The Weight of the Herd

Red was pressing her back against the roof when Nessa came home.

From the gate she could see the corrugated sheets rising in a shallow hump. The cow's hooves hung above the passage, turning slowly, as though she were trying to find something in a drawer with her feet. A breast cradle held her to the ground beam. At each breath its straps tightened and the roof gave a small metallic complaint.

Her mother sat on a milking stool below her, eating a pear.

'I thought you were coming tomorrow,' Mara said.

'I said Friday.'

'You said after work.'

'It is after work.'

Nessa put her bag beyond the reach of Red's swinging head. The cow smelled of warm hide and the sharp white grass they ate when the cold season turned. A little froth had collected around her nostrils. She was old enough to have developed a hollow above each eye, and there was the same blunt white blaze Nessa remembered resting her forehead against as a child. But Red had never been this high. The bottom of her udder brushed Nessa's shoulder.

'How long?'

'Since breakfast. She's early.' Mara bit the pear down to its core, stood and put a hand on the cow's flank. 'The others aren't ready.'

Outside, the six younger cows were spread across the yard, chewing with the extravagant indifference of animals still on the ground. Their tether lines lay slack. Beyond them the plateau fell in pale steps towards the inhabited valley. The first high herd had passed over the house that morning, the bus driver had told Nessa: twenty or thirty cattle travelling west, their dangling tails all drawn in one direction. She had missed them while struggling with the overhead rack. Now she wanted, absurdly, to have seen that herd before she saw this one.

Mara stepped onto the stool to reach Red's neck. Her boots had been repaired with green thread. It showed at the side of the left one, in the place where her foot bent.

'You could have called.'

'And you could have fixed it from town?'

Nessa took hold of a strap. Under her hand it was as hard as a pipe.

Her mother had sent three photographs of the farm in the past year: an enormous egg, a pale snake behind the freezer, a bucket with a split in it which she claimed was good enough to last another season. In none of them had Nessa noticed the roof, or the boots, or how far down Red's tether beam the bolts had travelled in their slots.

'Tal comes at nine tomorrow,' Nessa said. 'I spoke to him from the bus.'

'I spoke to him yesterday.'

'He says he'll bring the long trailer.'

'He would, if you asked him to move a teaspoon.'

Tal bought livestock along the plateau road. He had offered enough for the herd and the milking plant to clear Mara's winter feed account, take the lease off her hands and leave a modest sum for the move to town. Nessa had found a flat with a wide kitchen window and a bus stop outside. Her mother had agreed to look at it, which had become, in Nessa's arrangements, an agreement to live there.

Red's left hind leg brushed the stool. Mara caught the hoof, not to push it away but to steady its slow searching movement. The cow stopped turning. For a moment the roof was quiet.

'Let her out,' Nessa said. 'There's room in the yard.'

'Wind comes down that side.'

'It's still.'

'Now.'

Nessa looked across the yard again. Under the separate bull shelter a grey head had lifted. Old Brindle's horns nearly touched the rafters. His forefeet were on a low stone platform; his hindquarters rested in a cradle backed with iron plates. At the sight of Nessa he flicked one ear, the nicked one, and lowered his head.

He had been there when she left, seven years ago. She had somehow expected the farm to have spent those years happening to somebody else.

Tal arrived before supper, with no trailer and a bag of oranges. Mara let him into the kitchen but would not take an orange until he admitted that his own trees were producing more than his family could bear.

'You should tell people they're expensive,' she said. 'They'd find space.'

He smiled and put the bag on the table. His boots were clean enough to tell Nessa he'd come directly from his office. He kept his coat on.

'I saw the upper herd from the road. Thought I'd better look in.'

'How high?' Mara asked.

'Above the radio mast. Moving fast.'

Her mother opened the back door. Tal followed her to the shed; Nessa followed him, annoyed that the inspection she had arranged for tomorrow was happening without the list she had made on her phone.

Tal did not touch Red's taut straps. He watched the cow breathe, then crouched to inspect the ground beam. He was broad and moved carefully, giving his knees time to decide whether to help. Above him the hoof nearest his head turned once.

'You won't get her into the trailer.'

'I've put rising cows in trailers before,' Mara said.

'Not mine.'

He walked round to Red's other side. There was an old pale ridge where the cradle crossed her breast. Nessa remembered treating a rope burn there with a yellow paste, her mother holding the tin while she spread it. She had been fifteen, perhaps sixteen. Red had been smaller then. So had the shed.

