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filling—in fact if she was totally honest, she’d fantasized about a friendly farmer’s wife and home-baked apple pie and cream, then realized that she was thinking about an Enid Blyton novel, not a real place she was actually visiting.
    â€œUm, yes please,” she said, and the man disappeared through the back into what looked like a tiny kitchen space while Nina stared hard at her phone as if that might make it work, and wondered if she could just take her book out again.
    One of the men asked her a question, which she didn’t quite understand but guessed to be, “What are you doing up here?” and she mentioned that she’d come to look at a van.
    At this they both burst out laughing and ushered her outside. In the little town square, the fading light picking out the names on the war memorial—MacAindra, MacGhie, MacIngliss—theyled her across the cobbles to a side street completely blocked by the van from the ad.
    Nina stared at it. It was pretty grubby, but she could see that underneath the dirt, and some rust on the front grille, was the lovely curved roof and friendly nose that had so attracted her in the ad. The main thing that struck her, though, was that it was far, far larger than she’d expected, worryingly large, in fact. Could she really handle it?
    Seeing the van in the flesh, as it were, rather than in a fantasy or just as an idea, made her suddenly anxious. Her idea of a future doing something where she wasn’t protected by a salary and sick days and vacation days and someone else doing all the planning and organization . . . if it was to start anywhere, it would start in this little gray stone square, with the last weak rays of evening sunshine coming over the hills, the smell of sharp pine and sweet gorse in her nostrils, a chill wind blowing down the valley and the air so clear she could see for miles.
    â€œFinally getting rid of that eyesore!” said one of the men, laughing, as the other one sized her up. Nina’s ear was beginning to getting attuned to their way of speaking.
    â€œYou’re no’ really going to buy Findhorn’s van?” said the other in disbelief. “That thing’s been rusting out there since the year zero.”
    â€œAre you sure you can handle it, a wee thing like you?” said the first man, unfortunately echoing exactly what Nina had been thinking herself. The van had looked pretty normal in the photograph, but here it seemed absolutely gigantic, old-fashioned and terrifying.
    â€œWhat are you going to do with it?” said the older man wonderingly.
    â€œUm . . . not sure,” said Nina, unwilling to give herself awayin case she got committed. Now that she’d actually made her way here, everything felt so terribly real. The men exchanged glances.
    â€œWell, Wullie’ll be in soon enough.”
    They headed back to the pub, Nina shooting anxious glances behind her. It was truly, terribly big. Doubt gripped her. After all, this was completely out of character. She’d seen it now. It wasn’t appropriate. She’d go back and write a resumé like Griffin’s and promise Cathy Neeson that she’d do anything, sacrifice anything, perform motivational handstands if she could just hold on to her job. Yes, that was what she’d do. And she could go back to working all day and reading all evening and occasionally going for drinks with Surinder, because her life wasn’t bad, was it? It was absolutely fine. It was okay. Whereas doing something like this—nobody would believe it. It would be a crazy huge mistake and she’d just quietly go home and never mention it again and nobody would even notice.
    The landlord looked up with a broad grin when she reentered.
    â€œAh, there you are,” he said, pushing across a loaded plate. There was a huge sandwich on fresh white bread with a thick crackling crust; in between were slathers of butter and some ripe, crumbly local