Nightfall is when the weight descends on her, so heavy she has to sit down to catch her breath.

Outside, the silence isn’t what she expected. It isn’t true silence. There is a distant rumble, like the sound of a motorway, although the closest one is regional and three kilometres away. She hears crickets, too, and barking, a car horn, a neighbour rounding up his livestock.

The sea was nicer, but also more expensive. Out of her reach.

And what if she’d held out a little longer, saved a little more?

She would rather not think. She closes her eyes, slowly sinks into the sofa, half her body hanging off, an unnatural position that will give her a cramp if she doesn’t move soon. She realizes this. She lies down as best she can. Dozes.

Better to not think, but the thoughts come and slide through her, intertwining. She tries to release them as soon as they appear, but they accumulate there, one thought on top of another. This effort, this drive to let them go as quickly as they come, is itself a thought too intense for her brain.

When she gets the dog, it will be easier.

When she organizes her things and sets up her desk and tidies the area around the house. When she waters and trims – everything is so dry, so neglected. When it cools down.

It will be much better when the weather cools.

The landlord lives in Petacas, a small town a fifteen-minute drive away. He turns up two hours later than they had agreed. Nat is sweeping the porch when she hears the Jeep. She looks up, squints. The man has parked at the entrance to the property, in the middle of the road, and comes over, shuffling his feet. It’s hot. It’s noon and already the heat is dry and unpleasant.

He doesn’t apologize for being late. He smiles, shaking his head. His lips are thin, his eyes sunken. His worn coverall is splattered with grease stains. It’s hard to guess his age. His decline has nothing to do with the years, but rather with his weary expression, the way he swings his arms and bends his knees as he walks. He stops before her, puts his hands on his hips, and looks around.

‘Already getting started, eh? How was your night?’

‘Fine. Mostly. Too many mosquitoes.’

‘You’ve got a gadget there in the dresser drawer. One of those repellent things.’

‘Yeah, but there wasn’t any liquid in it.’

‘Well, sorry, kid,’ he spreads his arms wide. ‘Life in the country, eh!’

Nat does not return his smile. A bead of sweat drips from her temple. She wipes it on the back of her hand and, in that gesture, finds the strength she needs to attack.

‘The bedroom window doesn’t close right and the bathroom tap leaks. Not to mention how dirty everything is. It’s a lot worse than I remember.’

The landlord’s smile goes cold, gradually disappearing from his face. His jaw tenses as he prepares to reply. Nat senses that he is a man prone to anger and she wishes she could backtrack. Arms crossed, the man contends that she visited the house and was perfectly aware of its condition. If she didn’t pay attention to the details, that’s her problem, not his. He reminds her that he came down – twice – on the price. And he tells her, lastly, that he will take care of all the necessary repairs himself. Nat isn’t sure that’s a good idea, but she doesn’t argue. Nodding, she wipes away another bead of sweat.

‘It’s so hot.’

‘You going to blame me for that, too?’

The man turns around and calls to the dog that has been scratching around in the dirt near the Jeep.

‘How’s this one?’

The dog hasn’t looked up since it arrived. Skittish, it sniffs the ground, tracking like a hound. It’s a long-legged, greyish mutt with an elongated snout and rough coat. Its penis is slightly erect.

‘Well, do you like him or not?’

Nat stutters.

‘I don’t know. Is he a good dog?’

‘Sure he’s a good dog. He won’t win any beauty contests, you can see that for yourself, but you don’t care about that, do you? Isn’t that what you said, that you didn’t care? He doesn’t have fleas or anything bad. He’s young, he’s healthy. And he doesn’t eat much, so you won’t have to worry about that. He’ll rummage. He takes care of himself.’

‘All right,’ Nat says.

They go inside the house, review the contract, sign – she, with a careless scribble; he, ceremoniously, pressing the pen firmly to the paper. The landlord has only brought one copy, which he tucks away, assuring her that he’ll get hers to her when he can. Doesn’t matter, Nat thinks, the contract has no validity whatsoever, even the listed price isn’t real. She doesn’t bring up the problem with the window or the bathroom tap again. Neither does he. He extends his hand theatrically, narrowing his eyes as he looks at her.

‘Better for us to get along, isn’t it.’

The dog doesn’t seem to notice when the man returns to the Jeep and starts the engine. He stays in the front yard, pacing and sniffing the dry dirt. Nat calls to him, clicks her tongue and whistles, but he shows no sign of obeying.

The landlord hasn’t told her the dog’s name. If it even has one.

If asked to explain why she was there, she’d be hard pressed to come up with a convincing answer. That’s why, when the moment arrives, she hedges and babbles about a change of scenery.

‘People must think you’re crazy, right?’

The cashier chews gum as she piles Nat’s shopping on the counter. It’s the only store within a few-mile radius, an establishment with no sign where foodstuffs and hygiene products accumulate in a jumble. Shopping there is expensive and the pickings are slim, but Nat is reluctant to take the car to Petacas. She rummages in her wallet and counts out the notes she needs.

The girl from the shop is in a chatty mood. Brazen, she asks Nat all about her life, making her uncomfortable. The girl wishes she could do what Nat’s done, but the opposite, she says. Move to Cárdenas, where stuff actually happens.

‘Living here sucks. There aren’t even any guys!’

She tells Nat that she used to go to high school in Petacas, but she quit. She doesn’t like studying, she’s crap at every subject. Now she helps out in the shop. Her mom gets chronic migraines, and her dad also manages the crops, so she helps out by taking care of things at the store. But as soon as she turns eighteen, she’s out of there. She could be a cashier in Cárdenas, or a nanny. She’s good with kids. The few kids who ever wind up in La Escapa, she adds with a smile.

‘This place sucks,’ she repeats.

It’s the girl who tells Nat about the people who live in the surrounding houses and farms. She tells her about the gypsy family squatting in a dilapidated farmhouse, right by the slip road to the motorway. A bus picks the kids up every morning; they’re the only kids who live in La Escapa year-round. And there’s the old couple in the yellow house. The woman is some kind of witch, the girl claims. She can predict the future and read your mind.

‘It’s creepy because she’s a little nuts,’ she laughs.

She tells Nat about the hippie in the wooden house, and the guy they call ‘The German’ even though he isn’t from Germany, and Gordo’s bar – although to call the warehouse where they serve bottles of beer a bar is, she admits, a bit overboard. There are other people who come and go according to the rhythms of the countryside, day-workers hired for two-week stints or for just the day, but also whole families who have inherited houses they can’t manage to sell and live somewhere else for half the year. But you never see women on their own. Not women Nat’s age, she specifies.

‘Old ladies don’t count.’

In the first days, Nat gets confused and mixes up all that information, in part because she listened absently, in part because she’s in unfamiliar territory. La Escapa’s borders are blurry, and even though there is a relatively compact cluster of small houses – right where hers is – other buildings are scattered further away, some inhabited and others not. From the outside, Nat can’t tell whether they are homes or barns, if there are people inside or just livestock. She loses her bearings on the dirt roads and if it weren’t for the shop as a point of reference – which sometimes feels more familiar to her than the house she has rented and has been sleeping in for a week – she’d feel lost. The area isn’t even pretty, though at sunset,...