Aphrodite’s Hat. Salley Vickers

groceries she had brought from London to save having to go too often to Brack, the nearest village, or to Wells for decent wine. Ewan went at once to inspect the woodshed. Yes, plenty of sawn logs stacked – so Tim, the young man who seemed always to be smoking joints but who for all that kept the hedges neatly clipped, had done his stuff. And there were enough candles too for when the electricity tripped off. All in order, then. And it never took long to heat up the tank for a bath.

      It was still cold the next day when they went for one of the walks which over the years they had taken possession of – behind the hill and along the track through the plantation, towards Wells. You could just see the twin honey-coloured cathedral towers in the distance below them. ‘Shall we go to Wells tomorrow?’ Elspeth asked. ‘Tomorrow’ was Good Friday. But in the end they decided not – it wasn’t a big thing with them, church at Easter – just that Elspeth liked the pageantry.

      ‘It’s going to snow,’ Ewan remarked as he opened the wine for supper. They were to have boeuf en daube, brought all the way from Highgate in a casserole. Years ago Elspeth had learned the recipe from reading To the Lighthouse but these days she never imagined herself as Mrs Ramsey.

      ‘“Nudity banned until this appears in hedges” – eight letters?’ Ewan asked later by the fire. Although Elspeth had quite a different cast of mind, and never got crossword clues, for twenty years he had persevered in asking her advice.

      ‘Hawthorn,’ she said, proving that it is right never to stop trying.

      ‘Why so?’

      ‘“Ne’er cast a clout till may be out.” People think it’s the month, but in fact it’s the may flower. Don’t you remember? I’ve told you that millions of times!’ But a mind that grasps crosswords will usually be too reasonable for rhymes or folklore.

      Perhaps it was the extreme temperature but by Saturday Ewan had contracted a cold. They ate toasted hot-cross buns by the fire and he went to bed early. Elspeth wished they had packed whisky and Ewan wished she wouldn’t fuss.