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stared at the tarp shelter. The whole scene was strongly reminiscent of the dwellings of primitive people, possibly hunter-gatherers huddled in caves, protected only by animal skins and a low fire. It was obvious that Selwyn adored descending to this level. Pitting himself against the weather, pulling his hut dwelling apart with his bare hands in order to rebuild something better for his woman and himself, he probably felt the very embodiment of primitive Man.
    It was a joyous spectacle, as well as a sexy one. Miranda propped herself against a shaky wall to enjoy it.
    ‘Excuse me? What’s funny?’ Selwyn swung the sledgehammer in a small arc. He looked offended.
    Amos coughed and slapped his hands together to shake off the dust and grit.
    ‘You see,’ Selwyn added, vaguely indicating a slice of rubbled floor, ‘this is where the snooker table will be.’
    ‘But you don’t play snooker,’ said Amos.
    ‘You always were a literal-minded person,’ Selwyn sighed.
    Amos looked about. Small scraping and collapsing sounds came as the latest demolition area settled. ‘You’ve got quite a lot to do, haven’t you?’
    ‘It’ll be done before yours, mate. And anyway there’s no hurry. This place is fine as it is.’
    ‘Does Polly think so?’
    Apart from the first, Selwyn had slept every night since their arrival at Mead under his own potential roof. Miranda guessed that he wanted to distance himself from the soft option, to demonstrate that he needed nothing from anybody, least of all creature comforts. Polly sometimes slept in their bedroom in the house, sometimes in the barn with him.
    Miranda tried not to notice which, or when.
    But she did notice. She couldn’t help it.
    For the new residents at Mead the kitchen in the old house had become a kind of common room. It was where people congregated if they were not working or keeping to their own quarters, and it was big enough and already shabby enough to absorb the influx without looking much different. Today there was an earthenware jug of ragged crimson dahlias on the table, with a heap of magazines and envelopes drifting over an open laptop.
    Miranda and Amos came in from the rain and tramped through to the passage beneath the stairs to leave their coats. Their boots left gritty prints on the tiles.
    Colin was resting next to the Rayburn, in the Windsor armchair that had been favoured by Miranda’s late cat, and Polly was reading out to him the lonely hearts ads from a newspaper. Katherine had just arrived back from two days at her charity’s offices in London and her Burberry and briefcase were deposited on another chair. When Amos returned, padding in his socks and with what was left of his hair sticking up after he had rubbed it dry, he kissed her absently and patted her shoulder.
    ‘Meeting go off all right, darling?’
    ‘Yes. I…’
    ‘We’ve just been down to the site, Mirry and me. I’ll walk back down there with you, if you like.’
    ‘Has anything new happened?’
    ‘No.’
    Katherine said, ‘Then I think I’ll go into the village with Polly and Colin. We were just talking about it. The rain is going to stop in a minute.’
    He looked at her in surprise. ‘You’ve only just got back from town.’
    Polly glanced up from her place at the table.
    ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Katherine agreed.
    Amos hesitated, then nodded vaguely. ‘Right. Mirry, let’s have that coffee, then.’
    Miranda straightened her back.
    ‘Yes, let’s. Black for me. Thanks.’
    There was a small silence in the wake of her words. Amos seemed to become aware of four pairs of eyes on him.
    ‘What’s this? What are you all looking at?’
    The reverberations of Selwyn’s sledgehammering made the cups on the dresser tinkle.
    Polly murmured, ‘What do you mean, looking at?’
    Amos puffed out his red cheeks but didn’t pursue the question. He lumbered about the kitchen collecting up the coffee pot and rummaging in the cupboards for coffee beans. Once he had located the