“Go easy on me,” I beg her. “I’m just a man. Ouch. A man who can’t even laugh.”

“Just as well. This is no laughing matter.”

“I meant . . .”

“I know what you meant, James. You meant, it’s a long time. So long, in fact, that you may not be here when I come back.”

I didn’t expect such a direct hit. The sad shame compresses my chest. I try hard to breathe out so I can breathe in again.

“How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t say I knew, exactly. More a case of impressions. Your extreme despair when I gave you a lift—you practically apologized for knowing me. And then Althea’s been so incredibly cagey and mournful. Like a raven—occasionally cawing enigmatically, giving off this air of doom. Of something being afoot. And the look on your face now, of course. I made a guess. A good guess, as it turned out . . . James, are you all right?”

“Sorry. It’s the ribs. Too long sitting. Can’t get my breath.”

She rises to her feet, holds out her hand. “You need air.”

I take hold. Her fingers are slim, strong.

TWENTY-ONE

The sky is active, clouds bound across it, the wind swirls around us. A front is coming. We pass the barn and enter a rough field that rises sharply to a fence. On the other side of the fence Penny stands waist-deep in sheep, tugging handfuls off a bale of hay. Beyond her, the sloping skyline.

Ellen walks close by me.

“It’s not inhalation that’s the problem, it’s exhalation,” I tell her. “Getting rid of the carbon dioxide. Makes me think of Tom, saying that. Haha.”

An agonizing sadness. I remember looking at the kitchen window from the darkness of the garden. Seeing Ellen’s neck, her updrawn hair.

“How is Tom? He must be awfully shocked at what’s happened.”

Awfully shocked at what’s happened. He certainly is. Another spasm. It can’t be called laughing, to be honest. More a kind of internal wringing. I come to a halt, my hand on my left side.

“James, do you want to go back?”

“No, not at all—”

“I’m walking on the wrong side, on your bad side,” Ellen exclaims, and comes around to my right. “Would it be easier if you gave me your arm?”

“It would.”

She links her arm into mine. She’s wearing no coat and her body radiates warmth. My lungs fill up properly with fresh air. Our strides are the same length and we walk in step. I’m glad she’s beside me, setting a course across this field, or I wouldn’t know which direction to take.

“What a terrible old crock I am.”