The Banker's Niece 43: Rick's recording

Sweet Jane . . . if I can still call you that . . . and if you still remember the song . . . if you still remember me . . .

Standin’ on the corner

Suitcase in my hand

Jack’s in his corset, Jane is in her vest

And me I’m in a rock ’n’ roll band . . .

Sweet Jane

Sweet Jane

Sweet Jane [1]

. . . except that you never wore a vest, and I’m not in a rock ’n’ roll band any more (long story) . . . But then we never did know what the song was all about . . . Perhaps only Lou Reed knew that . . .

But I’m digressing. Which I had hoped not to do this time as – after three failed attempts – I’ve actually made some notes. And I'm playing music to make up for the inadequacy of my words - other people's music not my own you'll be pleased hear. (For lots of reasons.) 

Sooo, what is this recording all about? Why am I doing it?

The answer is, I suppose, that I don’t know what else to do. I’m sitting here on a derelict farm, in a less than half-built studio, surrounded by packing cases and boxes and things for making music (‘So what’s changed?’ I hear you say) – the detritus of half a century – and I’m slowly climbing the walls. I have to talk to someone and the only person I want to talk to is you.

It’s killing this real-life thing, isn’t it? Or perhaps you don’t have a problem with it. Perhaps by now you’re a fully formed, mature, calm and contented human bean and are about to click on ‘delete’ and consign this drivel to the great recycle bin in the sky – or wherever it is that electronic files go when we don’t want them any more.

But . . . in the hope that you’re still listening, I’ll carry on. So where was I? Yes, real life. Which started for me about a year and a half ago when my father died. D’you remember him? Warra nidiot. Although, much as it pains me to admit it, now that he’s gone I might even be starting to have sympathy for him and recognise him in myself. Bloody hell.

Damn, I’m going off track again, and I know how much it annoys you or did annoy you – you with your clear, concise, well-trained mind. And I mean that as a compliment. One of the many many ways we were different and apparently incompatible and ‘unsuitable’. But we knew better, didn’t we? We knew that we loved and needed each other . . .

My love, she speaks like silence

With no ideals or violence.

She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful

Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire.

People carry roses

Make promises by the hour

My love laughs like the flowers

Valentines can’t buy her. [2]

So anyway, the old bastard died and I decided the time had come for me to leave the band and move back to Devon and support my mother. D’you remember her? She always loved you, you know.

Actually, by then I couldn’t wait to stop all that travelling, all that posturing on stage, have some time for myself, write more music.

But the trouble is, now I’m here all I can think about is what a fuck-up I’ve made of my life . . .

They say I’m crazy but I have a good time

I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime

Life’s been good to me so far . . .

I make hit records, my fans they can’t wait

They write me letters, tell me I’m great

So I got me an office, gold records on the wall

Just leave a message, maybe I’ll call. [3]

Yeah, well, apart from all that, my biggest fuck-up was the way I treated you. So I suppose you could say that this recording is my way of saying sorry. (Got there at last.)

             I was feeling insecure

You might not love me anymore

I was shivering inside

I was shivering inside

Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt you

I’m sorry that I made you cry

Oh no, I didn’t want to hurt you

I’m just a jealous guy. [4]

And I suppose if it’s going to be a proper apology, I need to go through every grisly detail . . . which is not a problem for me as I’ve been through them all in my mind many times over the last few months. I just hope it's not a problem for you.

Incidentally, I had a thought the other day. It’s not when you die that your life flashes before you. It’s when a parent dies . . .

And perhaps it all started with that first – and only – visit I paid to your parents. I could have played ball – for your sake – and my mother’s. But I didn’t. I was young and arrogant and I thought I knew best.

The trouble was, I hated everything they stood for. Also, if I’m being honest – which I have to be with you – I was out of my depth. I’d never met anyone like them before. I didn’t understand the rules. I felt as if I was in a Noel Coward play without a script.

