It half stopped my heart when that tree came down. I was never good with my nerves. Flighty, Dad always said. Neurotic, according to John. I didn’t need a name for it. I just suffered with my nerves. Didn’t like heights, or the dark, or being too long on my own. That didn’t make me a pushover. I still had a tongue like an adder when my blood was up. Always made sure I put myself on the side of the road where the cars were coming from if I was out with the bairns. Looking back, I’m flabbergasted at myself. Anybody who knew me would have expected me to scream like a trumpeting elephant and then go into spasm. But I didn’t. Maybe it was the water running over my shoes or the leaves that were slapping me in the face and tangling in my hair but it just seemed a lot more important to me to be doing something useful than standing there and being an extra problem. We couldn’t stay there. Had to get indoors. Church was closed and the barn and garage back up towards the railway tracks were so flimsy we used to joke that a big bad wolf could blow them down. We had to get home. Up a muddy road that was turning into a river; the water chuckling over rocks and the ruts left by Fairfax’s tractor.

‘There’s a man,’ she said, looking up at me. Her eyes were wide. She looked young and frightened and no matter who she’s turned into in the years since, there’ll always be a part of me that remembers what she was in that moment. Always be a part of me that knows how soft she is inside the shell.

‘We have to go,’ I said, and dragged her onto the track. Weren’t like me to be bossy like that. I were a follower by nature.

And she starts on at me. ‘The man … the man …’

I knew she wouldn’t move if I didn’t say something so I promised her we wouldn’t just leave him there. ‘We’ll tell somebody,’ I said, all calm, like she were a toddler needed soothing. ‘Please. It’s getting worse.’

I had to hold my hand in front of my face. The air was full of flying twigs and stones and leaves. They felt like bullets as they hit my hand. Pushed me back like a man.

‘That house,’ shouted Cordelia, and she had to repeat it so I could hear her over the wind. She was looking at the grey cottage that stood outside the churchyard. ‘Let’s go there …’

‘No,’ I said, and I swear it felt like my insides were just ice and gravel. There was no bloody way I was going in there. I’d rather have been naked in the storm.

‘Keep going,’ I said. ‘My house is just up there.’