you,’ he said.

‘What, for heaven’s sake?’

He took a step towards us, then stopped again. His face had now completely vanished into the darkness. His arm was slightly raised, and I gave a start, as I could see now that he had something in his hand. It was a dead chicken. He had grabbed it by the neck and the limp body was dangling from his fist.

‘I’d like you to listen to me,’ he said.

There was something sad in his voice, and I suddenly felt sorry for him, standing there with the dead chicken in his hand. I said, ‘Sit down. But be quiet; my little girl’s asleep.’

He sat down beside us in the straw and started to talk. ‘Maybe you’ll understand me,’ he said. ‘I hope so. I really hope so. I know people like you. I know where you’re from. And I know there’s no going back. You . . . I saw you, you and your girl. Coming across the field towards the house. I saw you, and there was something . . . I don’t know what it was, but I had a feeling you’d listen to me.’ The farmer spoke slowly, haltingly, staring at the ground as if picking the words one by one out of the straw. ‘I’m not old yet. But I can’t sleep. At night the thoughts come. They’re not nice thoughts. Sometimes I have the feeling they’re not even mine. It’s as if the thoughts come flying through the darkness across the fields and take root in me.’ He raised his head and I saw his eyes; two tiny white moons were swimming in them. ‘I had a woman once,’ he went on. ‘A good woman. She wanted to stay with me. We sat at the same table and slept in the same bed. I heard her breathing in the night. And the sound of her breathing drove the thoughts away.’