I could however have done some homework. I could have listened to Ma. I could have read the book on etiquette she lent me. But would that have made any difference? I got the impression I was damned before I even opened my mouth . . .

But it might have made a difference to me. I mightn’t have been so angry all the time. I might have been able to help you . . . and we might have stayed together . . .

I guess we were both out of our depth.

To tell the truth I didn’t have the nerve

I know I only got what I deserve

So now she’s taken leave of me today
Her father didn’t like me anyway. [5]

How are your parents by the way?

Which brings me to my next cock-up: Chris. My only excuse is that I was desperate. You and I seemed to be getting further and further apart, and she tried to help. And if it’s any comfort to you Chris and I finished not long after you left. (Damn, that sounds conceited, as if you needed comfort, as if I still meant something to you by then, as if I mean anything to you now.)

So I didn’t have you and I didn’t have Chris, and that’s when I left reality behind.

Yes, life on the road is an adolescent boy’s dream (even if I wasn't adolescent in years myself) and, while most of what you might have come across in the low-life media – if you concern yourself with such crap – wasn’t true, some of it was. Fool that I was, I thought it was my cure for a broken heart . . .

And so it came that I stood disillusioned

By everything I’d been told

I just didn’t believe love existed

They were all just digging for gold

Widows and bankers and typists and businessmen

Loved each other they said

But all it was though was just a manoeuvre

The quickest way into bed

And so I followed the others’ example

And jumped into the melée

In the hunting grounds of Earl’s Court and Swiss Cottage

I did my best to get laid . . . [6]

Meanwhile I didn’t go home to see my parents except for brief visits for more than thirty years but then, when my father died, my mother needed me.

           

I stayed with her. We talked. And I realised that we’d stopped talking to each other properly when you left. Perhaps even then – although I didn’t know it – I felt guilty. I helped her move out of the bungalow and into her parents’ cottage in the middle of the village where she’d always wanted to live.

Somehow, what with all that talk, and seeing my grandparents’ cottage again – its long overgrown garden full of places where we used to hide as children, the tiny kitchen where Grandma baked us biscuits – and the past exploded over me like a thunderstorm. I knew I had to come home for good.

So I bought this farm a couple of miles outside Black Dog (Yup, strange name. I remember you laughing at it.) and set about renovating it and converting the barns into recording studios for me and other musicians. At least that was the idea. I haven’t got very far.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, one day last autumn as I sat drinking tea with Ma she suddenly said ‘Did you know that Jane’s back in Devon too?’

    ‘Jane?’ I said, not sure whether I’d heard right. Ma and I had by then talked about lots of things, but we’d never got round to talking about you.

    ‘Yes, Jane. Jane who you once wanted to marry,’ she said. ‘I heard about it from Flo – my old schoolfriend - whose grand-daughter works at the same place as Jane.’

    ‘Oh,’ I said, trying not to react.

    ‘And she’s single,’ said Ma.

    I didn’t say anything at the time – I didn’t want Ma to get ideas - but I couldn’t stop thinking of that news about you.

Which brings me to my latest screw-up which, ironically, is probably the one I feel worst about, and I’m afraid it involves Chris again.

One of my biggest problems since I got here is being alone. The very thing I wanted was the very thing I couldn’t deal with. In particular I’ve missed the band, even though I couldn’t wait to get away from them. But Dougie’s bought an estate in Scotland and moved there with his family, Steve’s still on the road, working with other people, and Johno’s in rehab somewhere.

So, after Christmas, I went back to the uni and trawled the department to see if any of the old lags were still around. (Yeah, I was that bad.) And who should I bump into but Chris. (I know Chris has her suspicions, but I swear I didn’t know beforehand that she would be there.) It turned out that she was back in Devon too, working in the department. What’s more, she’d broken up with her husband and she too was single.

Now I was really confused. Fate had to have a hand in it somewhere. Why else would all three of us be back in Devon at the same time and all three of us free agents? And the reason for the coincidence, or whatever you like to call it, according to my warped logic – skewed no doubt by years of so-called success – was that Chris was there to help me get back in touch with you.

