Jake carried them down from the hill, came into the cottage and placed the small cardboard box on the table.

‘For us,’ he said.

‘I wondered why you took the box out with you.’ I peered inside, saw the mushrooms and frowned.

He smiled. ‘They’re edible.’

‘How do you know?’ I lifted one out, sniffing at its heavy, earthy smell.

‘I’m a country lad.’ Jake took off his oiled jacket and hung it on a hook behind the kitchen door. Then he sat down, looked up at me and asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘Of what?’ I put the box beside the sink.

‘This place?’

I looked out of the kitchen’s small window onto bare hills that scattered white sheep. ‘Quaint,’ I told him, knowing that he needed my opinion of this hillside farm his late father had bequeathed to his only son.

‘I’m not going back,’ Jake said. ‘I can’t stand another minute in the city.’ I glanced over at him, anxiety rising. ‘Sophie, this is where I belong. I know that now. This is the place where I was born. Grew up.’ His brown eyes seemed to dim. ‘Where I broke my father’s heart when I left.’

I looked about the kitchen, aching for our minimalist apartment in Cardiff Bay. ‘There’s no work around here,’ I told him.

‘I’ve got the sheep. The land.’ A pause. Then, ‘Hopefully you, Sophie.’

I stared down at the flag stoned floor with its little hollows filled with rain water and mud brought in on Jake’s boots. ‘Let’s eat,’ I said, going to the larder, taking out freshly laid eggs to make an omelette.

‘Don’t forget the mushrooms.’ Jake got up and stood beside me, slicing into their succulent, strange flesh.

Later, we lay in front of the log fire watching Merlin dance and leap about in the flames. Dylan Thomas joined us, stepping down from a poster that hung above the fireplace, reciting ‘Fern Hill,’ in his rich Welsh voice.