‘Whatever.’ Dylan stacked their plates and busied himself with the washing and drying ritual, giving the sink a scrub for good measure. He had never expected leaving to be so hard. Indeed, nothing about the visit had panned out as he had imagined. It was supposed to have been a stopgap, as well as a big fuck-you to his father for his total dickheadedness and the estrangement, so important supposedly, but not so that it ever got talked about. It was only because of their mum that he and Lily knew anything; but even then it was just snippets, to do with the drinking that cost him his doctor job, and the stressing-out of the granny they had never met to the point of her taking her own life. It was like some fascinating story about other people, and one that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the occasional short, friendly emails that had started arriving when his mum and dad had split up. The voice in the emails sounded like the total opposite of drunk, almost boringly so sometimes.

Tell Mum and Dad I’m in touch if you want to, but they’ll probably insist I stop.

He and Lily had talked it through, and agreed it was their right to accept his emails if they chose. He was their grandfather, after all; and all he wanted, he said, many times, was the chance to know a little bit about their lives, and then only if they felt like it and had the time. Dylan rarely wrote more than a line or two, mostly complaining about school and work, but he never seemed to mind. The injections of cash were more exciting. Because the government would only get it otherwise, the old man explained in the no-bullshit way that Dylan had come to know so well, and which had rung through the response to his first tentative enquiry about the possibility of coming to see the Clun valley for himself.

Yes. Any time. Ludlow Station. Let me know date & eta.

Time out had been the plan, but very quickly it had felt to Dylan more like time travel: stepping into a world where all the things that tore him apart, that he had grown to hate, ceased to exist. Suffocating parents, exam humiliations, the Mei-Lin-shaped hole inside his heart, the mounting pressure – applied by every grown-up he came across – over what-to-do and what-to-be, all stopped. In its place was an old man who asked few questions, but who liked him to make his bed and pull his weight. Two hours of study a day was mandatory, but the subject matter could be anything. All that counted, his grandfather said, was the curiosity to explore and understand.