At the foot of the hill I could see the village. My village. The village my mama had known. I saw it through my eyes, I saw it through her eyes. I saw it as I had dreamed it for one longing dream after another. I knew that it was my home. I had been coming towards it all of my life, for all of my life. I had loved it and missed it and needed it, and now I was coming into the very heart of it.

I breathed in a deep gasp of the wind which was blowing softly across the top of the Downs. I wanted to belong here. I wanted this place. Even though I knew it was too late for me, I longed for it as a man might long for a woman who left him long, long, ago.

Will’s horse came up behind me and he pulled it up. ‘That’s our land, beyond the village: that’s Wideacre Common land up as far as you can see north,’ he said, pointing with his whip. ‘To the west that is the Havering estate. These Downs are Wideacre estate too, twenty miles going north, ten miles to the west. Then it’s Havering land again. All of this valley is Wideacre land.’

I breathed in the smell of it, you could almost taste the chalk in the soil. The grass was fine as hair and short-cropped, studded with flowers and in the hollows there were great clumps of violets and the pale yellow of primroses.

‘Gets thick with cowslips later on,’ Will said, following my gaze. ‘We come up and pick them to make cowslip wine. We come up here on Mayday morning too. You’d like that. We come up and watch the sun rise.’

I nodded my head, not speaking. I had a distant memory of a dream of standing looking towards Acre and seeing the sun come up pale and pink on a May morning.

‘It is as I always thought it would be,’ I said speaking half to myself. ‘I have dreamed and dreamed of this place ever since I can remember. I have wanted to be here all my life.’

Will brought his horse closer alongside Sea and put his calloused hand over mine as I held the reins. I flinched at the touch and Sea stepped to one side.