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consulting me? Time I found out what was going on here. I walked round to the back door, knocked and entered the kitchen.
    Alexis’s girlfriend Chris is a partner in a firm of community architects, which is why their kitchen looks like a Gothic cathedral, complete with flagged floor and vaulted ceiling with beams like whales’ ribs. The plasterwork is stencilled with flower and fruit motifs, and there are plaster bas-relief bosses at regular intervals along the roof truss. It’s an amazing sight.
    Instead of the Quasimodo I always half-expect, Alexis was sitting at the pitch-pine table, a mug of tea at her elbow, some kind of catalogue open in front of her. As I came in, she looked up and grinned. “Kate! Hey, good to see you, kid! Grab yourself a cuppa, the pot’s fresh,” she said, waving at the multi-colored knitted tea cozy by the kettle. I poured myself a mug of strong tea as Alexis asked, “What brings you round here? You been doing a job? Anything in it for me?”
    â€œNever mind that,” I said firmly, dropping into a chair. “You trying to avoid me? What’s with the For Sale sign? You put the house on the market and you don’t tell me?”
    â€œWhy? Were you thinking of buying it? Don’t! Don’t even let it cross your mind! There’s barely enough room for me and Chris, and we agree on what’s an acceptable degree of mess. You and Richard would kill within a week here,” Alexis parried.
    â€œDon’t try to divert me,” I said. “Richard and I are fine as we are. Next door neighbors is as close as I’m ever going to let it get.”
    â€œAnd how is your insignificant other?” Alexis interrupted.
    â€œHe sends you his love too.” Alexis and the man I love have a
relationship that seems to me to consist entirely of verbal abuse. In spite of appearances, however, I suspect they love each other dearly; once I actually came upon the two of them having a friendly drink together in a corner of the Chronicle ’s local. They’d both looked extremely sheepish about it. “Now, about this For Sale board?”
    â€œIt’s only been up a couple of days. It’s all been a bit of a rush. You remember Chris and I talking about how we wanted to buy a piece of land and build our own dream home?”
    I nodded. I could more easily have forgotten my own name. “You’re planning on doing it as part of a self-build scheme; Chris is going to design the houses in exchange for other people giving you their labor, yes?” They’d been talking about it for as long as I’d known them. With a lot of people, I’d have written it off as dreaming. But Alexis and Chris were serious. They’d spent hundreds of hours poring over books, plans and their own drawings till they’d come up with their ideal home. All they’d been waiting for was the right plot of land at the right price in the right location. “The land?” I asked.
    Alexis reached along the side of the table and pulled a drawer open. She tossed a packet of photographs at me. “Look at that, Kate. Isn’t it stunning? Isn’t it just brilliant?” She pushed her unruly black hair out of her eyes and gazed expectantly at me.
    I studied the pictures. The first half-dozen showed a selection of views of an area of rough moorland grass that had sheep grazing all over it. “That’s the land,” Alexis enthused, unable to stay silent. I continued. The rest of the pictures were views of distant hills, woods and valleys. Not a Chinese takeaway in sight. “And those are the views. Amazing, isn’t it? That’s why I’m going through this.” She waved the catalog at me. I could see now it was a building supplies price list. Personally, I’d have preferred a night in with the phone book.
    â€œWhere on earth is it?” I asked. “It looks so … rural.” That was the first word I could