Janet accepted that. There was only nine or ten miles distance between our house in Denton and his family place in Brampton but they were miles that mattered. It would be years before John was thought of by the blokes in Gilsland as anything other than an outsider. They even gave me a bit of grumble for moving from Gilsland to Denton when I got wed, and that were under a mile. Always seemed odd to Cordelia, all that stuff. She couldn’t understand why boundaries mattered, especially in a place twisted around a 2000-year-old wall and then split into different counties by civil servants.

‘You never got me told,’ said Janet. ‘Fairfax. I heard tell he’d been at yours, though there were nowt unusual with that. Did I hear right? Went to go and inspect the churchyard in the middle of a storm and shot off in his car like a bullet from a gun. Poor old soul. You think his head was going a bit?’

I felt a bit funny at that. Nervous, like – as if I were being interrogated. We’d been friends since before we could talk. Our mams were close as sisters and they raised us the same way, though if I’m honest, I don’t know if I would have picked her as a best friend if there had been more to choose from. Knowing she was my age always made me feel like I was getting old because, God love her, Janet was never a looker. She was short and round and looked to me like a clay sculpture that had been sat on just before it went in the oven. She had the manners of a tinker, too; forever sniffing back snot or ramming a finger in her ear and rummaging about. She were a burpy person too, and I’d never liked that. Always seemed to be fighting a battle with a bit of trapped wind. Even belched during her wedding vows. I blushed for her but she thought it were funny and at least the man she were marrying could see what he was letting himself in for. I rarely lost my temper with her, though sometimes I would give her one of my looks and she’d know she was going too far. John says I have an impressive ‘look’. Reckons if I glared at a plucked chicken for long enough it would be ready to eat.

‘He’d come to see if I was all right,’ I said, and realized I was talking to her backside. She was bent over, pulling the tops off the tubes from the dresser and fiddling about with the contents.

‘Got caught in the storm, had you?’ she asked, over the swell of her bum. It was like talking to a bloody armchair.

‘Been to Mam’s grave,’ said I, matter-of-fact about it. ‘Met the lady from up the hill. Mrs Winslow’s old place.’