We stopped for a coffee together and while we were talking, catching up on old times, this idea came to me, and when I put it to Chris she agreed, because like before she wanted to help. But as soon as I put it into action I knew it was wrong and wanted to undo it.

And what was this idea you ask (if you’ve listened this far)?

The idea was that Chris and I would pretend to be engaged so that when you heard about it through the media (if you did) you would be reminded of me - and Chris - and the past, and shocked enough to take another look at everything. Or, to put it another way, so that I could approach you without risking myself.

Hideous. Unforgiveable.

And now I don’t what to do, and the only person who can help is you.

I’m sorry. Sorry for everything. I wish I could go back and undo it all. I wish you were here.

To see you

            is all I want

And all I want
is to see you now. [7]

1 From ‘Sweet Jane’ by The Velvet Underground

2 From ‘Love minus zero’ performed by The Walker Brothers (written by Bob Dylan)

3 From ‘Life’s been good’ by Joe Walsh

4 From ‘Jealous guy’ by John Lennon

5 From ‘Her father didn’t like me anyway’ by the Humblebums

6 From ‘Love chronicles’ by Al Stewart

7 From ‘To see you’ by String Driven Thing

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The Banker's Niece 42: Six weeks later

Jane manoeuvres Clio round a tight corner and into the carpark. Retrieving her backpack and locking the car, she sets off.

    It’s a brilliant April morning. The air has that clear just-washed look she never noticed before she came to Devon. Perhaps it’s particular to this part of the country, something to do with the amount of rain that falls on it. The sun sparkles on a stream that ripples down a brick channel parallel with the High Street. In neat front gardens, swathes of bold daffodils sway in the breeze, yellow trumpets proclaiming spring.

    Jane walks briskly swinging her arms. Young women pushing buggies glance at her and Jane smiles politely. When she reaches the square, the older people, well wrapped in anoraks and scarves and clustered round the door of the mini-market catching up on gossip, give her more searching looks, but Jane doesn’t linger. Even though she’s visited the village before many years ago, she doesn’t recognise it, and she hopes no one recognises her although she fears they might. She knows now how deep run the Devon memories, and how far-reaching are the connections.

    Take Maisie for instance, with whom she’s had several glorious Exmoor walks since retrieving Clio and whom she hasn’t been able to stop thanking for rescuing her.

    ‘I just can’t believe that someone would be so kind to a complete stranger,’ she said.

    ‘Ah, but you weren’t a complete stranger,’ said Maisie. ‘I was almost certain I knew who you were.’

    She stopped there as if waiting for Jane to say something but Jane didn’t. She knew the obvious reply. What did Maisie know about her? Did she mean she knew about Jane now or about Jane both now and thirty-something years ago? She didn’t want to know the answer to that because she suspected from the way Maisie spoke that it was the latter. It made her queasy to think that people might be privy to events in her life that she herself had banished to the back of the least-used cupboards of her mind.

    Had.

Six roads and a footpath lead off the square, only two of them signposted. With the help of Google and Chris however she’s done her homework and, without drawing attention to herself by hesitating or pulling out a map, is able to turn on to one of the unmarked roads.

    She strides away from the village, splashing through muddy puddles. Already her mind is clearing and the knot in her stomach dissolving. That's the magic of walking she's discovered, not only during her excursions with Maisie, but also during recent solitary explorations around Muddicombe. However bad you feel before you start, and however dire the weather, you always feel better afterwards. Her once-pristine Ordnance Survey map is tearing along its folds, and the ridges on her wellie soles are worn flat. She's wearing the wellies now and hopes they don't start to leak. That would really put her off.

    The hedgerows are liberally sprinkled with wildflowers. She recognises some of them, like bluebell and buttercup, but there are others, pink ones and white ones, that she doesn’t yet know the names of. She really must take photographs and check them against her old wildflower book. The flora of Devon differs from that of Kent and it’s time – ‘high time’ as her father would have said – she got to grips with it. After all, if she stays in Devon she’s likely to be out walking, now that she’s discovered how therapeutic walking is, and if she’s out walking she’s going to want to know what she’s looking at.

