She sat back and sighed, the noise and bustle of a busy Hunstanton café surrounding her. Dilys and Ernie, who’d leapt at the opportunity of grabbing a lift into ‘Hunny’, were running errands while Clancy emailed her parents to update them on the past weeks, though the remote village in Namibia where Brenda and Gerry Moss were working was almost as technology-deprived as Nelson’s Bar. There, all communications were via satellite and easily affected by weather.

Luckily, Clancy’s superpower had always been not needing parental support.

As she’d tried to make good her intention to throw herself into her new life, the week had sped by without her moving out of the village and into a signal or Wi-Fi area. She hadn’t liked to press Aaron about using his satellite broadband, especially when it wasn’t for Roundhouse Row matters. Instead, she’d readied the rentals for occupation, including mowing lawns and tidying borders, and found her feet with the paperwork side of her caretaking duties. She’d also cooked more than she’d had time for in London, and a couple of times invited Dilys and Ernie to share the results.

But now she felt guilty, especially when she thought of those texts from Asila and Tracey, which she’d ignored. She replied to Will quickly, noting his comments on financial arrangements. Then she began another message.

To: Asila Memon, Jon Montagu, Tracey Murland, William Martin

From: Clancy Moss

25 May

Just to let you know I’m OK. I didn’t deliberately blank your texts/emails but I’m staying somewhere that doesn’t have mobile signal or broadband.

She thought of the years they’d worked together from the first idea, which had been Monty’s, making enthusiastic plans over takeaways at kitchen tables, beginning with rented equipment in a tiny enterprise zone, building their client list and their reputation and eventually moving to the offices in Islington. Until Will got caught with his pants down she’d considered it her life. After reflecting on their years as friends as well as colleagues she added, Hope you’re all OK.

Then she began a new email.

To: Alice Nettles

From: Clancy Moss

25 May

Subject: Nelson’s Bar

Alice, just to update you:

Clancy spent twenty minutes explaining how she’d come to move into the Roundhouse.

Then she rounded off:

As I’ve been looking after things for you I didn’t think you’d object, but I thought I’d tell you I’m here. Are you still in the US? Are you having fun? Send me a lovely long catch-up. I haven’t even seen you on Insta lately.

It’s funny being in Nelson’s Bar without you, living in the Roundhouse where you used to live with Lee, but it’s a sweet village.

After adding love and kisses, she shut down and went off to stow her laptop in the car and shop for readymade curtains, thinking of Alice and wondering if her travelling days would ever end. Funny how they’d become the antithesis of each other. Alice had spent her early years in England but had developed itchy feet. Clancy, with travel-bug parents, had been relieved to come to the UK and put down roots, roots that had eventually come to mean Will and IsVid. She wondered what she’d find to replace them.