Ben was given a room, with poor furniture in it — very different from the pleasant rooms he had been brought up in. He could eat as much as he wanted. He worked from daylight to dark, every day. He did know that he did most of the work, but not that without him the farm would collapse. This farm, or anything like it, would soon become impossible, when the European Commission issued its diktats, and its spy-eyes circled for ever overhead. The place was a scandal, and a waste of good land. People came tramping along the lane and through the farmyard, hoping to buy it — the telephone had been cut off, for non-payment — and they would be met by Mary, an angry old woman, who told them to go away, and slammed the door in their face.

When on the neighbouring farms they were asked about the

Grindlys, people tended to equivocate, siding with them against officialdom and the curious. If they lost the farm, what would happen to those poor derelicts, Ted and Matthew? They would find themselves in a Home, that's what. And Mary? No, let the poor things live out their time. And they had that chap there who'd come from somewhere, no one knew where, a kind of yeti he looked like, but he did the work well enough.

Once, when Ben had gone with Mary to the village to carry groceries back, he was stopped by a man who said to him, 'You're with the Grindlys, they say. Are they doing right by you?'

'What do you want?' asked Ben.

'What are they paying you? Not much if I know the Grindlys. I'll make it worth your while to come to me. I'm Tom Wandsworth — he repeated the name, and then again, '... and anyone around here will tell you how to get to my farm. Think about it.'

'What did he say?' Mary asked, and Ben told her.

Ben had never been given a pay-book, and terms and conditions of work had not been mentioned. Mary had given him a couple of quid when they went to the village so he could buy toothpaste, that kind of thing. She was impressed that he cared about his personal cleanliness, and liked his clothes neat.