It's 1972. Fifteen years earlier, teenage Laurie Henshaw came to live at Webber's Farm with his elderly uncle and settled in to the farming life. Now thirty-two, Laurie has a stroke in the middle of working on the farm. As he recovers, he has to come to terms with the fact that some of his new limitations are permanent and he's never going to be as active as he used to be. Will he be able to accept the helping hands his friends extend to him?<br><br>With twenty successful years in the city behind him, Phil McManus is hiding in the country after his boyfriend set him up to take the fall for an insider trading deal at his London stockbroking firm. There's not enough evidence to prosecute anyone, but not enough to clear him, either. He can't bear the idea of continuing his old stagnating life in the city or going back to his job now everyone knows he's gay.<br><br>Thrown together in a small country village, can Phil and Laurie forge a new life that suits the two of them and the makeshift family who gathers round them? Or are they too tied up in their own shortcomings to recognise what they have?

Taking Stock

He stared at the most recent page, rubbing his hands over his face and taking a deep breath of the slightly musty air in the little-used room. He was looking at September last year, the month before he keeled over. The wages, marked down weekly. Sixteen pounds each for the men. Twelve pounds for Sally. He leafed forward and found blank pages. Who had been paying them while he’d been sick? He had no idea. Jesus. What a mess. He poked dismally at a pile of papers and a cheque from the Milk Marketing Board for three hundred and sixty pounds fell out, dated the middle of October. That needed to go to the bank, for a start. It slid to the floor and he watched it settle on the dusty faded red, blue and brown patterned carpet.


“Sally!” he called loudly, hoping she would hear him from wherever she was in the house. “Sally?”


Chapter 24