‘I tried to help after you were arrested,’ he said. ‘I did. But’ his voice trailed away. He couldn’t say what he did, for that would give away too much.

Geoffrey nodded. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

‘You’ll need help to get the place shipshape,’ Joe said instead. ‘I’d be happy to do it.’ He should have said atone, but he was a coward, no two ways about it.

‘I’ve no money to pay a man,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Or put the farm in working order. I’ve been told there may be compensation, but who knows how much? Or when? I’m going to have to sell up.’

Joe turned his gaze to the field behind the house. Couldn’t look Geoffrey in the eye, not right now.

‘Where did they send you?’ Joe said.

‘Germany,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Neuengamme.’

Joe turned to face him as Geoffrey pointed to his left leg, rigid in its boot.

‘That’s where I got this.’ He cupped his hands to his ears. ‘And this.’ Added, ‘Munitions. They deafened me.’ He shook his head. ‘What use am I now? I can’t farm, not like this, not with a gammy leg and no money.’

Joe hadn’t a clue what he would do with his life now he was kicked out of the priesthood. He was too old to box. He could teach, but children could be cruel, especially to someone like himself, a feeble little man. He knew a bit about animals, and his daidí had taught them all how to slaughter and butcher. He couldn’t live among cadavers, not now. Laid out on the marble, with the heads removed, the stiffened, skinned corpses of cows or pigs looked like the bodies his mother had prepared for their coffins or the empty husks of his friends.

But a farmer’s life, that could be grand, to wander with the cows in the fields, to listen for chiffchaffs in the hedges, to watch for white-tailed eagles in the skies. Joe wasn’t afraid of work. He could be up at dawn and bed down late at night, haggle over prices in the market and complain about the cost of hay.

‘I have money, Geoffrey,’ Joe said, thinking of the twenty pounds Pat Junior had given him. ‘I could help you get back on your feet.’

‘You’re a young man, Joe,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I’m an old man now. You don’t want to be tied down here.’

‘Well, old man,’ Joe had said. ‘That’s just what I’ll be wanting to do. At least, for the time being.’