16: Merely Homeless
VIGOROUS AND WAVING in the light breeze after the storm, the dark-green field of wheat struck Gees anew as a remarkably fine crop when, with Norris, he reached the inner end of the roadway to return to Cosham’s. He wished now that he had driven to Nightmare instead of walking. The exhaustion that he had felt and Perivale had evinced after the exorcism in Denlandham church was on him again, though perhaps in rather lesser degree than then: Norris beside him dragged wearily, too.
“You farmed well, here,” he remarked.
“I think I said to you once before, in farming you’ve got to give to get,” Norris answered as they began their walk along the sodden strip of may-blossom petals. “Got to pet and coax the land, just as you did with that cow of Cosham’s, and it’ll yield, giv
