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year and take it from there. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I was just being stupid.’
    When Rob put down the phone an hour later, having discussed in great detail their plans for the future, he felt good: he had finally done the right thing and, more importantly, everything would be okay. He had taken a step towards building a solid future for them. Yes, there would be obstacles to overcome and, yes, sometimes he’d feel like jumping on the first train to London, but the risk of losing Ashley was too great for him not to give the next twelve months his all. I mean, he thought, as he wandered into the kitchen, exactly how hard could it be to make some brand new friends ?

PART TWO
    (Principally concerning Rob’s first six months in Manchester)

Hit the north
    Rob had never seen Ashley as happy as she was on the Saturday morning that he moved all of his belongings into her three-bedroom terraced house on Bech Road in Chorlton. To say she was ecstatic would have been a major understatement. She was – metaphorically – over the moon. Rob couldn’t believe that her happiness was down to something as simple as him occupying space in her house and making it look more untidy than it had ever been while she had lived there alone. Even so, he was glad to be the source of such joy.
    ‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ he said, gazing at the chaos he had caused in her normally serene living room with its cream walls and carpet, and tastefully chosen furnishings.
    ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Ashley. ‘I love having your clutter here because it means you’re here for good.’ She clutched his hand. ‘I know it might seem a bit pathetic to be so happy about it but I can’t help it. It’s how I feel.’
    It was roughly six months since Rob had agreed to make the big move. It had taken this long because he’d been so stunned by the immensity of his decision that he’d needed time to come to terms with it. No more getting his morning newspaper from Mr Singh, the garrulous newsagent on Tooting Bec Road who knew not only his name and what paper he took but what type of milk he liked. No more using the theme tune of London Tonight as a means of knowing when it was time to stop work and head for the pub. And, of course, no more week-night visits to the Queen’s Head with his friends. He was moving his entire life, everything that made him who he was, one hundred and eighty-five miles north to where the only person he knew well enough to ask out for a post-work pint was his girlfriend.
    As for Rob and Phil’s web-design consultancy, they had agreed that most of their work could be organised by phone and email, and that once the spare room at Ashley’s had been fitted with a computer, colour printer, scanner and high-speed ISDN line Rob would, within reason, continue with much of the kind of work they had been doing at their studio in Wandsworth. Regular monthly meetings would keep them up to date with how the business was running, and Rob had agreed that if Phil required him to attend pitches to new clients he would come to London by train.
    As the day approached for his move, Rob attended two leaving parties in his honour. The first was a surprise, thrown at the Sun and Thirteen Cantons in Soho. Phil and Woodsy had told him they would be nipping into the pub for a quick pint before a gig. As soon as he entered the bar, however, he spotted Ian Two’s fiancée Becky coming out of the loos: she caught his eye and looked so guilty that it could have meant only one thing. It didn’t matter, though: when he entered the pub’s upstairs room Rob was still taken by surprise to see so many of his friends and acquaintances all crammed in to celebrate with him. There were London-based friends from his schooldays in Bedford; there were friends from art college and university; there were general friends and old housemates from when he had first arrived in London; there were friends from his days in the art department at Ogilvy-Hunter; and from