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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

‘Anyway, we’re thinking about Christmas now,’ he says, ‘and I’ve been wondering what to get the lad. Thanks to you he’s very taken with the idea of bees, so I thought I might get him one of those outfits, you know, the white overalls and the mask.’

Helen laughs.

‘A bee-suit. That’s a very good idea.’

‘It is if you’d agree to tutor him a bit before we get a hive. Bees are well outside my remit. Would you take him under your wing, Helen, show him the ropes?’

‘It’d be my pleasure,’ says Helen.

‘And where would I get one of these bee-suits? I don’t suppose you’ve one to fit him?’

‘’Fraid not. But you could get one off the internet.’

Jack waves a dismissive hand.

‘We don’t have anything to do with technology at our house. Dora and I, we’re . . . At least, I’m too old a dog to learn that new trick. I could ask Matt, I suppose.’

‘Would you like me to get one for you?’

Jack smiles.

‘Mrs Trewitt, you’re a godsend. If you wouldn’t mind, that would be champion. I’ll leave you some cash to pay for it.’

Helen laughs.

‘Pay me when it arrives. And would you like me to wrap it for you?’

Jack smiles again.

‘You read my mind. Dora always did all the wrapping and labelling. To be honest, I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘You’re an old dinosaur, the same as Andrew,’ says Helen. ‘He can lamb two hundred ewes, but reckons he couldn’t wrap a box of chocolates.’

‘It’s the male temperament.’

‘It’s laziness. But under the circumstances, you deserve a break. I’ll give you a ring when it arrives.’

Jack finds the going easier on the way back down, but still takes it steady. In this direction, the view’s spread before him, familiar yet unique in its changeability. Isn’t that what Dora used to say, never the same view twice? And it’s true: the light, the colours, the sky mean that though there are constants in the land and its features – the walls, the valleys, the track-ways – everything else is always changing, an eternal dance of infinite variety.

Close to the gate, he looks across the valley towards the gritstone edge at Ainsclough Top. It’s a bleak spot from here, a castle on its hill, a bastion as he described it to Evan, and he wonders about him and how he’s getting on. Then he thinks how empty the house will feel when he arrives back there, how there’ll be no one in the kitchen to make him a cup of tea or hear how he got on with Helen.