'I can take the six as agreed. I'll leave this one out of the price.'

Mara looked at him. 'She's still giving.'

'How much?'

'Enough.'

Tal waited. He had bought too many animals from her to be hurried by that particular tone.

'Three litres,' Mara said.

'And what does she eat?'

'Less than you do.'

'I'm not charging you to keep me.'

He went out into the yard, where the youngest cow sniffed his sleeve. He let her finish. Then he explained the offer again, directing it to Mara. Six cows and the plant, less the cost of dismantling it. The bull would go separately, to the lower market. Tal had a buyer who would take him for meat. Red could stay with Mara or follow later if she came down. He would not leave an employee here waiting for her to settle, and he could not carry her in active lift. He had two other collections before the road closed for the migration winds.

Nessa calculated the reduced sum. It still worked, if they left the freezer and used the small removal van. She began to say this, but her mother turned away.

'I'll make tea.'

'I can't stay,' Tal said.

'All right.'

Mara went into the house. Tal and Nessa stood among the cows, which had begun to crowd them in the hope of food.

'I'm not trying to force her,' he said.

'I know.'

'I can cancel. No charge.'

'It's one cow.' Nessa heard how that sounded and looked towards the shed. 'We can sort one cow out.'

'I'd like you to. That beam won't hold another season.'

He took out his keys. The youngest cow attempted to eat the cord. He disentangled it without pulling at her mouth, and Nessa wished for a second that he had done something less considerate. She could have used it in the kitchen.

The drum that controlled Red's tether had a ratchet wheel and a removable handle. Nessa found the handle behind the feed bin, exactly where it had been when she was a teenager and everything had a place because she was the one who put it back.

She remembered an animal in first lift as almost weightless, easy to roll if the cradle hung unevenly. Red's right strap was shorter than the left. That had to be why her shoulder was pressing into the roof.

Mara had gone to close the grazing gates. Nessa set the handle in the drum and took up a little line on the left. The cow swung towards her. She tightened another notch.

Red kicked. The ratchet rang against its pawl. All four hooves moved now, rigid little strokes which achieved nothing. A sound came out of her that Nessa felt against her teeth.

'Hold, girl.'

She reached for the release, but the weight was on it. The handle pulled out of her palm. Its end struck her forearm, and she clamped both hands round it before it could spin. Red's breathing had become a series of wet clicks. A pink line appeared along the pale ridge on her breast.

Her mother came in at a run.

'Leave that side. Give me the handle.'

'I'm trying to let it—'

'Give it.'

Nessa held until Mara had both hands in place. Then she stood back. Her arm was numb from the elbow down.

'Get the blue packing roll.'

There were two rolls beside the wall: one blue and one faded almost white. Nessa brought the blue one. Mara eased the drum by a quarter-turn, braced the handle against her hip and told her where to fold the padding. The breast strap lifted a fraction from the cow. Nessa pushed the folded material beneath it, feeling the hot skin, the ridge, the stickiness of the fresh split. She could not stop seeing the new pink line.

Red made the sound again, weaker. Outside, the bull answered.

It began too low for Nessa to hear properly. A vibration passed through the handle in Mara's hands. Red moved her head towards the yard. Her feet stopped thrashing. The next breath was slow enough to count.

'Now the left,' Mara said.

They worked the cradle straight. Mara left the shorter strap alone and gave line to the other until Red had settled against a broad patch of roof, her legs dangling in the shadow below it. The sheets bowed but did not lift further.

Mara lowered the handle. Her face was wet. She took Nessa's wrist and turned it over to look at the swelling.

'Can you move your fingers?'

Nessa showed her.

'You remembered how the drum works,' her mother said. 'You didn't look at the cow.'

'I thought she was crooked.'

'She is. That side hurts. She leans away from it.'

Nessa pulled her wrist back. 'You could have told me.'

'You could have asked.'

Mara wiped the breast wound with warm water from the milking pail. Nessa fetched another cloth before she could be told. The house behind them had turned dark. They had both forgotten supper.

When the cleaning was done, her mother put the cloths in the pail and sat down on the stool. Nessa expected another instruction. Instead Mara leaned sideways, pressed her cheek against Red's belly and shut her eyes.

Nessa stood beside them with the empty tin of yellow paste in her hand. It was the same tin, even now. The contents had hardened into something no finger could lift.

They ate bread and cheese at the table. Mara cut an orange with the bread knife, which made Nessa think of all the elaborate meals she had imagined cooking for her in the flat.

