Ten minutes later I stop the truck and throw up the wretched thing into the fishscale grass by the side of the road. For a briefly heroic moment I wonder about racing back to rescue the children, striding into the classroom and scooping them into my arms amidst wistful cheers from their fellow students and possibly an uplifting soundtrack, but I do not do this. I cannot do this. I’ve toyed with the home schooling option, of course I have. There have been moments in the Walton Household, when the lights are switched out one by one, when I allow myself to picture Jack and Emmy at the table, dressed in cotton smocks, clutching samplers and reciting the three Rs while I colour our winter butter with carrots and drink sarsaparilla, but this is not an option. The flat truth is we’re broke, Robert and I, at least close to it. In the restaurant, Robert had pushed a piece of steak round his plate and tried not to cry. He was good at keeping balls in the air, he’d admitted, but all he’d really been doing for the past five years was juggling debt, and I knew then that I couldn’t leave him. It’s one thing kicking a man when he’s down, it’s another altogether to nail him to the floor. I might have had to settle for a more temporary escape but there is still only a finite amount of time, a finite amount of goodwill, and a very finite amount of money for this project. Credit a year of house rent while we’re here and Robert’s in Switzerland, credit school fees, credit not living in the most expensive city in the world, debit the living expenses in Temerosa and the loss of my meagre salary, still equals actual hard cash to renovate the town, to sell it on and justify my being here, giving it another name apart from self-indulgence or, scarier, trial separation. So yes, home schooling is out of the question and no, I’m not feeling good about it, but the changes in the children’s lives are incontrovertible, and when I’m feeling more rational and marginally less sick, I will attempt to reassure myself that this is no bad thing.