A flame was darting up and along the blue-black edge of each heap like lamp-wick, leaving smoking ash behind. She stood leaning on the long white handle of a hayfork, arms firm and crooked, hands just below her chin, eyes rather low on the three smoking heaps, as if she was not really watching him at all. The wind was cold for October. It blew in sudden ugly gusts, switching smoke over grey-yellow stubble in blue flat clouds that turned back and bit each other like dogs at play. ‘Could you tell me which is Benacre?’ he said. Deliberately she drew the tines of the hay-fork down the curve of the nearest heap, dragging chaff into fire. From the fresh strip of hot ashes new smoke sprang out and was caught by wind and driven into his face as he stood there waiting for an answer. ‘You’ve come wrong way,’ she said. ‘This is the back end of it. It’s up the hill.’ ‘Which way would that be?’ ‘Up the hill,’ she said. Her voice was tart and confident. She dragged at hot ash and chaff again, stirring them to smoke.
