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neurological disorder. I wil not use the word incurable. There is a cure. They just haven’t found it yet. In the meantime, the divorce continues.
    I wish I could tel you that I’ve come to terms with it now; that I’m happier than ever before; that I have embraced life, made new friends and become spiritual and fulfil ed. I wish.
    We have a fal ing-down cottage, a cat, a duck and two hamsters, Bil and Ben, who may in fact be girls. (The pet shop owner didn’t seem exactly sure.)
    ‘It’s important,’ I told him.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I have enough women in my house.’
    According to our neighbour, Mrs Nutal (if ever a name suited…) we also have a resident ghost, a past occupant who apparently fel down the stairs after hearing her husband had died in the Great War.
    I’m always amazed by that term: The Great War. What was so great about it? Eight mil ion soldiers died and a similar number of civilians. It’s like the Great Depression. Can’t we cal it something else?
    We live in a vil age cal ed Wel ow, five and a half miles from Bath Spa. It’s one of those quaint, postcard-sized clusters of buildings, which barely seem big enough to hold their own history. The vil age pub, the Fox & Badger, is two hundred years old and has a resident dwarf. How rustic is that?
    We no longer have learner drivers reversing into our drive or dogs crapping on the footpath or car alarms blaring in the street. We have neighbours now. In London we had them too but pretended they didn’t exist. Here they drop by to borrow garden tools and cups of flour. They even share their political opinions, which is a total anathema to anyone living in London unless you’re a cab driver or a politician.
    I don’t know what I expected of Somerset but this wil do. And if I sound sentimental, please forgive me. Mr Parkinson is to blame. Some people think sentimentality is an unearned emotion. Not mine. I pay for it every day.

    The rain has eased to a drizzle. The world is wet enough. Holding a jacket over my head I open the back gate and head up the footpath. Mrs Nutal is unblocking a drain in her garden.
    She’s wearing her hair in curlers and her feet in Wel ingtons.
    ‘Good morning,’ I say.
    ‘Drop dead.’
    ‘Rain might be clearing.’
    ‘Fuck off and die.’
    According to Hector, the publican at the Fox & Badger, Mrs Nutal has nothing against me personal y. Apparently, a previous owner of our cottage promised to marry her but ran off instead with the postmaster’s wife. That was forty-five years ago and Mrs Nutal hasn’t forgiven or forgotten. Whoever owns the cottage owns the blame.
    Dodging the puddles, I fol ow the footpath to the vil age store, trying not to drip on the stacks of newspapers inside the door. Starting with the broadsheets, I flick through the pages, looking for a mention of what happened yesterday. There are photographs, but the story makes only a few paragraphs. Suicides make poor headlines because editors fear a contagion of copycats.
    ‘If you’re going to read ’em here I’l bring you a comfy chair and a cup of tea,’ says Eric Vaile, the shopkeeper, peering up from a copy of the Sunday Mirror spread beneath his tattooed forearms.
    ‘I was just looking for something,’ I explain, apologetical y.
    ‘Your wal et, perhaps.’
    Eric looks like he should be running a dockside pub rather than a vil age shop. His wife Gina, a nervous woman who flinches whenever Eric moves too suddenly, emerges from the storeroom. She’s carrying a tray of soft drinks, almost buckling under the weight. Eric steps back to let her pass before planting his elbows on the counter again.
    ‘Saw you on the TV,’ he grunts. ‘Could’ve told you she was gonna jump. I could see it coming.’
    I don’t answer. It won’t make any difference. He’s not going to stop.
    ‘Tel me this, eh? If people are going to top themselves, why don’t they have the decency to do it somewhere private, instead of blocking traffic and costing taxpayers