He headed for his sister’s room to scrounge for cigarettes.

The lampshade gave a meagre orange light. She hadn’t drawn the curtain on one side. Her bed was made so tidily you could’ve skated on it, but her bath towel had been left in a wet heap upon the floor. He couldn’t find her cigarettes. He checked the windowsill, the ottoman, the desk. In the coat behind the door, he found a packet stuffed in the breast pocket. They were Capstans, but they’d have to do. He tipped one out, and then another, and another. Four was probably too many. As he put the last one back, he noticed something on the inside of the lid. Written in blunt pencil. Clumsy and a little smeared.

WO59264

A phone number perhaps? He didn’t recognize the area code, but he could look it up in the directory. Something deep within him knew. Wherever Joyce’s head had been of late, this had to be a part of it.

He went downstairs again and craned his head in through the parlour door. She was passed out on the sofa, snorting in her sleep. The gramophone had lost its spin. He left her well alone and took himself along the hall, into the draughting room, to sit at Mr Mayhood’s desk. In a tray beside the phone, there was a small black book in which they kept important numbers – for clients and contractors and the like; the front page had a list of area codes. He ran his finger down the alphabet and saw it: WO5 for Woldingham. That wasn’t far from here. A little further east. Halfway to Kent. What time was it by now? The clock said twenty-five to ten or thereabouts. Too late to phone a stranger. But he dialled. It rang and rang. Nobody home. And then, at last, connection.

All he heard was breathing.

‘Is this Woldingham 9266?’ he asked, keeping his tone good and friendly.

Breathing.

‘Sorry, is this Woldingham 9266? I hate to call so late.’ Breathing and more breathing. ‘The operator put me through. I hope she hasn’t patched me a wrong number. I’m looking for a Mrs –’ Click. The line went dead. He phoned straight back and no one answered.

The carrot tops are lush in the east field. Florence is bent double with a burlap sack between her knees. She’s shaking off the soil and tossing out the duds. The good roots are as long as tablespoons; she puts these in the sack. There he is, one row behind her. Working at a slower rate. A small part of an acre still to go. He looks up. Waves a nosegay he has made from carrots. Florence straightens up and stretches out her back. A face of agony. Then Joyce comes ghosting through the frame. An ursine shadow briefly in the distance with a sack half-full. Zoom out. Cut this. Now they’re putting cabbages on the conveyor. He and Joyce are loading at one end. Florence crouches on a trailer stacked with empty crates. The cabbages drop off the belt into a rusty tub in front of her; she packs the best ones. Cut this, too. A static shot. The root cellar in all its glory. Simple, ordinary, finished. It’s no more than an ingress to a mound of earth, grassed over. He emerges, bounding up the steps, a sack draped round his shoulders. Gives a thumbs up for the camera, satisfied. Opens out the burlap sack to prove it’s empty. Keep it.