‘What’s the matter?’ Ezra asked at her sudden silence.

‘Ah—’ Edie looked away. ‘I’m looking for – what are you doing?’

‘What?’

‘That,’ she said, pointing behind him, to what he had been constructing against the opposite fence. ‘What is that?’

Ezra didn’t turn to look, instead hefting up the plank he’d just cut to size. ‘It’s a pen,’ he said. ‘For Georgette.’

‘Georgette?’

Ezra indicated the goat and then swung around with the piece of wood.

‘But… I thought you didn’t like the thought of her being penned in?’

‘She won’t be in it all the time,’ Ezra said, as he worked on fitting the plank into his design. ‘Just when I’m not in. That way if she gets into your garden, I can be the one to deal with it.’

Edie watched him for a moment, not sure what to make of this change of heart. She saw that he was struggling and went to help.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, as she grasped the other end of the plank.

‘Helping,’ she said.

‘I can manage.’

‘Don’t be stubborn. Two pairs of hands are better than one.’

‘Fine,’ Ezra said through gritted teeth. ‘Suit yourself. Just be careful, because this is rough—’

‘Ow!’ Edie yelped, as the heavy plank slipped in her bare hands, stabbing a large and jagged spike of wood straight into her knuckle.

‘What did I just say?’ Ezra dropped the plank so that it fell to the ground between them.

‘What did you mean, what did you just say?’ Edie demanded. ‘You didn’t say anything!’

‘Because as usual, you didn’t give me a chance!’ Ezra stepped forward and grabbed both of her hands. ‘Let me see.’

Edie tried to retrieve her fingers from between his. ‘It’s only a splinter.’

‘For goodness’ sake, woman, would you let me take a look?’

It was his proximity as much as his tone that drew Edie to a screeching halt. ‘Did you just call me “woman”?’

Ezra examined her hand. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You might still be able to stop traffic, Edie, but even so “girl” would be a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t—’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Come inside and I’ll take care of that.’

‘There’s really no need to fuss.’

‘Right,’ he said, letting go of her bleeding hand but keeping hold of the other and tugging her towards his back door. ‘And have you sue me when you can’t work because your delicate artist hand has been hurt in my back garden? Give me a break and for once – just once, don’t argue with me. All right?’

Edie said nothing after that. Ezra led her into his kitchen and had her sit down at the table while he reached into the cupboard beneath the sink and came out with a first-aid kit. She looked around this environment, new to her despite having lived a few metres from it for the past fifteen years. Edie took in the double rack of spices and herbs against the wall beside the oven, the neatness of the multicoloured mugs stored in a glass-fronted cupboard, the pristine cleanliness of the worktops. She looked for the fridge, because in her experience you could tell a lot about a person by what they had pinned to theirs. She found it in one corner, the clean white of its doors interrupted only by what looked like a scrap of paper with a partial shopping list and a jumbled mosaic of letters and words – the little magnetic ones that came in boxes for creating poetry. Rising above a disordered scatter were several neat lines of text, though Edie had no chance of making out what they said from where she sat.