It is early in the morning, and I am waiting to be picked up to play at the last of the summer festivals. Through the window I see my bandmate James’s car pull up. By the time he’s completed a three-point turn I am outside on the step, banjo in hand. “I just saw your enemy, the squirrel,” he says. “Where?” I say. “He was under your car, eating one of your tomatoes,” he says. “I almost got a picture on my phone, but he buggered off.” I look under the car, where the bottom half of a large tomato lies on its side, surrounded by tiny chewed and spat-out bits. The squirrel doesn’t even really eat the tomatoes; he just vandalises them. “I hate that guy,” I say, climbing into the passenger seat. “I know,” James says. “But your tomatoes are looking especially good.” “Yeah,” I say. The impressive harvest is, of course, an additional burden. If failure feels like a hobby, success feels like a full-time job. Last year I lost my entire tomato crop to blight, which was heartbreaking, but also a little emancipating. While I am away my wife starts posting on a WhatsApp group comprised of people we used to go on walks with during lockdown. She is agitating in support of a local walk the next day, followed by lunch somewhere. I watch on my phone as she loses control of the discussion. “I could see things weren’t going your way,” I say when I call her that evening after the gig. “Yes,” she says. “I played my hand badly.” “So now there is no walk,” I say. “No,” she says. “It’s just me making lunch for everyone.” “I’ll probably be back for that,” I say. “Great,” she says. “I mean, not in time to help,” I say. When I do arrive home late the next morning, I see telltale red flecks stretching from the gate to the corner, where the remains of a tomato of the plum variety have been squashed flat by a passing car. I find my wife in the kitchen, slicing tomatoes. “How’s it going?” I say. “I’m making a tomato salad, then a different tomato salad,” she says. “Can I help?” I say. “Have you got any more tomatoes?” she says. “Yeah, shitloads,” I say. I go out and pick another armful, and then retire to my hammock, exhausted by my early start. When the first guests arrive, my friend Alex finds me still lying there. I open one eye. “Your tomatoes are amazing!” he says, eating one. “What’s your secret?” “Global warming,” I say. “You’ve clearly got specialist skills,” he says. “Just punishing heat,” I say. “I’ve got aubergines growing over there.” “Fuck off,” he says. “I’ll show you,” I say. This is what it’s all about, I think, what all the effort boils down to: one fine day in late summer when people come round and are so impressed by your produce that they curse you for your success. They imagine you rolling out of bed and collecting a few ripe tomatoes for breakfast every morning. They don’t think about you chasing a squirrel down the street with a rake over your head. I show Alex the aubergines: a couple of yellowing plants reduced in the supermarket that grew strong and produced fat, marbled fruits thanks to a long, freakish spell of decidedly Neapolitan weather. It’s sort of ominous when you think about it, but today it’s about achieving what I now know is my life’s goal: attracting the fleeting envy of others. Later, when everyone is gone and I am standing in the rosy evening light surrounded by deep red tomatoes, I think about how brief this glorious moment will end up being. In a matter of weeks the weather will cool to the point where my tomatoes stop ripening. Others will split and rot before I manage to pick them. At some point in October, I will buy a tomato from a shop, and feel terrible. I am reminded of that town in Spain where, in late August, the citizens throw tomatoes at one other, until the pulp is piled high in the streets, and fire hoses are brought in to clear the debris. Maybe, I think, in celebration of this fleeting interval of plenty, I should allow my enemy the squirrel to drag a percentage of my crop into the road to be run over, just because. Then I think: not on my watch, you bastard.