A.L. Lester

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

“I’m stiff,” he muttered, leaning heavily on his stick. “Sorry.”


“Here, lean on me,” Phil offered his arm and to his surprise, Laurie took it.


The monument was deserted and close up, the stones were truly impressive. They wandered round slowly, without speaking, occasionally laying a hand on them and finally finding a place to sit resting against one of the huge uprights, in the last of the evening sunlight.


Laurie tipped his head back and shut his eyes, face to the sun, as he’d done seated against his own stone a week or two before. “Thank you for bringing me,” he said, in the silence. “It’s a strange place, isn’t it? You can feel how old it is.”


“It feels like the ground is buzzing, a bit,” Phil said. “Like it does beside your pool. Like an electricity substation, almost.”


Chapter 35