Homecoming (31 page)

‘Yes, it’s terrible. Wonderful and terrible.’

Joe hangs his head low between his shoulder blades and kicks the base of the fence.

‘Happen I’ll have more time to travel now the farm’s gone. I could come and visit maybe, see what you’ve got down there – your place.’

Bartholomew looks back at him and he thinks he’s never felt so small and so sorry and so much full of love and also a kind of sorrow that might be the new order of things.

‘You’ll have to let me get it ready. Tidy the place up a bit. For the royal visit.’

‘Oh aye, I expect the red-carpet treatment.’

And he shakes Bartholomew at the neck, like an apple tree, and Bartholomew submits to it.

My thanks go to Alexandra Shelley for being a most attentive reader, and for cheerleading when all seemed lost. Thank you to my agent Sarah Ballard for taking me on and being unflappable. And to my editor, Sarah Savitt, for enthusiasm and faith and careful reading.

For help in my research, thanks go to Steve Dunkley at Eblex and Paul Harper of The Farmer Network. Mistakes or licence taken with the details of fell farming are mine, not theirs.

For various kindnesses, thanks to John and Deborah Steiner, Eve Happold, Jane Milton, Laura Godfrey, Daniel Burbidge, Sian and Joel Rickett. Thank you Maggie O’Farrell, Andrew Cowan and the Arvon Foundation for early encouragement. My thoughts go to Sarah Didinal, who came with me on the first research trip for this book and whom I still miss.

Thank you George and Ben for being the sweetest distraction at the end of the writing day. Above all, there was one person who believed in this book before anyone else did, and who was its greatest champion: love and gratitude go to my husband, Tom Happold.

Susie Steiner is a former
Guardian
journalist. She was a commissioning editor on the paper for eleven years and prior to that worked for
The Times
, the
Daily Telegraph
and the
Evening Standard
. She lives in London with her husband and two young sons. Find out more at www.susiesteiner.co.uk.