    If she stays in Devon, that is, and doesn’t take an extended holiday the other side of the globe. She’s still looking at pictures of Oz on the internet and plotting itineraries. She hasn’t yet ruled it out.

    Busy-ness is all around. Little birds flit across the road in front of her and vanish into bushes. Bigger birds, holding twigs in their beaks, fly self-importantly from tree to tree. A frantic chorus of birdsong comes at her from all directions.

    Spring is something else she’s noticing for the first time. She never realised before she came to Devon how mad spring is and how catching that madness is. She can feel her own blood stirring, and thanks providence that she decided to walk from the village – in spite of its danger - instead of driving all the way. Walking is giving her time to think, time to make sure that it’s not only spring fever that propelled her out of bed and into her car this morning.

    She may be better than she was, but she’s not there yet, and she's still not certain about what she's doing today.

The road winds on and on. With its high hedges that hide the surroundings, it looks like every other Devon lane and she knows she has to pay attention so as not to get lost. Many a time in Clio she’s emerged from a reverie to find she hasn’t the faintest idea where she is or even where she’s going. It’s scary, like waking in a strange bed. She’s pretty certain however from the map Chris drew for her that there are no turnings until the relevant one, and she doesn’t think she’s reached that yet. She hopes not anyway. She's not ready.

    Support over the last six weeks has come from the most unlikely sources – and she’s sure Sharon would have something to say about that. She remembers her talking one day about ‘quests’ and the helpers you meet on the road and how important it is to recognise and respect them.

    On the very day that everything happened – the day she lost her job, and Chris arrived, and Rick had his crash – Mrs Henry rang and asked her over. It was a measure of how desperate she was that she went.

    ‘Call me Rose,’ said Mrs Henry the next morning, greeting Jane with a kiss on both cheeks. ‘We’ll go to my office. It’s the warmest place.’

    Jane trailed after her, too intent on holding herself upright to notice much even though it was her first visit to the Manor. She had a vague impression of wooden floors and Turkish rugs, blue and white porcelain, the scent of woodsmoke, fresh flowers.

    The office was a small sunlit room. A desk covered with papers sat sideways to the window. Opposite was a faded sofa, heated by a free-standing electric fire.
    ‘Do sit down,’ said Mrs Henry – Rose, placing herself on the sofa and patting the cushion next to her.

    Jane huddled into the far end.

    ‘Can I tell you something?’ said Rose. ‘I think it might help.’

    Jane gave a small nod but kept her eyes down. She was afraid she might cry if she looked Rose in the face.

    ‘Four years ago’, said Rose, ‘our youngest son, Archie, was expelled from Eton for selling drugs and disappeared. A year later, thank God, he turned up again but we hardly recognised him. He was covered in dirt and looked like a skeleton, but at least he was alive. Since then we’ve realised that bad things can happen to anyone and that one must do what one can for others. I volunteered for the Samaritans and now I’m training to be a counsellor.’

    She put her hand on Jane’s arm. Jane tried not to pull away.

    ‘Henry’s told me something of what’s been happening and it’s obvious to me that you’re going through a trauma of some kind. So what I wanted to say was, if you ever need the name of someone who could help you, someone good, I can recommend someone.’

    Rose stood up and poured some coffee from a vacuum flask on the desk. She pressed the mug into Jane’s hand.

    ‘Do think about it,’ she said. ‘It's no loss if it doesn't work out, and it might be a comfort to you.’

Then of course there’s Chris, who phoned her every day to start with and visits often.

    One evening she came over with an envelope.

    ‘I found this at Rick’s place,’ she said, handing it to Jane.

