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the same unit for ten years. I’m team manager, I’ve got my friends and my little power base. I know everyone around here and they know me: the lady in the post office and the GP and the man at the fuel station who’s only got one arm. In a crisis there are twenty people I could call on. I’m so comfortable here.’
    He listened without comment, head tilted, grey eyes fixed on mine.
    ‘On the other hand, that’s just the point,’ I said. ‘We’ve had it good. Too good. I hate smug people who can’t see that their world is very small. I think we all need a shake-up.’
    ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Right. But Martha, don’t go if it’s only because you’re running from something.’
    ‘What would I be running from?’
    ‘Everyone has their demons.’
    ‘Not me.’
    ‘You can’t run away. They follow.’ Dad’s got X-ray vision, I reckon. He sees everything. ‘Incidentally, Sacha’s been asking me about her father. I gather she collared your Aunt Patricia, too.’
    I felt my face redden. ‘There are no monsters under my bed, Dad.’
    ‘Good. Go for positive reasons, or else stay put. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.’
    Bernard began to wind around our ankles. His purr was filled with creaky miaows, silkily insistent. I was wondering who else Sacha had hassled.
    ‘I’m going to miss you lot.’ Dad reached down to scratch his friend in that soft place all cats have, just behind their ears. ‘Hell, yes. It’s going to be quiet around here. My Sacha, and those boys . . . can’t imagine not hearing the racket as they run up to the front door. They always tussle over who’s going to ring the bell.’
    ‘But neither of them can reach it.’
    Dad smiled, sadly. His face was like a ploughed field.
    ‘The housing market’s dead,’ I said, lifting Bernard onto my knee. ‘You never know, this move may never actually—’ I hadn’t even finished the sentence when my phone sang from the depths of my handbag. Bernard pounced on the sound, tail high as a flag.
    I dug out the phone. Flicked it open, and gaped at the message.
    ‘Our poor house,’ I said.
    It wasn’t anything special, really; but it was picturesque, and it had been home since Sacha was a seven-year-old chatterbox with corkscrew curls. She never stopped smiling in those days, and Kit used to say she never would. We got married from that house; I remembered Dad handing me into the wedding car. We planted two apple trees when the twins came along. Their first wobbly steps were in the kitchen, chasing after Muffin. Every clang of the plumbing, creak of the stairs or rattle of the front door was profoundly familiar. When the wind blew, it made exactly that kind of droning sound through the Expelair in the bathroom. In the mornings the dust beams whirled in front of those windows in the hall. The dimensions, acoustics and smells were ingrained in our subconscious. It was our friend. We were traitors.
    ‘The estate agent,’ I said, reaching tremulously for my silage tea.
    ‘An offer?’ Dad was craning his head to see.
    Hi. Gd news. The Simpsons have made an offer at asking price. Pls phone or call in at your earliest convenience. Dave
    ‘Whatcha going to do?’ asked Dad.
    I didn’t know. My brain was making a run for it.
    ‘Do you go forwards?’ Dad leaned back, eyeing me. ‘Or do you hightail it home to your warm, dry burrow?’
    I shut the phone, swinging it like a pendulum between my fingers. ‘The point of no return,’ I said.
    *
    English rain. A pink Beetle was parked beside the for sale sign, and I felt a twinge of irritation. I’d worked all day, broken the news to Dad, collected the twins from nursery and been elbowed twice in Tesco. I’d also sold my beloved home. I didn’t feel kindly disposed towards gnomes.
    While I lifted out shopping bags, Finn sat Buccaneer Bob in a booster seat, singing as he clicked the seatbelt around his old friend. Bob was a gift from Kit’s Great-Aunt Sibella, whose portrait hung in our