Maggie seems to detect I'm drowning, and launches a small lifeboat. 'Derek's been thinking about what you said to him when you had lunch together last year, that living in a chocolate-box village like Stow is like setting up home in a theme park for old aged pensioners.'
'Is that what I said?' Ralph asks, cocking his head on one side.
'Yes, I remember it,' I barge in, grasping a flotation aid and flapping my arms a bit. 'You said you thought villages are just for old people who watch Sunday night rural nostalgia dramas.'
'Hmm, well, if you say so. I was probably just having a joke and trying to wind you up.'
'More coffee, Ralph?' says Maggie, sinking me with a pitiful look.
'Great, Maggie, it's good stuff,' he replies. 'Now then, for my big announcement.' He leans back on his throne. 'I've put 76 Rorkes Drift Gardens up for sale.' This is Ralph's terraced abode that's beset by wheelie bins and ASBO-shirkers in the East End of London.
'Oh,' says Maggie, cocking her head to indicate polite encouragement.
'Yes. And…' He pauses - it must be lecturing to first-year politics students that's developed his sense of timing. '… I'm in the process of buying an old farmhouse in a Tuscan village.'
'That's nice,' says Maggie.
'In Tuscany,' Ralph confirms. 'It's one of those beautiful villages that sits on top of a hill. I've been offered a research fellowship at Cremona. You'll love the village. It's called Santa Tomasina della Tranquillità.'
'Sounds lovely,' says Maggie.
'That's right,' Ralph continues. 'This village has got a bar with terrific views, and a little shop that sells local produce.'
'That's wonderful, Ralph,' says Maggie. 'How's your Italian?'
'Coming along. But actually a lot of the neighbours are English. It's a popular place for retirees.'
You may be wondering why I've not said anything so far. It's because it's difficult to speak when your mouth won't shut.
'Of course our mayor is a leading light in the local PCI,' he continues.
'PCI?' I manage to say in a croaky voice.
'Partito Comunista Italiano,' replies Ralph in a polished accent.
'Oh,' I say, 'Well, that's all right then.'
And when that evening we've watched Ralph's deux chevaux splutter off down Back Walls, I finally let myself erupt with a fiery burst of abuse and disdain.
Maggie waits till the bright puce in my cheeks has drained away and my language has subsided to an occasional spark. Then she laughs. I can't see the joke myself.
On the evening of the first of October, two years almost to the day since we first checked out Sunny's burgage, Maggie and I jointly prepare aromatic pork with couscous and a beetroot and feta starter without once infringing Rule 2B on non-interference with the other's cooking technique. It happens sometimes. Today is that sort of day.
I turn up the thermostat on the underfloor heating and pour two glasses – you should know by now what we both drink. Then, over the dining table, we congratulate each other on our culinary expertise, remark on the perfection of our kitchen design, savour the food, and when Maggie even says, 'You know, I think your new gym regime is starting to show results,' I pat my marginally less bulging stomach with satisfaction.
When the last morsel of pork has been appreciated, we sit down together on the sofa, and survey The Old Stables. Our home. Where we live. Where people come and visit us.
Thirty metres of oak-framed glass, a high back wall of exposed Cotswold stone, beams and braces carved from hearts-of-oak. Plus, of course, a floor of butter coloured limestone that would be happy to support the whole Stow Rugby Club First Fifteen still in their playing boots and celebrating a victory over archrivals Cheltenham Tigers, should we ever wish to invite them. What's more, it's a floor that exudes a gentle heat, with – now – neither puddle nor flood to disgrace it. And through the acres of glass, we look out onto a small floodlit courtyard designed by Maggie to be as calm and as exotic as a hideaway in the Alhambra Palace at Granada.
'Well,' says Maggie, 'we finally made it.'
'We really did,' I say. 'It's sort of slipped into a triumph without a fanfare.'
'So was it worth it?'
'Sure, it's got everything we wanted. Character, light and it's right in the middle of England's most perfect village, Stow-on-the-Wold.'
Maggie grins, sips her wine and looks up at the long living room. 'There must be something that hasn't worked though, mustn't there?'
'Well, the funny thing is that even some of the things that seemed to go wrong at the time have turned out OK. For instance, having to build a new wall for a metre up inside the Big Back Wall because of the radon gas. It's given us a long elegant shelf running the length of the room.'
'That's true. And those niches high up that we wanted to make into windows, but the Grise got shirty about. The little lights we've hidden inside them look magical right now.'
'Of course, it could be we've fooled ourselves a little bit along the way. When you see a place grow day by day, you tend to spot problems early, and either fix them or accept them. And you end up seeing it all as perfect.'
'Could be,' she says. 'The other thing is every bit of wall and roof and floor's got some near-disaster attached to it. It makes the whole place special.'
'You're spot on,' I say.
'What about the nasty vision of the wrong end of a horse in the bathroom? Is that still haunting you?'
'Well, I was starting to forget all about it. But now you've reminded me of it again, it'll be back to the psychotherapy for me.'
We both giggle.
'It's been a grand adventure,' says Maggie. 'But unlike any other adventure, it's a story we can keep reliving, just by looking around us.'
