The Lie of the Land

by Amanda Craig

  They sit there, in the shifting, flickering light, looking at the long green grasses that, growing up beneath the stiff dry hay, bend and sway.

  What redemption can there be? Yet to believe that no change is possible is impossible too, for life is change; and change, life. They can only wait, not quite together and not quite apart, and hope.

  Acknowledgements

  The very first thing I should say is that my husband is not Quentin (any more than I am any other character in my novels). It should be otiose to say this, but women are too often believed by some to be incapable of imagination, or creation. Writing fiction is often a risk not only for authors but for their families, and neither my beloved Rob nor Leonora and William in any way resemble the Bredins. I would like to thank Rob and Leonora for being my first readers of a novel that took seven years to write; and to thank my excellent fellow authors Kate Saunders, Jane Thynne, Elizabeth Buchan, Danuta Kean and Alex Preston for generously offering their time and encouragement during its many revisions. I appreciate it all more than I can say.

  I have too many friends of both sexes who have been, or are going through, the agonies of divorce. I would like to thank them for trusting me with their emotions, their stories and their dignity. Being lucky in love myself does not stop me from feeling anger and sadness at the hideous things people who once loved each other can do when it goes wrong. I remain profoundly grateful to my parents for not only remaining married all my life, but for showing me how disharmony is an essential part of the best music. My father died in my mother’s arms, and this book is dedicated to my mother, whose wisdom, courage, love and sense of humour are qualities I appreciate more with every year.

  This novel is the second of my books to be set in Devon (the first was A Private Place), a county and countryside I have loved ever since I first came to it as a child to stay with my godparents Euan and Su Bowater in their farmhouse near Dartmoor. I would particularly like to thank Dave and Lynne Hatwell (otherwise known as Bookhound and the Dovegreyreader) for much hospitality. In Cornwall, Charlotte Mitchell and Alice Boyd generously lent me their scholarship concerning local names and topography.

  I have helped with lambing (though not dagging) in the past; it’s something anyone interested in animals and husbandry can do if not squeamish. However, I’d like to thank Martin and Nicky Bridgeman and Dan Genders and Louise Canham-Rayner for telling me things about sheep that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, and also I recommend James Rebanks’s book, A Shepherd’s Life, to anyone who hasn’t read it.

  My thanks go to my loyal, patient and tireless editor Richard Beswick, to Susan de Soissons and to the team at Little, Brown, to my eagle-eyed copy-editor Steve Cox and to Nithya Rae and Steve Gove.

  Also to Ant Harwood, who has been all that I would wish for as an agent, and his assistant James MacDonald Lockhart.

  What a reader knows about a character is only ever the tip of the iceberg. Many years ago, I asked the Observer’s architecture correspondent, Rowan Moore, about the psychology of architects. Chris Dyson, Emily Patrick, Isabel Perry, Barry Marmot and Tatiana Von Preussen all added their insights into this fascinating and often maligned profession.

  I would also like to thank all the health visitors, including Lynne Hatwell, who have talked to me about their job over the years, and remain relieved that the very first one did not take my infant daughter’s demands for whisky seriously. All mistakes are my own.

  The Humble Pie factory in Devon is of course imaginary, as is the town of Trelorn, and Shipcott village, even though the Tamar River and the beautiful West Devon landscape are both real.

  Last but not least, I would like to thank the cancer charity Marie Curie, and the nurse Meg Scobie, for telling me about the charity’s extraordinary work with the dying. They are in truth a light in the darkness.

  Readers of previous novels may recognise characters here who have grown up or aged. The Harts and their daughter Lily first appeared in A Private Place, when Lily is a baby, as does Gore Tore. Josh Viner comes from A Vicious Circle, as do Ivo Sponge, the Slouch Club and the Chronicle. Polly Noble and Hemani are principal characters in Love in Idleness, Quentin and Lottie come from Hearts and Minds, and Marta will reappear in a future novel. Some novelists, from Balzac to Alison Lurie, can’t bear to let go of their invented world, and I am unabashed to be one of them; those who want to hunt down what happened to Grace’s little son Billy from A Vicious Circle (and to Ian and Katie, also from Hearts and Minds) might like a Quick Reads novella also published this year, The Other Side of You.

  Only one detail is true: we really did sit next to a farmer’s wife in the cinema at Okehampton and she really was more concerned about Gabriel Oak’s horse than the lovers in the recent film of Far from the Madding Crowd.

  About the Author

  Amanda Craig is a well-known journalist and broadcaster. She is the author of A Vicious Circle, In a Dark Wood and Hearts and Minds. You can visit her website at www.amandacraig.com.