The hens
The hens were fascinating to Susan; the pecking order, the way the cock found them grubs in the ground and called them over to eat, keeping them in a little flock as far as he could; their preening and fluffing and the dust-baths. She loved the orderliness of their lives, and their contentment was soothing.
One hen was her favourite; plump and self-satisfied, she kept her feathers gleaming, and laid an egg every day. She seemed to be the chief hen, always in the midst of things, and had an air of knowing best. Susan called her Biddy, after her favourite hen when she was a child and stayed with her grandfather.
When she was desolate with thought of the kids so far away, bored by her own company, ignored by the other wives, Susan would go and talk to Biddy who cocked her head to one side as if to listen, while scanning the ground for wriggly things.
When she went back to the house, Biddy would follow, squeezing her fluffy body between Susan's legs. She would follow indoors, examining the bungalow like a little middle-aged woman, her eyes sharp and her beak poking into everything.
Then one day Susan had an attack of malaria ...
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