'And reliving without the stress this time,' I add.
We're quiet for a while.
'What do you think? Is there anything you'd want to change?' I ask.
Maggie looks around at the glass, the oak, the limestone floor and the Big Back Wall. 'No, I don't think so,' she replies.
We settle back into a comfortable fold of each other's arms and she adds, 'Well, I suppose the only thing I'd say is, perhaps next time we could try something a bit bigger.'
'Next time!' I cry, sitting up with a jump. 'What do you mean "Next time"?'
'Well,' replies Maggie, 'we might want to move some day, mightn't we?'
'What, go through all this lot again!'
'Not just yet, obviously. But we're still young, aren't we?'
'Yes,' I say, 'of course we're still young.'
'So we're still game for adventures together, aren't we?'
'Well, yes,' I reply, nodding now like a finely balanced metronome. 'More adventures. Together.'
Maggie puts her hand on my shoulder. She smiles.
And so do I.
THEN WHAT?
If you're standing up, getting ready to put the book back on the shelf, I think you'd better sit down again. You may be in for a shock.
A year after we moved in, Bill's wall fell down.
We were away on holiday when a neighbour phoned us. The council had been repairing the road and it seems the vibration from their equipment had the same impact as trumpet fanfares around Jericho. We resisted the temptation to fly home, and instead phoned Nik, and he and Simon, like the heroes they are, went straight to Stow, tidied up, and a few weeks later the wall was back in place.
But calamities didn't end there. You remember that bit about Ken the Underfloor guru and how indestructible his heating is? Yup, you're right. Six months ago, some flagstones by the door into the guest suite started to wobble when you trod on them, so we asked Justine the floorer to have a look for us. She found damp underneath. Half an hour and three phone calls later, I discovered that the company which had installed our heating system had gone out of business, that the pipes which they used aren't made anymore, and also that anyway they are – according to a local heating engineer I spoke to – 'rubbish.' The better news is that this engineer fou
nd the leak during a two hour house-call, with no more than a square foot of floor hacked up, and he did a repair. There was a little dent in the piping that looked suspiciously like something sharp had been dropped on it.
The other piece of news that made me gulp is that two of Stow's four bookshops have shut down. However, I'm glad to report that the Borzoi – in the words of the reviewer, Richard Osborne, 'As choice a small bookshop as any in the realm' – is still thriving.
Next, a Blockley Shop-Café-Post Office update. It's a raging hit, now selling over half a million pounds' worth of newspapers, stamps and fish cake lunches a year! Chris the manager reckons it's probably the most successful community enterprise of any village in the country. The Blockley Shop and Café is even cited in Conservative Party literature as a model for the Big Society. What's more, it's just won planning permission to expand to larger premises. This simple sentence however, masks a year-long struggle. The villagers' efforts to get their new shop were blocked at every turn. What villains would do such a thing? I hear you ask. Why, the planning authorities and the conservation officer, of course.
Then, there's an unalloyed piece of heart-warming news from Stow that shows how much its citizens cherish their heritage. A recent meeting of the Stow and District Civic Society was so well attended that there was standing room only inside St Edward's Hall with people outside having to be turned away. The meeting was to report the launch of a campaign for an investigation into whether the last battle of the Civil War was, in fact, fought much closer to Stow than previously thought. I'm hoping they might let me help with the archaeological survey.
Finally, I can answer the question you might have been too polite to ask. Maggie and I still love Stow-on the-Wold, and we still love The Old Stables. We intend to stay exactly where we are. Probably.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank everyone who knew I was writing a book and who still risked talking to me, namely Richard Davis, Jeremy Drinkwater, Chris Elton, Chris Grimes, Mike Morris, Joanna Neave, Tim Norris, David Penman, Tony Percy, Geoff Richards, Jenni Turner, and especially Anthea Jackson (of AJ Architects) and Nik Weaver and Simon Townsend (of FDB Cheltenham Building Services).
My meagre knowledge of home conversion was built up by Ross Stokes, Editor of SelfBuild & Design magazine. For purposes of historical background, three reference books didn't leave my desk-top for months. They are: Stow-on-the-Wold: Glimpses of the Past, the excellent publication by the Stow and District Civic Society; Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds by the tireless Edwardian cyclist, Herbert A. Evans; The Changing English Village 1066-1914, by M. K. Ashby who taught me about poverty through the ages in Bledington. The pages you have just read were also livened up by references to Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford as well as The Phoenix, The White Peacock, Lady Chatterley's Lover and the other Nottinghamshire novels of D. H. Lawrence. The Journals of the DHL Society were helpful here too. And I'm also grateful to A. A. Gill and his misguided views about Stow in The Angry Island, which provided several paragraphs of innocent amusement.
One of the great pleasures I've had writing A Horse in the Bathroom has been working with everyone at Summersdale Publishing, and especially with Jennifer Barclay, commissioning editor, who's been considerate, efficient, encouraging, astute in her criticism and constantly good-humoured.
And finally, my thanks to Maggie, who read all the drafts, and still had the energy to put squiggles in the margin wherever she unerringly identified that I was talking rubbish, as well as rewarding me with ticks where she approved or I made her laugh.
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