Occasionally, some sawdust gets dislodged and falls through the gap in the ceiling on to the pillow, because there are lots of places where the gaps aren’t covered. At night, you can hear the sawdust shifting on its own, and things stirring, alive. Caterpillars tick, squirrels dig, wasps scratch at paint. In winter, frost makes the timbers tighten, and snow presses against the door of the shed, making it stick. Spring sets off tapping and popping on the roof; sometimes the noises go on for several nights before anything happens. The roof pre-pares for an attack, like an army: it moves and drips quietly. Then, finally, comes the night when the mass of ice that has formed on the roof works itself loose: it begins to move, a single sheet hundreds of kilos in weight, to slide, rumbling, down the tin roof. The chunks of ice fall past the windows on to the ground. The din is so great that, for a moment, I think the world is coming to an end.

The loosening of the ice is followed by silence. The house is full of silence; the walls rise from wintry heaviness; the shed door opens again. There are heaps of icy bodies outside. Dad goes to hack at them with a spade.

10

10

MUM IN THE APPLE TREE. In autumn, the three apple trees of Sawdust House fill with apples. Mum goes outside every morning with a bowl and picks up the fallen fruit. Then she asks me to stand guard while she climbs up the tree. Mum stands where a branch forks in two, and shakes. At first, she looks clumsy, but after she’s been there for a bit, shaking, she gets the knack of being in the trees again. She smiles and becomes lighter, and the branches catch her power. The grass says, bump, bump when the apples thud down. I’ve got to watch where they fall. The tree sways and rustles, and underneath Mum there’s thudding.

The kitchen smells of apple. Mum peels, slices, fills the dehy-drator, bags apple crisps, boils jam and freezes purée.

Wasps buzz in the windows; they’re big and sluggish. A sound-less cloud of fruit flies bursts out every time you lift the lid of the compost bucket.

In the evenings, when I’m in bed and Mum’s stroking my cheek, her hands smell of apple jam.

That’s what Mum’s like in the apple tree.

MUM ALIVE. Mum clears the vegetable patch. She wants to get the soil warm as soon as possible. She turns the earth over with a spade and puts covers on top of it, even though Dad thinks she could just wait another two weeks. Mum’s wearing a straw hat, and she waves as Dad and I go off to buy new summer tyres for the car. She stands there, leaning on the spade, hat a bit crooked, waving. She’s wearing muddy gardening gloves.