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cheese that he’d fancied and maybe some olives.
    Today, he seems to have catered for our more practical needs. The other bag contains loo rolls.
    ‘Why are you grinning like a mad thing?’ I want to know as I eye my husband warily. ‘What have you done?’
    ‘Nothing, nothing!’ He’s fidgeting like a five year old.
    ‘Sure?’
    I get a giggle in response.
    ‘What’s Scarsby like?’
    ‘Wonderful,’ he tells me.
    Bet it’s not.
    ‘I’ll go and get the rest of the shopping then,’ I say, trying not to sigh.
    Plodding out through the kitchen, I go to the car. When I hit the drive, I manage to stifle the half-sob, half-scream that comes to my throat. Now I know what William has been up to in Scarsby. I spin on my heels to find him standing behind me, grinning.
    ‘Like it?’ he asks.
    My jaw has locked. ‘Where’s the car?’
    ‘This is it.’
    ‘The real car, I mean.’
    ‘There’s a great dealership in Scarsby,’ he tells me. ‘Thought this would be better for us. Now we’ll look the part.’
    Now we’ll look like the Wurzels.
    In the drive, in the place where our sleek, black Audi should be, there is the most battered Land Rover that I’ve ever seen. I think it’s supposed to be blue, but there’s so much rust on it that it’s quite hard to tell.
    ‘Maya won’t be seen dead in that.’ Me neither.
    ‘It’s practical,’ my husband points out.‘You’ve seen how narrow and winding the lanes are - the Audi would have been ripped to bits within weeks. We won’t mind if this gets a bit scuffed.’
    I won’t mind if this is blown up by a nail-bomb. ‘We are contractually obliged to provide Maya with a reliable vehicle,’ I remind him.
    ‘This old workhorse will go on for years.’Will pats it lovingly. ‘Solid as a rock.’ The wing mirror drops off.
    ‘Aren’t we embracing this country lifestyle a little too fully? We can still have some creature comforts.’
    Will purses his lips. ‘Not sure that we have creature comfort money any more,’ he points out. ‘This has been a very expensive exercise.’>
    You’re telling me.
    ‘But I have plans,’ he says. ‘Big plans.’
    I hope that those plans involve regaining our sanity, putting this house back on the market at once and heading straight back to London in time for Christmas.
    ‘I feel at home here already,’ Will says. He slips his arms round me and squeezes. ‘I love you. Thank you so much for doing this. I know that it’s a big wrench for you. But we’re going to live much more simply from now on. Get back to the things in life that really matter.’
    ‘Which are?’
    ‘Family, friends. Living without stress.You and me.’ Will kisses my cheek.
    And while I appreciate the sentiment, I can’t help thinking that the little bakery at the end of our street that sold seeded Low-GI bread really, really mattered to me too.

Chapter Ten
     
     
     
    T wo weeks later, deep in the throes of cleaning this place, and I still haven’t yet unpacked half of our boxes. My husband has, however, somehow located the copy of Keeping Chickens by Audrey Fanshawe that he bought from Waterstones in Oxford Street and it’s now on his bedside table. He settles himself in bed, picks up the book with a flourish and flicks open the pages. This is a man I loved for his knowledge of Tolstoy, James Joyce and Thomas Hardy. I shake my head. Keeping Chickens .
    I give up on Zadie Smith and turn to Will. ‘I don’t think that I really want to keep chickens.’ The only chickens that I like are the organic ones that come in plastic trays from Wholefood Market.
    ‘It will be great,’ he tells me in a voice that I’m coming to dread. ‘They’re wonderful animals. Or are they birds?’
    Even I know that they’re birds and I haven’t even glanced at the chicken book.
    ‘They all have personalities of their own.’
    Presumably, he’s also gleaned that from Audrey Fanshawe, as the only experience of chickens that William has is also the organic ones