    On the front was written ‘For Jane’. Inside was a memory stick with a sticky label on which was written ‘Listen!’ and the date 22 February - the day she drove into a snowdrift, the day before Rick’s crash. She recognised Rick's tiny scrawl on both envelope and label.

    It was nearly a week before she found the courage to plug the stick into her computer.

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The Banker's Niece 41: Unsuitable

January 1978

‘I spent all Christmas looking through the University List for you,’ said Rick.

    ‘Whatever for?’ asked Jane.

    ‘I wanted to send you a Christmas card,’ said Rick.

    ‘But I didn’t get one from you,’ she exclaimed.

    ‘I couldn’t find you,’ said Rick mournfully. ‘I only know your first name.’

    Jane thought of her own Christmas holiday. In spite of its confusion, Rick had never entered her head.

    They were lying on cushions in the bay window of the sitting-room of Jane’s house. Bernard, her tutor, had gone home, and Mike and Heather up to bed - both of them giving Jane and Rick funny looks before departing. It was one o’clock in the morning.

    She didn’t dare touch Rick. She thought she might explode if she did. And he didn’t touch her either. There was so much tension around, the air crackled.

    A thick mist, light blue and sparkling, filtered into the room from the corner by the door. It formed itself into a cloud and floated across to hover over the pair of them.

    ‘What is it?’ whispered Jane.

    She wasn’t frightened – there were so many other supernormal things going on – but she wasn’t altogether sure either. There was something slightly malevolent about the sparkling cloud.

    Rick shook his head. ‘Buggered if I know.’

    So he saw it too.

    ‘I must go home,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve a cat to feed.’

    ‘OK,’ said Jane.

    ‘I’ll come over tomorrow,’ he said.

She spent the next day, Sunday, pacing the house. He hadn’t said when he was coming. She couldn’t rest until he arrived.

    ‘What’s going on?’ asked Heather. ‘You’re very . . . something.’

    ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Jane.

    She didn’t and even if she had she wouldn’t have wanted to tell Heather.

    Heather sniffed and went upstairs.

    Jane made a cake – a fruit cake from another recipe of her mother’s. Rick had liked her banana and lemon cake. She hoped he would like this one too. She left the cake cooling on a wire rack in the kitchen and every time her peregrinations took her to the kitchen she cut and ate a small slice.

    At three in the afternoon she discovered that there was no cake left.

Rick burst through the front door at six-thirty in the evening.

    ‘I think we ought to get married,’ he blurted out.

    ‘I agree,’ wailed Jane, clutching her head, ‘but you’re so unsuitable.’

    It wasn’t a ‘no’. She understood that, and she knew Rick understood it too, but she wasn’t sure she could manage to be married to Rick.

    Marrying Rick would mean being a real person, not a cipher or a daughter or a wife. Rick wouldn't want anything less; he wanted an equal. But did she have it in her to be a real person? Nothing in her upbringing had prepared her for it. She had no skills for achieving it.

    She was one self with her parents and another with Rick and, though she had no doubt that the self she was with Rick was bigger and more honest than the self she was with her parents, she was terrified of revealing that self to her parents. She feared that they would trample all over it, that they might destroy it. She’d always feared that. That was why she’d always kept it secret.

    ‘I thought I might take you to my local,’ he said.

    He had a blue wood-trimmed Mini parked outside the house. Folded clothes filled the back seat.

    ‘Clean washing,’ said Rick, without explaining what it was doing in the car.

    He drove at 60 miles an hour through narrow hedged lanes, crouched in his seat so as not to bang his head on the roof, talking all the while. Jane hung on to the door-handle as Rick told her the story of his life. He was twenty-three, a year older than her. He came from Devon. He lived in a farm cottage that had once contained four other people – Stick, Big John, Ratty and Helen – but they’d all gone now and he rented it on his own. Helen had been his girlfriend since he was nineteen, but last September she’d gone off with Ratty. (That explained a lot.)