'You don't have to take that place,' she said.

'Good.'

'I mean it.'

'I'll look. I said I'd look.'

A spoon rattled softly on its saucer. The bull was calling again. Nessa could hear him now that the yard was quiet, a note with a rough catch in its centre, followed by a cleaner, higher one. Red answered from the shed. The reply set the window's loose pane humming.

'He used to do that before they went,' Nessa said.

'He still does.'

Before the new grazing leases, before the milk contract, they had let the herd rise in spring. Nessa remembered lying on the kitchen roof with a blanket under her and watching eight or nine dark bodies draw together above the yard. Their horns touched. The calves took the inside positions. Brindle, younger and almost black, would turn his head to the west and the whole knot of animals would tilt. By afternoon there would be nothing above the house but the washing, and the high terraces would receive them for another year.

There had been less milk then. There had also been her father, who could spend a fortnight away looking for the herd if it failed to return. Now he lived in the lower valley, where he drove a school bus and phoned Mara about the weather. He never asked about the cattle. Nessa had once mistaken that for tact.

'What happened to his leg?' she asked.

Mara put the knife down.

'I know it was hurt. Was it properly broken?'

'A strained joint. Bad for a month.'

'And after that?'

The bull's higher note wavered through the glass. Her mother looked at the orange on her plate. Juice had run into the rind's small cups.

'He couldn't make the terraces that year. We weighted his cradle. The others stayed.'

'That year.'

'You know what the milk contract paid.'

Nessa did. She had seen the money arrive in the farm account, seen her own college fees leave it. She remembered being pleased that somebody had finally paid them properly for something.

'Could he go now?'

'With the others. If they took him.'

'But you kept the weights on.'

'I took care of them.' Mara spoke quietly enough that Nessa had to lean forward. 'I didn't keep them hanging from a fence post. I put up shelters. I grew feed. I got up when they were sick.'

'I'm not saying you didn't.'

'You're saying it costs you nothing now to tell me what I should have done.'

Nessa pressed the edge of her thumbnail into a soft spot on the table. Under the wood, the bull's call reached her knees.

She wanted her mother to have said she was sorry. She wanted that simple thing so strongly that for a moment the whole farm seemed arranged to prevent it: the cow in the roof, the oranges, her fees, the repaired boots. She had come to sell the place and move her mother somewhere she could visit after work. Instead she had arrived with a price for six cows and a flat Mara had not seen.

'You should have told me the leg healed,' she said.

'Yes.'

Nessa looked up.

Mara was peeling the orange away from its skin with the point of the knife. She put half on Nessa's plate.

Outside, a tether ring struck the bull shelter's wall. Once, then three times rapidly. Both women stood.

The younger cows had begun to lift.

Their hooves still touched the yard, but the toes rose each time they breathed in. The youngest bent her knees and straightened them with the stiff delight of a calf learning to jump. Her tether drew a furrow through the dust. West of the house a band of low cloud was gathering, with little torn pieces running in front of it.

Mara went to the bull. He had shifted off his platform; the cradle under his hindquarters carried him clear of the ground. Eight iron plates hung from its side brackets, four on each side. Nessa had painted those plates white once, on a Saturday when she had wanted to go swimming. The paint was gone from the edges now.

At the shed, two screws sprang out of the roof in quick succession. They fell into the yard with small bright clicks. Red was no longer simply lying against the sheets. She had turned her head and was trying to follow the bull's call. The sideways movement dragged the roof off its frame.

Mara stopped beside the shelter.

'The quarry,' she said.

Nessa looked at the cloud band. The old quarry lay a kilometre beyond the grazing gates. Her father had launched the herd there in windy years: a long pale bowl with high walls to the north and south, open to the west. You could wait below the wind and let a herd gather itself before it rose into the current. You could also spend a week carrying an injured animal back up the road if things went wrong.

'We'll have to take him,' Nessa said.

'Yes.'

'And the six.'

Mara nodded. 'He won't go without them. Red won't settle if they go ahead.'

Nessa took out her phone. It was past ten. Tal answered on the fifth ring, with a television too loud behind him.

She explained the roof and the quarry. She asked if he could collect next week, from the high terraces, after they had let the animals settle.

'If they come back, call me,' he said. 'I'll give you a price then. I can't buy a herd I can't see.'

'So tomorrow's cancelled.'

'Yes. I'm sorry.'

'It's all right.'

It was not all right, and she was glad he did not agree with her. He asked after Mara, then hung up.

