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‘Just the man from next door,’ she said, ‘with something for
Barry.’ She moved on up the stairs, curiously put out.
    An hour later, having made a great effort with her appearance, she came down again expecting to find Barry, as usual, sitting by the gas fire with the evening paper and a cigar. But there was no
sign of him. She went to the front door, looked out. No sign of the car either. She switched on the porch light and saw, on the step, a box of six eggs. She picked it up, opened the lid. No
message, but they were obviously from Johnny to encourage Barry. Prue smiled. The large brown eggs glowed like discreet lamps. She touched each one with a cautious finger, remembering the chill
feel of shell. Then, determined not to hand them over to Bertha, she took them into the sitting room.
    Barry came home an hour late that evening, no explanation. Preoccupied by some business matter, he did not notice Prue’s efforts to look particularly alluring. Over anaemic sausages and
mash Prue gently put her idea to him. ‘Think, we could have eggs like this all the time,’ she ended, and pushed the open box towards him.
    ‘Where did they come from?’
    Prue gave an edited story of Johnny’s visit and suggestion. Barry waved a hand, uninterested. ‘You go ahead, sweetheart, do whatever you like. Set it up. I’ll give you the
money. Get that Johnny fellow to help you.’
    Prue got up from the table, went round to Barry and kissed him on the temple.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You won’t regret it. Eggs . . .’
    Barry patted her stomach with a cuffed hand. ‘Pregnant yet, are we?’
    ‘Not yet, no.’
    ‘Can’t for the life of me think why not.’
    ‘It takes a bit of time.’
    ‘So it does, too. I must get to my desk, try to sort out this business.’
    Left alone for the rest of the evening, Prue wrote a short note to Johnny thanking him for the eggs and telling him of Barry’s agreement. Then she ran up the stairs, one finger skittering
up the grim old banister as if in a lively dance.

 
Chapter 3
    I t was a late-autumn afternoon. Through the mullioned windows of the sitting room the sky was white as paste, thick, cheerless. Prue threw the
magazines she had been trying to read onto the floor. Once again she allowed herself to glance at Johnny who was still there, fiddling with something on the roof of the chicken shed. He had told
her not to come out till he gave the sign.
    It had taken just two weeks to make, this habitat for future hens. There had been several expeditions in Johnny’s van to fetch wood, wire-netting, tins of creosote. Prue’s main
contribution had been encouragement and praise. She had been amazed by his skill in measuring, sawing, nailing, heaving it all together. The work had been an agreeable interruption to the days.
Time had gone faster. Prue had a project, a point, two things she had been missing. Now it was finished.
    At last Johnny turned and beckoned to her. Prue ran down the garden to join him. They stood side by side, looking at the completed work – a chicken house and run identical to
Johnny’s on the other side of the wall. ‘Not bad, what?’ he said.
    ‘I think it’s wonderful.’
    ‘Now for the chickens and the feed.’
    ‘When can we get them?’
    Her impatience made him laugh. ‘Dare say it could be tomorrow.’
    As Prue waited for Johnny’s van to park at the gate next morning, she remembered feeling like this on some mornings at Hallows Farm: cold mornings when, after the milking, she and Joe
would have the chance of a word, a look, to confirm the fun they’d had the night before, or would have again shortly. At the beginning of the Barry One time, she remembered feeling so excited
every new day that her clumsy fingers had trembled on the cold udders, making arcs of milk squirt onto the floor. Even in the early days of Robert, who had been a pastime rather than a romance, she
had felt twittery, as she had described it to the others, when she