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 didn’t say any of that to Phil of course. He distilled it down to one sentence. “I had the stroke when we were doing the autumn dip.” And Phil being Phil understood without needing any more words.


“Of course,” he’d said. “I’ll bring a picnic. We’ll leave early, straight after breakfast. I’ll bring the car. I can drive you.”


Laurie had thought for a moment and said, “Sure, yes, why not?”


They hadn’t taken the car after all, though, when it came down to it. Laurie had wanted to try for the pool. It wasn’t that far. It was Laurie’s thinking place. Rob had first brought him up here when he’d arrived at the farm twenty years ago, angry with himself, bewildered and angry with his parents and the world.


Chapter 27