was simple but all locally produced and tasty. The company was good too; Susan, the manager, a woman in her mid thirties, Alec judged, was a fount of local gossip and information. The next village having lost its pub in the latest round of rural closures, The Lamb served quite a broad local community â essentially anyone within walking or staggering distance home. By the second night, Naomi and Alec had been apprised of the effects down on the Somerset Levels of three bad summers, the lack of tourists adding to the loss of crops and grazing:
â Had to get the boat out and pull three sheep off the island. Lost another when the rhyne spilled over .â
â Rhyne? â
â Dykes, big drainage ditches .â
â Oh, those .â
Had been shocked to find that Susan had never even climbed the Tor:
â What would I want to go scrabbling up some damned great hill for? â
Had been apprised of the merits of the various vineyards in the immediate area and the local microbreweries; had been informed of the best cider makers; and knew the debate from both sides regarding the sale of a now unused local church:
â What damn fool would want to buy a place you canât even convert? â
â Convert, thatâs a good one. Church, get it? â
â Tied up with covenants. No electric, no water except that tapped-off spring. And whoever buys it has got to allow access for the graves .â
â Graveyard still in use then? â
â Up to a couple of year ago, yes .â
âWhy canât it be converted?â Alec asked.
âBishop of Bath and Wells says not, I suppose.â
âA church should stay a church,â someone else said, putting in their tuppence worth, âespecially one thatâs got recent burials.â
âBut itâs going to rack and ruin up there on the mount. Thereâs not been a service there in years. Not even a burial in the last twenty years that I know of.â
âMount?â
âThat bit of a blip, just before you have to turn left by the pink house at the crossroads. Half a mile before you get here. It was an island before the drainage. Site of an earlier church, some say, but itâs a little brown Victorian jobbie up there now.â
âRight.â Alec could picture it now; he had noticed it but not taken any particular notice. He smiled at the last speaker, left the ongoing debate and took his beer back to the table, thinking how nice it was to be able to go out for a drink and not have to worry about either getting home or getting up for work the following morning.
âWhat kept you?â Naomi asked, though she had overheard the debate. âAnd, no, Alec, weâre not buying a disused church. Thatâs going just a bit too far.â
âWell, from the sound of it, unless youâre planning on starting a cult, it wouldnât be a lot of use anyway. What can you do with a disused church except use it as a church?â
And then there was âEddyâ and his map, sitting in his accustomed corner night after night, nursing a pint for as long as he could make it last. Generally, Alec observed, one or other of the locals would buy him a second at some point in the evening and only then would the first glass be drained. He rarely seemed to join the conversation, though he listened with careful attention.
By the third night Alec felt comfortable enough to contribute the second pint. He took it over, noting the scatter of books and what looked like maps that Eddy habitually laid out on the table and studied intently. No one else, Alec noted, ever seemed to ask him about them, so he figured this daily scrutiny, like the habitual nursing of the pint, must also have continued for some considerable time.
Alec set the beer down in the one tiny patch of unused space and Eddy looked up to see who his benefactor might be. He nodded his thanks and drained the dregs of the first glass, setting it