When he arrived at the door he rang the bell as usual, but when I opened the door he was standing there, with nothing unpacked, even though I’d given him plenty of time to get back to the van and unload. I couldn’t understand it, until I realised he was holding the first crate. A big, olive green, holed thing it was, with a sharp rim around the top. ‘This weather!’ he said. ‘Will I bring it inside for you?’

What was I supposed to say to that? I stood there sort of dumb for a minute, just staring at him. And then I took a step backwards and by doing so, quite accidentally, I left him space to come into the porch.

He left the first crate in front of the inside door – by this time I had been so far pushed back into my own house that I had one foot on the hall rug, while the other was still on the porch tiles. A last stand, if you will. And then he kept returning into the porch with more and more crates. It was a big delivery – it’s important to stock up on water bottles since the frost can be a problem here, with the pipes in winter. Then, with the crates stacked up all around me, in my house, I stood there and watched him and even at one point sort of nodded at him for his effort. I regretted it as soon as I had done it.

When he was finished, he stood and looked at me. I looked at him. He looked at me. He has dark blue eyes, deep and wide, the kind that make you not sure where to look because they seem so intense, and they don’t suit him – he doesn’t strike me in any other way as being an intense man. It must have taken me some time to realise that he needed his crates back. That I was supposed to be unpacking. I bent down to take out one of the water bottles, but he reached down and picked it up first, rapidly emptying the crate and leaving the bottles stacked up along the wall, opposite my outdoor shoes. And then he grinned at me and said:

‘You can keep the rest of the crates ’til next time. Aye?’

What a strange effect it had on me. So strange I can hardly describe it here. As he went whistling down the path back to the van, without waiting for an answer, without turning back, I felt like I was watching someone depart. Had he turned, I actually think I might have waved to him.