John James swore. He cursed the woman. His leg ached. No loan had been agreed; the banknotes had been foisted on him in public, the cause of acute embarrassment. Clearly he would have to return the money since he had no claim to it. Clearly he had no option but to make another journey to the boarding-house. Without quite knowing why he did so, he waited until a Monday afternoon came round again.

‘Oh, honey! Oh, my darling boy!’ She wept as soon as she saw him. The apologies that had been written down poured again from her lips. She would kneel before him if he required it. She had suffered a sunstroke that day, she wouldn’t have spoilt the wedding occasion for worlds.

He attempted to count the banknotes into her hands, so that there could be no argument afterwards. He tried to be exact and businesslike, but the notes dropped to the floor and he was obliged to go down on his hands and knees to retrieve them. As soon as he stood up again he felt an arm around his waist. He shook it off, insisting that he had come on a commercial matter, but somehow or other he found himself on the way upstairs, and then she was saying that she forgave him, that it was a terrible way to behave, not replying to a person’s letters, especially after a person had been taken ill. She sprinkled eau de Cologne on to her sheets, telling him not to be silly when he shook his head.

Carriglas, October 16th, 1931. Sunshine glances over harvest stubble, petals fall in the garden. The apples have been picked, the air smells softly of the season. Almost as though they’ve made a mistake, the strawberry trees blossom, then Michaelmas daisies come.

‘You never forget,’ he said this afternoon, taking the can of tea from me in the orchard, where old trees are being felled. He hesitated, again as though about to say something, but in the end he did not.

For just a few moments Mrs Rolleston forgot that Villana had married the solicitor, and wondered why he was reading a newspaper in the drawing-room. People had always come and gone at Carriglas, servants and visitors, friends, relations, painters and wallpaper-hangers, friends of other friends, the man to repair the banister-rail. Sarah Pollexfen had come. She’d come herself. Linchy had come.

She closed her eyes. The chaffinch flew about the drawing-room, she tore the paper into scraps. ‘Come and get the rabbits,’ her son said, and in the little study Villana lifted the shotgun from the wall. With her eyes still closed, she remembered the wedding preparations, the wedding itself: events and statements came swiftly back to her, and she chided herself for her silliness in forgetting that Villana had married the solicitor.

‘The shreds of summer left,’ she remarked. ‘The nicer side of winter just arriving.’