Her mother had gone back to the shed. Nessa found her looking along the ground beam at the milking lines, the old cooling tank, the hooks where the cups hung. She was counting something silently.

'He won't hold the price,' Nessa said.

'He shouldn't.'

'We could take the six tomorrow. Let Red go alone from the quarry. Keep him here until—'

'No.'

'I need to say it.'

'All right.'

Nessa waited. She had expected an argument. Beyond the open door, one of the younger cows rubbed her horns along another's neck. They rose a few centimetres together, a single easy movement, then touched down again.

'If this doesn't work, I can't keep paying for it,' she said. 'I've got my own rent. I've just bought a new sewing machine. I can't move back.'

'I didn't ask you to.'

'You don't always ask.'

Her mother took that. She had a hand on the cooling tank; the fingers were spread against its steel side.

'I need you tonight,' she said. 'And tomorrow. Then we'll see what there is.'

Nessa put the phone away. She went to the wall and took down the heavy canvas travelling slings. The highest hook was still too high for her. She had to stand on the milking stool.

By two in the morning the yard was full of ropes.

Nessa had brought the little farm truck to the shed doors and backed the low sled behind it. It had been built for moving water tanks; the runners were wide, its deck barely above the ground. The tether drum sat bolted to its forward crosspiece. They transferred Red to it a hand's breadth at a time, keeping the line through the shed drum until the sled had taken the pull. Before they took the shed line off, Mara checked the travelling buckle at Red's shoulder. She pulled its long release tail with the hook, opening it while the shed cradle still held the cow. Nessa refastened it, tugged it hard and laid the tail clear of the tether. Then they unfastened the shed cradle and let Red rise clear in the travelling sling.

For the first time since Nessa's arrival, Red had sky above her. She gave a great wrench of her head. The sled struck the truck's tow hook with a clang.

'Easy,' Mara said, to nobody in particular.

Nessa had expected the difficult part to be the cow. The bull proved worse. They could not remove his plates in the yard; he would rise against the shelter, dragging the six with him. They eased him onto the sled with the weights still in place. His legs stretched down until his front hooves found the deck. Behind him the plates clinked in their brackets. Red hung above and a little to his left, tethered to the sled drum. She turned her head until the tip of one horn touched his. Her breathing eased.

Mara fed each cow's line through a separate sliding ring on the long hauling rope. They would travel close enough to take support from one another, but not so close that a frightened animal could roll the whole herd. Nessa remembered this arrangement. She had used to walk behind, untangling the outer lines with a long hook. Now she put the hook in the cab, where it stuck out of the passenger window like an absurd aerial.

They made tea. Her mother put on another jersey. Nessa wrapped a strip of clean rag round her bruised forearm because the rope fibres caught on its swelling. Neither commented on the other's hands.

At three they left.

The road was pale enough to follow without headlights, but Nessa switched them on for Mara, who walked ahead with a feed bucket. The six cows shuffled and bounced after it. Red sailed above the sled. Brindle stood below her with his head twisted up, his horn maintaining contact whenever the ruts allowed. The truck's back wheels felt unnaturally light. Nessa kept it in first gear.

Beyond the gate the land opened. She had forgotten the smell of the plateau at night, dust cooling between the dry grass roots, the mineral breath of the quarry long before they reached it. The window frame tapped gently against the cattle hook. Once, from the edge of the lights, she saw a small animal lift its head and drop out of sight. Everything out here had something to do without them.

At the first bend the youngest cow took fright at the sled's shadow and pulled across the road. Her sliding ring ran up to the one beside it. Two cows bumped shoulders; all six swung outward, and the truck lurched towards the verge.

Nessa braked. The sled came forward. She heard Brindle's hoof scrape the deck, heard her mother shout once.

Then nothing moved.

'Ma?'

'Keep the brake on.'

'I am.'

She could see only the feed bucket, lying on its side beyond the lights. Her mother had gone out of view.

Nessa gripped the wheel. The whole load pulled at the truck, steady as water against a dam wall. If she got out, she could put stones behind the wheels. If she left the brake, the truck might move before she reached the ground. She put it in gear, set the handbrake hard and eased her foot off a fraction. The handbrake held. She pressed the pedal again.

A cow appeared in the windscreen, her dark eye close to the glass. Mara came beside her with the long hook; she had taken it from the cab while Nessa was watching the bucket. She pushed the nearest sliding ring along the rope, giving the animals room to separate. The cow drifted out of the light. Gradually the pull on the wheel changed direction.

