‘Yeah – sure. And I miss that, finding a piece of land that could be yours, where you can see stuff from, where you can get a view of where you are. I miss it, you know, having that to myself.’ He wasn’t really looking at her but beyond her. Then he saw her watching him. ‘I guess it’s just me.’

‘No, it’s not. I think I understand. It’s about having something of your own.’

‘Yeah.’ He was focused back on her now.

‘I’d like that.’ She told him about the farm, about how it didn’t feel like hers any more because neither her father nor brother ever told her anything. How she wanted to get out of Norfolk. He put his head slightly to one side and she felt the impact of his gaze. ‘When I was riding here, I thought I could just carry on riding…’ She faltered and stopped.

‘If you rode west and kept going you’d get to the Atlantic. And then you could go right on and get a boat. To America. Land of opportunity.’ He was smiling but he seemed only half joking. It was as if he was offering it to her. She had a vision of cowboys on horseback, neon lights, rockets shooting through the sky. He drained his cup and put it in the sink. ‘Listen, Verity – Vee – I can call you that, right?’ She shrugged. No one had called her that before. It felt strange, like a code between them. ‘I think you got the wrong impression of me. I joke around all the time, you think I’m messing with you. But I’m not.’

He came and sat down next to her, licked his lips and ran his tongue along the line of his teeth. She held tight to her cup. He looked straight at her and she felt skewered right through.

‘I’d better get back now,’ she said.

‘Will you come again? I mean, just to talk. Have a cigarette, a drink, you know.’

‘Maybe.’ She got up quickly but stood in the kitchen doorway, not knowing how to say goodbye.

‘You could paint here,’ he said from his chair.

‘Paint?’ She wondered how he knew that she painted.

‘Sketch, draw. I’ve seen you in your garden. You could do that here.’

‘Oh.’ It was as if he had opened up her rib cage and was poking around inside the flesh and the blood. She imagined him watching her in the private act of drawing. Her whole body prickled with heat. ‘I barely… I just sketch sometimes.’

‘Would you show me?’

‘I really have hardly anything to show.’