But what he remembers vividly from that day is the nettle-eating sheep. Their pale, dead goats' eyes, mad, skewed horns and old men's hawking coughs. In his memory the sunburst fades. A veil of thick white rain fills on the dark sheep and greying fields. It patters on the elms as they whip and sway their branches to the fall.
Blackbirds sing sharply in the wet trees.
Everything looms and shivers above his head. This extract is copyright. No part of it may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without prior permission in writing from the publisher, Pan Macmillan.