'Forward a little,' Mara said.

Nessa let the truck creep. Brindle regained his footing. Red lowered her head to his again, and the rattling plates quietened.

Her mother picked up the bucket and came to the window. Dust covered one side of her jersey. She had landed on her knee, she said. It worked. She would like to get to the quarry before they made a topic of it.

'You shouldn't be walking ahead.'

'Nobody else is going to.'

'I could. You drive.'

Mara looked at the wheel, then at the animals. She handed Nessa the bucket.

'Keep the young one on the inside at the next bend. Don't let her see down the slope.'

They changed places. Walking in front of the truck, Nessa heard what she had missed from the cab: eight separate breaths, the soft rub of hides, a low answering note passing between the cows. The oldest sound in her childhood had been this herd getting ready to leave. She had never heard it from so close to their heads.

In the quarry the wind passed above them, making a hollow rushing sound over the lip. Loose stones lay along the track in fans. Mara drove the truck onto a flat patch by the western opening and turned it to face back towards the road, leaving the sled and the herd behind it. If the animals rose straight, the ropes would run clear.

They had tied the hauling rope to the buried launch beam before bringing the sled into position. Nessa found its iron eye under a mat of grass and worked the knot tight. The beam had not been used for seven years; a little worm came out of the loosened earth beside it and began, with energetic displeasure, to find somewhere else.

By the time she stood up the six cows were no longer touching the ground. They hung together at the ends of their slings, higher on one side where the youngest had edged under her neighbour. Red had come down towards the bull. Her breast strap was dry at its lower edge but dark where the wound lay. She tried to bring her feet together beneath her. One hoof scraped the bull's flank.

Mara went between them with the bucket. Red turned towards the familiar sound of feed. Brindle lifted his muzzle. They stood suspended, one above the other, their horns crossed.

Nessa could see a long pale strip of sky through the quarry opening. Another herd passed there, distant as seeds, all its animals leaning west. A calf had tucked its legs tight beneath its belly. She followed it until the quarry wall hid it.

'We can take the weights now,' her mother said.

The plates slotted into brackets on the bull's cradle. They handled the first one together, keeping its edge clear of the bull's ribs. Nessa took its lower edge while Mara lifted the handle. They slid it down, carried it away from the ropes and put it flat on the ground.

The bull rose a little. His forefeet left the sled. Red's horn slipped off his; he twisted his neck until he found her again.

They removed a plate from the other side, then another pair. Each time the animal's hindquarters came higher and his forelegs bent more comfortably under him. With four plates left he was nearly level. Nessa had not seen him like that since she was at school.

Her mother stroked his forehead, between the horns. He closed his eyes against the touch.

'We should have brought his brush,' Mara said.

Nessa was about to tell her it didn't matter. Instead she waited until her mother stepped back.

They removed the next two plates. A new note entered the quarry, deeper than the earlier calls. It moved through Nessa's ribs. The six cows drew closer together; Red lifted her head and pushed her horn along the bull's. His cradle pulled taut. Only the final pair of plates held his hindquarters below her.

Then the wind reached them.

It came through the western opening in a hard shallow gust. The cows swung towards the quarry wall. The sliding rings bunched. Nessa heard the hauling rope creak against the launch eye, and above it Red's strained breathing, back to the wet clicks.

Mara grabbed the nearest cow's sling to keep her from turning. The movement pulled her off her feet. Her boots struck the ground once; then she was hanging from both hands.

'Let go,' Nessa shouted.

Mara dropped. She rolled clear as the cows came back, their joined pull lifting one runner of the sled. Brindle's remaining plates tipped towards her. She scrambled backwards, hands open in front of her face.

The runner fell. A bolt snapped from the forward crosspiece. The drum twisted on its mounting and Red rolled away from the bull, her tether dragged short by the tilted frame.

Nessa reached the handle. She could not turn it. The cow pulled diagonally against the jammed spindle; trying to ease the rope only pressed its coils into one another. The next gust would swing Red against the quarry wall, with her breast still taking the whole force.

'The plates,' Mara said. She was on her knees beside the bull. 'Get the other one. Together.'

Nessa left the drum. Her mother had hold of the nearer plate. On the far side Nessa found the second handle, gripped it with both hands and lifted.

For a moment it would not move. The bull's cradle had twisted; the bracket pinched the plate along one edge. She could see Mara waiting opposite her, unable to set hers down or take it away until Nessa moved. Red's head was out of reach now. Brindle stretched his neck after her, his lower lip drawn back from his teeth.

