He reached the wire fence and tapped his beer can along the top. ‘I feel like I’m walking on eggshells!’

The sex used to be good but that night they just lay there not talking. In the cramped bedroom at the top of the house with its depressing old furniture. The wind was blowing across the chimney like the mouth of a bottle and he lay there listening to it, unable to sleep.

BORROWING THE HOUSE FOR THE WEEKEND BY DAVID BARNES 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 08

Up here on the hill there was only the sky sailing over the village. Clouds shredded and tore as he watched. A sparrowhawk turned on the wind, its wings spread and angling, until suddenly it veered down towards the roofs.

‘You see that,’ she said, pointing. She’d been showing him where she went to school when she was little. That sort of thing. It had been three years now. On and off.

‘See what?’

‘The bridge over the railway line...’ She was looking where she was pointing but he didn’t. He watched her. Her face was pale, pinched and reddened by the cold. He wanted her as much as he always had.

‘...with the line of trees going up to it on both…