‘You bloody well are not.’

But his wife knew better than to listen when he got indignant. She’d never been too proud to ask for help, because she rarely needed it – Florence was the most proficient person in his life and also the least interested in other people’s judgements. Her face was known to everyone from Ockham to West Horsley, and that was all the currency she needed. One afternoon, while he was hacking at the weeds again, she’d taken it upon herself to go into the village and announce their problems to the landlord at the Barley Mow. Arthur had begun receiving visitors soon afterwards.

At first there’d been a few well-meaning strangers, asking for a daily rate: strawberry pickers, orchard workers, planters with chapped faces and bruised fingernails – he’d turned them all away. Then his neighbour to the east had rolled into the front yard in a flatbed wagon, honking the horn. He’d had a team of farmhands sitting in the back with a variety of tools, and an expression like a tank commander sizing up a bridge. ‘We heard you had a weed problem,’ he’d said, scanning the north field. ‘That where you want us to begin?’

But Arthur’s self-defensiveness had overtaken him; a coldness had spread slowly through his body. ‘I think I’ve got to grips with it now, thank you.’

‘Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing. Let us pitch in with you.’

The men had all been staring down at him from the back of the wagon, half-amused, about to jump.

‘No,’ he’d said. ‘Thanks very much, but no.’

His neighbour had climbed out, ensnaring both his thumbs inside his belt loops. ‘Seems to me as though you’ve got a lot of couch grass there that needs uprooting. Thistles, brambles, nettles, all sorts on the verges. That’d take me near enough a fortnight to sort out by myself, and I’m not half as –’ He’d paused to find the right articulation. ‘As encumbered as you are, so … Look, the offer stands. Between the six of us, we’ll have it weeded out by supper.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll manage.’

‘Are you sure? Don’t let your pride get in the way.’

But grand gestures of charity, when made like this, were only meant to glorify the giver – that was something Arthur had learned in his youth. ‘Sorry to waste your time,’ he’d said.

His neighbour had sucked in the air and spat a disc of phlegm towards the ground. ‘Is your wife home? I’ve known Flo since she was –’

‘Florence knows my feelings on the subject.’

‘All right, then, we’ll leave you to it. But tell Flo we dropped in.’

‘Will do.’

He’d guessed that she was somewhere in the house, observing from a window. The four men in the back had turned away, laughing, and his neighbour had thrown up his hands and climbed into the driver’s seat. They’d semicircled in the yard and rolled off in a spray of dust.