    He skidded to a halt in front of a long stone building. They climbed wide steps to a heavy door. The interior smelt of polish. Dim wall lights revealed shiny wooden surfaces and gleaming brass.
    'Alex,' said Rick, pushing her forward. 'This is Jane.'

    ‘And what do you do?’ said the man behind the bar. He had a neat moustache and clear blue eyes.

    Jane faltered. For a moment she didn’t know what he meant. Everything was happening so fast. Nothing was the same as it had been. Her mind swirled like an agitated snow globe.

    ‘Er, I’m a student,’ she stammered.

    ‘I know that,’ said the man. ‘I mean, what subjects?’

    It took her a second or two to remember.

    ‘Er, French and Spanish,’ she said.

    He nodded and moved to the other end of the bar to serve someone else.
    'He likes you,' said Rick.

    

They climbed into the car again and set off down a lane that became narrower and narrower and more and more bumpy. When Jane got out of the car her feet sank into mud.

    She followed Rick into a hallway lit by one bare bulb. Underfoot was a patch of lino, frayed at the edges. Through a door to the right, she saw a dark room piled like a junk shop with furniture and clothes. A cooker and fridge sat under the stairs ahead. On shelves sat quantities of jam-jars labelled ‘Mushroom ketchup 1976’.

    ‘Helen,’ said Rick. ‘It was a good year for mushrooms.’

    Upstairs she shuffled after him along a passage strewn with more clothes. Whose were they? What were they doing there? It was so cold she could see her breath. The floor undulated like the lanes they’d been travelling.

    He led her into a room at the end of the passage. A paraffin heater rose like a lighthouse from a sea of clutter. A tortoiseshell cat, its fur tousled as if it had just woken, glared at Jane from the centre of a mattress pushed against one wall.

    ‘That’s Cat,’ said Rick. ‘She likes marzipan.’

    Cat jumped off the bed and stalked out.

    Jane sat on the edge of the mattress. Rick reached into a wall-rack crammed with records, selected one and put it on a player on the floor. A man’s voice rang out, pure and strong.

Today you’ll make me say that I somehow have changed

Today you’ll look into my eyes, I’m just not the same

To be any more than all I am would be a lie

I’m so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry

Today, everything you want I swear it all will come true

Today, I realize how much I’m in love with you*

She was going mad. The singer was communicating directly with her through the ether. The song had been written especially for her and Rick.

    The tidal wave that had been rising inside her ever since yesterday was about to crash. She too was about to burst apart.

*From 'Today' by Jefferson Airplane

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The Banker's Niece 40: Decision-time

SPOILER ALERT

Don't read this chapter if you've not read earlier ones and are intending to do so

Jane puts the sheaf of papers back on the kitchen table and rests her head in her hands.

    It’s a shock to come back to the present, to hear the radiators creaking and feel the sun warming her through the French windows. She still has the taste of coffee in her mouth, and in her nose is her own scent of soap and clean clothes.

    Ever since she left her safe London life – no, ever since her father died – something inside her has been crumbling. The Berlin Wall she erected between her past and her present has been falling into disrepair and memories have flooded through the gaps. Up until now however she’s managed to keep them in her head. She’s heard them and seen them but she hasn’t done anything with them.

    At the same time she’s felt propelled. Decisions have made themselves. Surprises have ambushed her at every juncture, and nothing has turned out as she planned. 

    But all that has changed with Chris’s letter.

    She’s back with the same stark choice she faced nearly forty years ago when she first met Rick. What a joke. It’s almost cruel.

She stands up and goes over to the French windows, flinging them open and stepping outside.

    There’s still a chill to the air but the slush has vanished and all she can see in her garden is brown-ness: the plants are either dead or leafless and the grass is a bog. Even the birds having a noisy argument in the hedge at the bottom of the garden are brown. Even her view is brown.

    She’s angry with Rick, of course she is.

    Not only is the ruse disgusting, an insult to both her and Chris, but it’s stupid. It could so easily have gone so very wrong. It could have destroyed her. It would almost certainly have driven her away. After all, isn’t that what Rick’s affair with Chris did to her, all that time ago?

