Shit, Barney, stop thinking about the girl and call her. Go on. Just do it. Lay the ghost if nothing else. Go and… Damn. He’d left his phone on his desk. He never did that, ever. Better go and get it. He-

“Barney! Hi! Lovely to see you. You know Sasha, don’t you? Yes, I thought you did. Sasha’s got the most incredible new job, out in Dubai. How are you, you old bastard? Come and tell us what you’ve been up to.”

The phone would have to wait.

She’d written the text; she just hadn’t sent it. She’d do that bit later. When she’d got her courage up.

She’d written it on the bus: Hi, Barney. How are you? I was thinking about you and wondering if we could meet sometime. Just for a chat. Call me if you have a minute. Emma.

She’d added two kisses and then taken them off again about six times. At the moment they were there.

Her phone rang sharply; she jumped. Had she sent it already, by mistake; was he ringing her…? Don’t be ridiculous, Emma; you’re getting Alzheimer’s.

“Emma? It’s Mark… Listen, we’re in a different place, not the Indian; it’s a Thai, just by the big shopping arcade; that OK? Got a pen…?

Emma scribbled down the address and went back to looking at her text. And deleting and reinstating the kisses.

This was good. She was in really good time. She’d even been able to put her car through the car wash. That would amuse William; he didn’t believe in cleaning cars. He treated his cars like shit. Not like his tractors. He tended them as carefully as if they were his animals. One of his cows. One of his girls.

It was a funny thing, their relationship. Everyone was baffled by it; she could see that. Even Sylvie, who was always going on about how fit William was.

“You can’t marry him, Abi,” she’d said. “You don’t have anything in common. What are you going to do in the evenings, talk to the sheep or something?”

As long as it was in the lambing shed, Abi thought, that’d be fine. She really couldn’t see the problem with having nothing in common with William. It made life more interesting. Anyway, they did. They found the same things funny; they liked the same people… She even liked his farming friends, and they certainly seemed to like her, and he loved people like Georgia… And actually she did find the farming genuinely interesting. The pattern of it intrigued her, the progress through the year, the hatching and dispatching of animals, as William called it, the way it all worked: stuff was planted and grew and was harvested and then you started all over again, and it was all rather… neat. Neat and satisfying.

She was not particularly fastidious; she didn’t mind the mess and the smells-except perhaps the silage; that was quite gross-and she genuinely liked the animals. Especially the cows. They were so sweet, with their big, curious faces and kindly eyes, their swinging walk. She had seen a calf born a couple of weeks earlier, and she had found it wonderful; this little thing slithering out, wet and curly and a bit bewildered, and the mother’s great tongue licking it, and the hot, sweet, strong smell. William said it wasn’t always like that; they often didn’t slither out; they had to be hauled, brutally; she’d been lucky. He’d promised her a night in the lambing shed when the lambs were born: “You’ll like that; it’s such chaos, and so noisy. They come out one after the other; it’s like a sort of conveyor belt; you’ve hardly delivered one, or rather a set, when there’s another one on the go. And they just come out, stagger up on their little legs, make for the milk, and-Don’t look at me like that; there’ll be no time for us to do anything. Together, that is. You’ll have too much to do. You won’t be able to just watch.”

She was impressed by the rams’ performances: “One ram to fifty ewes, thereabouts.”

“Not even you could manage that, William, could you?” she said.

And, “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Over a few days, you’d be surprised.”

They had discussed the matter of children; they both liked children, wanted several.

“But not yet. I want to get my company up and running first.”

“That’s fine. I can wait. Although not too long; you’re marrying an old man, don’t forget.”

She did forget how old he was: ten years more than her. It was quite a lot.

He was completely relaxed about her working; he said it was what made her interesting; he didn’t want her hanging about, bored.

“You can carry on working when we have kids, if you like. It’s fine by me. Just don’t expect any help, all right? Farmers are not new men.”

Abi said she wasn’t too keen on new men; they always seemed a bit suspect to her.

“All that wanting to breast-feed their own babies. Yuck!”

“Sherry, Abi?”

She was doing it on purpose, Abi thought. She must know that nobody young drank sherry. She’d hardly ever tasted it; she seemed to remember it was absolutely filthy.

Mrs. Grainger had done a double take when Abi had walked in; her disguise as well-bred, well-brought-up girl had certainly worked.

“How nice to see you,” she said. “William, take Miss Scott’s coat.”

“Please call me Abi,” she said, thinking how bizarre it was to be addressed as Miss Scott by a woman who had seen her pubes. Twice.

And, “Very well… Abi,” Mrs. Grainger had said. Mr. Grainger had pumped her hand vigorously and told her it was jolly good to see her; he was a bit of a sweetheart, she’d decided, definitely where William got his charm from.

“Now, I do hope you don’t mind,” said Mrs. Grainger, “if we eat in the kitchen. It’s just scruffy supper, as I’m sure William will have told you.” What was scruffy supper, for God’s sake? “Do forgive me, but I’ve been so busy this week. But let’s go through to the drawing room and have a drink.”

The drawing room was the room where Abi had sat that first day after the crash, waiting for William. It looked rather better, as William had lit a fire in the huge fireplace, but struggle as it did, the fire wasn’t making much of a job of heating the room. She made for the chair nearest to it, then drew back, fearing that was not what posh people did. They were used to the cold; for some reason central heating seemed to be regarded-by the older generation, at any rate-as a bit common. Well, cottage number one was going to be dead common; she’d make sure of that.

“Well, congratulations to you both,” said Mr. Grainger. “Jolly well done.” He smiled, and she could have sworn winked at her; she presumed he’d heard about the encounters between her and Mrs. Grainger.

“Yes, it’s very… nice,” said Mrs. Grainger. Nice was clearly the best she could do, but she was definitely trying.

“Any idea when you’ll be actually tying the knot?” said Mr. Grainger. “William’s been a bit vague about it.”

“Oh… we’re both pretty vague, I think,” said Abi. “Probably when William’s not too busy.”

“I’m afraid there’s no such time,” said Mrs. Grainger. “Farming is a nonstop process, as you will discover.”

“Um… yes.” She looked at William for help. He smiled at her rather foolishly.

“We don’t want to leave it too long, actually,” he said. “I can’t wait to have Abi here instead of miles down the road.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mrs. Grainger. “Now, I don’t know if William has told you, Abi, but we are proposing you have one of the cottages to live in.”

“Yes. Yes, he did; it sounds coo-wonderful. Thank you.”

“I hope you’ll be comfortable there. Of course, we’ve had to take it out of the brochures. We have families who come back year after year. They’ll be quite distressed, I imagine, to find that their holiday home is no longer available.”