Signs of the build were everywhere, in tools and wheelbarrows, voices, and sharp repetitive dings of hammer on chisel. Timber was stacked near the rock pile I had created beside the barn. Although it was a rock pile no longer. My neat and tidy arrangement had been flattened, the rocks scattered. I quelled my dismay, all my hard labour for nothing.
Mario and I had agreed on a pitched roof. In the searing heat and the dust and the wind, four men—I counted four—were at work repairing and capping the stone walls in preparation. I was ignored, but one of the men must have said something to Mario, because he looked around and seeing me standing by the side wall of the house, he came over.
"You did all this?" he said, not bothering with even a hello, waving a disparaging hand at my rock pile.
