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Never again would she see this man at nine o’clock in the morning, she thought. ‘Was this Mrs Evans a relation of yours?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why wasn’t the house sold?’
    ‘She had no one. I asked an estate agent friend of mine to put it up for rent.’
    ‘To make sure you can still graze your sheep here?’
    ‘Amongst other things.’ He slurped what was left of the coffee out of his mug. ‘Meanwhile they’re looking for family. It could take a while.’
    ‘Another?’ she asked.
    ‘Lovely.’ He relaxed a little on his chair and stretched his legs out under the table. ‘I arranged her funeral.’
    ‘Are the geese yours too?’
    ‘No. They belonged to Mrs Evans.’
    ‘So now they’re mine?’
    ‘Yes. More or less.’
    She had to stand up to get his mug and walk over to the sink with it. He stared at her as if he knew how difficult her situation was. ‘More or less,’ she said. ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘They’re rental geese. They don’t belong to you. I’d be guessing you’re not allowed to put a rented goose in the oven for Christmas roast.’
    She stood up, staring back at him so that he wouldn’t be tempted to lower his gaze. It worked, he didn’t glance down at her hips until he had handed her his mug. She put the milk pan back on the hotplate and stared outside again, where the grass now looked a little drier. She wished she was out there: digging with the spade, stringing the cord along the path, working on a metaphorical wall unit. She noticed that the three flowering plants on the windowsill needed watering. She was appallingly tired and got a numb feeling in her arm while whisking the milk. But a numb arm was nowhere near as bad as talking to a man who had apparently come to assert his authority over the land and this house.
    ‘I only counted six by the way.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Six geese.’
    ‘Have you been counting my geese?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Goddomme
, she thought.
    ‘Mrs Evans looked after them well. She fed them bread.’
    She refilled the mug with coffee and milk and calculated how long it would take him to drink it. She no longercared what he thought of her and, after passing him the mug, even bunched the T-shirt up a little to sit down. He started drinking straight away, sliding the key back and forth across the hard cover of the map with his free hand. She pushed away the cake and didn’t say another word.
    ‘It’s a temporary situation. The house is occupied. You’re happy, I’m happy, the agent’s happy. But the situation can change at any time.’ He bent forwards and pulled her plate over. ‘May I?’
    She didn’t answer, but he ate her slice of cake all the same. It disgusted her, the broken thumbnail hovering round his chewing mouth. Silently she watched him gulp down the coffee. Then she stood up. She didn’t know what to say. Maybe he’d work out for himself that he’d spent long enough sitting in her kitchen. She gestured at the living room and the front door.
    ‘Aye, I’m on my way again,’ he said. He rose and walked slowly to the living room. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Having all the furniture, like.’
    ‘Why isn’t there a bed?’
    ‘I took it.’
    ‘And the clock?’
    ‘Climbing up on a stepladder was completely beyond her. I used to change the battery every now and then.’
    She was pleased to see him crossing the room in his socks. A man in socks, and especially a man in socks with holes in them, is hard to take seriously.
    At the front door he turned and looked her over from head to toe. ‘Injured?’ he asked.
    ‘Bitten by a badger.’
    ‘Impossible.’
    ‘I still got bitten.’
    ‘Badgers are shy animals.’
Shy
. He stepped over the threshold. ‘I’ll be back then,’ he said, before pulling the door shut behind him.
    He doesn’t want me to see him bending to pull on his boots, she thought, and smiled. ‘Goodbye,’ she called through the door when she saw that he was reaching down. She dragged herself upstairs and lay on the