She reached the road and had to skid to a stop to avoid a car speeding by. It looked unnaturally fast and shiny, as if she’d crossed from one reality to another. She bent over with her hands on her knees, to catch her breath, adrenaline fizzing. She had trespassed. She couldn’t wait to tell Dan. She reached for her phone – and then began to laugh.

Alex was in the garden pulling a petrol mower out of the barn. He was incredulous and amused.

‘I can’t believe you went round the Swiss-Germans’.’

‘The who?’ said Dan.

Alex shook the mower, bending over it to listen. ‘The Swiss-Germans. German-Swiss. Whatever. Our neighbours.’

‘Why would they come here, if they were leaving Switzerland?’ asked Bea. ‘Why didn’t they go to Germany, if they’re German-Swiss?’

‘I don’t know, Bea.’ He went to fetch a petrol can from the barn. ‘I hardly see them. They’re a family. Or a cult.’

‘Cult,’ said Dan. ‘Got to be. Who converts their barn into a chapel?’

‘Right,’ said Alex. He knelt to unscrew the rusted cap on the mower tank. ‘Very weird.’

‘It wasn’t converted,’ said Bea, ‘they were just praying in it.’

‘Like you do,’ said Dan. ‘Just “praying in the barn”.’

Alex laughed. He couldn’t undo the petrol cap. Unable to resist, Dan went to help him. They struggled with it. Alex fetched a rag and a spanner.

‘So I was thinking,’ Bea said to Dan, ‘what if we get rid of our phones?’

‘What?’ said Dan, not looking up. ‘What for?’

‘We rely on them.’

‘Exactly.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean too much.’

‘Babe, we need to make calls and look shit up.’

The cap came loose and he removed it and Alex began to pour the petrol into the hole.

‘Do we really need them, though?’ said Bea, to his back.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, what if I got rid of mine?’ said Bea.

‘That’s nuts,’ said Dan. ‘What if we lose each other? What if we need to get in touch?’

‘I can get one that just makes calls and texts. They still make those don’t they?’

‘Yes, they’re made of wool, I think,’ said Alex.

‘Yeah,’ said Dan. ‘Like socks, with aerials.’

He tightened the petrol cap and stood back for Alex to start it up.

‘Result!’ Alex shouted over the roar, and began cutting the grass.

Dan turned to Bea and smiled.

‘This is more like it,’ he said. The sun was out. He had made something work. It was enough.

There wasn’t anything else that needed doing, so they lay down on the grass by a flower bed. They held hands.

‘Holiday,’ said Dan, but his voice was drowned by the mower storming towards them through the tangled grass.

‘What?’ said Bea.

He rolled over, his lips brushing her ear. ‘What?’ he whispered.

She laughed. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered back.

‘Careful! I’ll mow you!’ shouted Alex, swerving jerkily around the tables.

They lay in the sun holding hands until the insulating roar stopped, and there was quiet.