Every Sunday Gustaf McSweeney takes his Irish Wolfhound, Scruffa, for a long walk across the South Downs at Telscombe. He stops when he reaches the ridge and looks back across the valley. Years ago this was the back of beyond for Londoners, now the majority of the rural inhabitants are urban migrants. Vanessa Bell's sister used to take this route, as she thought through the pressured ideas that would eventually emerge from her pen, only to be edited and re-edited. By contrast McSweeney's mind is purposefully blank (he practices Mindfulness as he walks). The question is, who will tell him that Scruffa died twenty years ago, and that on the end of the lead he is dragging a stuffed toy?
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