Getting It Right

It’s 9 a.m. and foggy. The buildings of Longridge bloom like strange structures, monochrome coral reefs in milky waters, their shapes softened, colours muted. The still raw cold seems to strip away a layer of skin, sitting damply about the town.

The kitchen is serene. It’s square, about forty feet by forty feet, with larders and washing-up areas off one end, and windows looking out to the front, to the road and the houses on the far side. In the centre of the room is the vast, purposeful mass of the Bonnet range, dormant and inert. There’s a tray of orchids in floral china pots sitting on the end of it.