“We all have to pitch in,” says our mother, which means that we are not to complain. We will have to do the best we can, she says. We will have to finish the house ourselves, because the man who was supposed to do it has gone bankrupt. Flown the coop, is how she puts it. Our father is not so cheerful. He paces around the house, peering and prodding at it, muttering to himself and making small whistling noises. “Son of a gun, son of a gun,” is what he says.

From somewhere in the depths of the car our mother unearths a primus stove, which she sets up on the kitchen floor, since there is no table. She begins to heat up some pea soup. My brother goes outside; I know he’s climbing up the mountain of dirt next door, or assessing the possibilities of the large hole in the ground, but I don’t have the heart to join him.

I wash my hands in the reddish water in the bathroom. There’s a crack in the sink, which at this moment seems a disaster, worse than any of the other flaws and absences. I look at my face in the dust-smeared mirror. There’s no shade on the light, just a bare bulb overhead, which makes my face look pallid and ill, with circles under the eyes. I rub my eyes; I know it would be wrong to be seen crying. Despite its rawness, the house feels too hot, maybe because I’m still wearing my outside clothes. I feel trapped. I want to be back in the motel, back on the road, in my old rootless life of impermanence and safety. The first nights we sleep on the floor, in our sleeping bags, on top of our air mattresses. Then some army surplus cots appear, canvas stretched across a metal frame smaller at the base than at the top, so that if you roll over in the night you tip off onto the floor and the cot falls on top of you.