‘What?’ Even she detects the hint of petulance in her voice; it provokes a twitch of his lips. He taps the side of his nose with his forefinger.

‘Like I said before, it’s a surprise.’ And suddenly, without apparent reason, the merriment drains from his eyes, and the pained wistfulness returns. ‘Goodnight, Gwen.’

Her needles remain idle long after he has gone.

She is unsure how long she sits there, the fire dying from neglect. Rousing herself, she finally abandons all pretence and sets down her knitting.

She checks on Tom and finds him sleeping deeply, his lips parted, his right arm flung above his head. She draws the covers over his shoulders and satisfied he is fast out she pads back down the stairs to the kitchen. She pulls on her gumboots and takes the lantern from the table to light her way as she shuts up the farm.

Kip rises from his bed in the implement shed as she descends the steps into the yard and she is grateful for his company as she skirts the shadowed buildings to reach the paddock. She shuts up the hens, pleased that for once few have remained outside the coop. Bobby snickers and trudges towards her, nibbling her outstretched palm with his soft lips. She strokes his blaze and pats his neck. He starts to follow her but breaks off to slurp from the water trough.

Her hand lingers on the gate’s catch. For no clear reason, she experiences a sense of unease. She stands stock still, listening, but hears nothing out of the ordinary, just the soughing breeze through the shedding beech trees and the bark of a deer from the copse beyond. She shakes her head at her own foolishness and, holding the lantern at her side, she starts back towards the buildings. And yet her peculiar jitteriness remains and twice she gasps and whirls around, holding the lamp aloft, but she catches nothing in its wan beam except a fluttering moth.

As she walks down the side of the stable block, her steps slow and her thoughts turn to Jack. She rounds the corner and though she does not mean to look, she finds she cannot resist.

She is surprised – confused even – to see the tack room window reflecting the darkness back at her. She had anticipated a hint of light, for it is not late enough for Jack to have turned in and yet there is nothing to indicate that he is awake – or that he is even within. She remembers the moth-eaten velvet and presumes that the curtains are concealing light, but as her steps drift in she sees the curtains are undrawn and that the glass reveals only a black void.