    One part of her wants to throw plates at the wall, to march round the room swearing and kicking chairs. It would be a relief. But another part of her can’t be bothered. It wouldn’t achieve anything. It would make her feel like a spoilt child. More importantly, it would be a waste of everything Chris has done.

    According to the tabloids (which she doesn’t read any more) and soaps (which she doesn’t watch), she and Chris should by now be slinging insults at each other, if not grappling on the ground. That’s how these stories run, according to them. But in Jane’s experience that’s never the case. If anything, women gang up against men. They support each other. After all, who else do they have?

    She’ll be forever grateful to Chris for coming to see her and including her in Rick’s machinations. It was a brave, selfless thing to do. It was the action of a responsible adult. It’s an example to her.

    What choice, however, does a responsible adult make in the situation in which Jane now finds herself?

She plonks herself into one of the wooden garden armchairs left behind on the terrace by the previous owner and which Jane should have put in the shed for the winter, but never got round to. Damp seeps through her trousers but she tries to ignore it. It’s not important at the moment.

    She could ring Sharon. After all, Sharon is privy to the secrets of the higher world, or so she would have Jane believe. She would know which action is best suited to the unfolding of Jane’s life-plan. Somehow though, she doesn’t want to do that, and that’s because she knows already what Sharon would say: ‘Ah, the Prince of Wands. I’ve been expecting him to reappear. Didn’t I always say that the two of you had unfinished business? Of course you must go and see him.’

    She wouldn’t listen to Jane’s objections: that it would reopen the most painful part of her life; that it could all go horribly wrong and Jane would lose even the good memories of her time with Rick; that there would be no love left between the two of them and so nothing for Jane to believe in any more; that he would be fat and ugly; that she would still be the same inadequate person and that everything would fall apart like it did before.

    Sharon would tap her finger on the table and exhort Jane to bypass the objections and use her in-tu-ition.

    But how do you recognise your intuition? How do you decide which of the voices in your head is the right one? In spite of Sharon’s exercises, she still doesn’t know.

    She bites her fingers and stares at the ground.

    A breeze ruffles the bare branches of her apple tree and a couple of dead apples thud to the ground. She discovered the tree laden with fruit when she moved in last September. She managed to pick some of it but the rest she had to leave for the birds. Maybe this year she’ll be more organised.

    If she's still here in the autumn.

    And with a flash of something like inspiration she realises that not all her choices have to relate to Rick. As Sharon says, no situation is black and white. There’s always a third option.

    So why shouldn’t she listen to the loud voice that has this minute joined the others and is telling her to get the hell out, to travel to the other side of the world – Australia perhaps - and make a true fresh start, not this bastard one in Devon. After all, she’s never had a gap year – they didn’t exist in her day – so why shouldn’t she have gap rest-of-life? She’s worked for it. She can afford it.

    She jumps to her feet. She'll race to the computer this very minute, before she starts to doubt, and do some research – into the cost of flights, estate and letting agents who might deal with her house, internet banking, insurance and the million and one other things involved in an extended trip, not to say move, to another country.

She charges up the stairs, buzzing like she does after a double espresso, but as she sits at her desk the phone rings.

    She doesn’t want to answer it. She’s already spoken to all the important people in her life this morning. The call can only be rubbish, or bad news.

    ‘Hello,’ she says cautiously into the mouthpiece.

    ‘Jane?’ says a trembling voice.

    ‘Yes,’ she says, her tone warmer. She thinks she knows who it is.

    ‘Jane, it’s Chris.’ She sounds as if she’s trying not to cry.

    ‘Yes?’ says Jane, her voice rising in pitch.

    ‘It’s Rick,’ quavers Chris. ‘He’s had a crash. In the back roads. You know what he’s like. Met a tractor head on . . . Air ambulance . . . Just this minute rung me . . . On my way now . . . Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital . . . May have to be transferred to Bristol . . .

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