It was never an arrival, exactly, more a slow accumulation of evidence. The rumours could be brushed aside at first – false hopes or plain untruths. But in the end the signs were there: innumerate, and impossible to ignore. Spring came not with the curlews, nor the wheatears, nor the skylarks. It came not with the daffodils, nor the primroses at the roadside. It came in the noticing of these things, in the acknowledgement of them, and the understanding, then, that another winter had passed. It came, always, late.
Mary sat in the garden, against the south-facing wall of the house, watching her husband. He was fifty yards away, at the end of their drive, and he too was watching. Beyond him, the sheep milled close to the fence, their…