Nessa pushed the plate upwards instead of pulling it down. The edge cleared. She felt it come loose and shouted.

They drew the plates out together.

Brindle rose so quickly that the empty cradle struck the underside of Red's. His horns found hers. The cow stopped rolling. The six lifted with them, their lines drawing close. The sled reared against the tow hook, held down by the truck, and the hauling rope dragged at the launch eye.

A crack ran along the launch beam below the ground.

Nessa saw a strip of earth rise beside the eye. If the beam pulled out, the six would go with it, dragging their long rope and a splintered length of wood through the quarry. Red would still be fastened to the sled. Brindle was caught between them, turning his head from one side to the other.

She had the rope knife in her belt. She knelt at the eye and laid the blade against the loaded rope. Above her the cows had come level with the quarry lip. Their hooves pointed towards the opening.

'Red first,' she called.

Mara was already reaching for the sling's release tail. The end lifted out of her reach. She ran to the truck and pulled the hook from the cab. A cow's call filled the quarry, so loud Nessa felt her jaw closing. Her mother turned back with the long pole in both hands.

Nessa pressed the knife against the rope without cutting. Mara passed the hook beneath the sled frame, lifted it towards Red's shoulder and missed. The rope drew tight across Nessa's blade. A few surface fibres opened. She eased the knife away.

Her mother tried again. The pole shook; she had to rest its shaft against the sled and slide it along, keeping the hook inside the loop of the dangling tail. Nessa watched its tip, the bright little curve beyond Mara's hands. She could not see the cow's breathing from here. She could see the breast strap sinking into the old scar.

The iron eye moved towards her.

'Ma.'

Mara pulled the hook down. The release tail came with it. For a moment the buckle held, pinched under the load, and Mara bent so far backwards that Nessa thought she would fall. Then the sling opened. Red surged upward against the bull and the sled struck the ground.

'Now,' Mara shouted.

Nessa cut. The first stroke opened the rope's dry core. She moved her face aside and kept the blade low. On the third stroke it parted.

The free end whipped through the eye. A shower of dirt struck her shoulder. Above her the six spread apart, then closed again around the bull. The hauling rope trailed down, lifted clear of the quarry wall and followed them through the opening.

The herd rose clear.

They climbed above the quarry, seven cows and the bull, the cows trailing their slings except Red, whose bare flank caught the first light. Brindle turned towards the west. The others shifted round him, slowly at first, giving him the centre. Red remained close enough for their horns to touch. Then they leaned together and the wind took them out of the opening.

Nessa ran up the slope for another look. By the time she reached the lip they were a dark cluster above the lower terraces. One animal kicked, changing position. She could no longer tell which one it was.

Behind her, her mother was sitting on an iron plate.

They drove back with the broken sled tied across the truck bed. Mara sat in the passenger seat with both hands around a cup of cold tea. At the gate Nessa stopped, got out and opened it. There were no cattle waiting to push past her.

The milking shed looked smaller without Red in it. The roof had kept its hump. Nessa put the drum handle on the feed bin, then moved it to its proper hook.

Mara phoned Tal while Nessa washed the pails. She said all eight had gone. No, she did not know when they would be back. Yes, he could take the cooling tank if he still wanted it, but she would wait until she had cleaned it before they discussed a price. Nessa heard the effort in that last sentence.

At the kitchen table they counted what was owed. It took two pages. The tank and the freezer would pay the feed account if Tal's offer held. The truck could cover the last lease instalment. After that there were the household things, the flat neither of them had seen. Mara wanted to phone a cousin first. She might rent a room for a month and decide from there.

'I leave on Tuesday,' Nessa said.

'I know.'

'I can come up next Sunday. For the tank.'

'It'll need two people.'

'I'll bring someone.'

Mara nodded. She added a line to the second page, crossing out a figure before writing a smaller one. There were days of work here, weeks of it. Nessa felt their old weight coming towards her, then watched her mother draw a box around the jobs for Monday.

'We'll do those,' Mara said. 'The rest can wait till I've phoned.'

They ate the remaining oranges. Her mother pushed the bag across the table and Nessa took two for the journey, though she was not leaving yet.

Late that morning Mara fell asleep in the kitchen chair. Nessa eased the boots off her mother's feet without waking her. She put them by the door, side by side, and went outside to bring the washing in before the wind got it.