[Authors Note]
The events described in this part take place after Maxine’s trip to Devon. She had been there on a Spa retreat with her friend Delphine and Delphine’s step-daughter Gabrielle. This is all described in part 24 of 'Sixty is not that Old'.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/89023/sixty-is-not-th...

Gabrielle took Delphine home while Maxine headed up onto Dartmoor and parked her car for a while. The purpose of the trip to the spa had been to get Delphine out of a fug that came from the showdown with her daughters. Many of the conversations they’d had while aimed at Delphine had resonated with Maxine. Now that the spa trip was over, she needed some time to think about some of the conclusions that had been staring her in the face all week.

Maxine parked her car and went for a walk through a piece of ancient oak woodland[1]. These were not the more normal majestic oaks that we see all over the country. These were small and gnarled. The wind that often ripped across the moorland had kept them very stunted, but the branches were all covered in moss and lichen. Their abundance signified a clean atmosphere.

Maxine saw something that looked out of place in the sea of green, so she went to investigate. She marvelled at a white blob that was clinging to a branch. She'd seen nothing like it before.

With her interest piqued in the 'thing', she started searching on her phone. The answer was soon staring her in the face. It was a 'slime mould’.

One article mentioned the possibility of using a slime mould and all its 700+ sexes to solve the famous 'travelling salesman ' problem.

She looked around and sighed. So much of what we did was hell-bent on destroying places like this. Just that one creature helped Maxine decide on how she wanted to move on with her life. Being based in Reigate was holding her back. The ever-presence of Adrian, while a pleasant memory, would not help her take the steps that she needed to move forward with both her life and business.

Back in her car, Maxine found herself a bit lost. The appearance of a menacing stone building soon brought her back to reality. She was looking at the old Dartmoor Prison. A place where so many lost souls ended their lives. Now it was a tourist attraction. Maxine shook her head. She was never one for the morbid side of life, but the juxtaposition of the prison and all the hardship and the slime mould which can heal itself in minutes if cut in half merely served to reinforce the decision that she'd come to less than half an hour earlier.

Her immediate problem was that the change would not be easy. Just like becoming Maxine had not been easy or plain sailing, making this change would take time and money. She had both of those but the experience of the past four days had reminded her that she was missing something important. Maxine longed to have someone in her life. The question of who that would be would have to wait for a while. A sudden rain squall appeared out of nowhere and dropped its load of wetness right on the village of Princetown. Maxine escaped the worst of it, but its intent was clear.

“This will never do,” she muttered to herself.

Maxine drove towards the main A30 road and headed east. A glance at the remaining charge in her car's battery told her that she would need to charge somewhere on the other side of Exeter to get back to Reigate that night. That made her next decision easy. She turned off the A30 and headed south. A good meal, a comfortable bed and somewhere to charge her car was waiting for her at the Hotel.

---

"Hello, Maxi," said Nina who was operating the reception desk when Maxine walked in.
“We were not expecting you this weekend.”

Maxine smiled.
"I've been at that fancy spa on the north side of the moor with a few friends. I didn't fancy driving home tonight, so here I am."

Nina smiled.
“I’m glad that you are here. Do you want to come over for dinner? Belinda and I have something to tell you.”

“Are you two getting married at last?”

That was a running joke between the three of them. Belinda and Nina were both in the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' camp when it came to getting married. Maxine tended to agree with them. They seemed to Maxine that they were almost the perfect couple. She would, if pressed hard, admit that she was a bit jealous of them and their relationship.

"Not yet. One of these days, she will say yes, and I’ll probably faint on the spot,” joked Nina.

“Sounds like I’ll have to give you away from my wheelchair!”

"Don't fret so much, Maxi. You'll find a nice person to share your life with."

"One of these days maybe, but from where I stand, they are a bit thin on the ground. Adrian was very much a one-off."

Nina laughed.
“He was that.”

“What time do you want me?”

“Let me check with my SWMBO. If I don’t say otherwise, seven will be fine.”

“Ok, I’ll see you then.”

Nina handed over the keys to the room that was kept ready for Maxine.
“No need to get dressed up like that fancy spa place.”

Maxine laughed as she left Nina alone in reception.

---

Maxine didn't hear to the contrary from Nina, so she turned up at the house that the two women shared just before seven that evening.

"Come on in, Belinda is just getting changed. She had an accident with the Tempura Batter. It went everywhere."

“Is there any clearing up I can do to help?”

“No, it is all under control.”

“Are we having Japanese tonight?”

"Belinda's attempt at it. Jules has been serving it at the Pub for a while, and it has been going down very well. The freshness of the ingredients helps a lot."

Maxine laughed.
“And to think that a few of the locals tried to stop us reopening the place even after we said that we’d use local ingredients wherever possible.”

“Yeah. Those doubting Thomas’s have been made to, as the American's say, 'eat crow' by the rest of the village."

Just then, Belinda appeared.
“Has Nina been regaling you of my woes with the batter?”

“She has but don’t worry about it. We all make mistakes from time to time.”

When they’d finished the big dish of Tempura Langostines, Belinda took hold of Nina’s hand with a smile and said,
“We want to take up your offer of donating some sperm. Nina here has been very broody recently. Even more so after Jacqui from housekeeping gave birth to twins.”

Her words gave Maxine a bit of a shock.

“Maxi, I know that it was a long time ago that you made the offer but… If it still stands, we’d love to have you as a parent.”

“I’d almost forgotten all about it.”

“It was when you decided to go the whole way but only after getting some of your sperm frozen first,” said Nina.
“You were sitting right where you are now,” she added.

Maxine sat quietly for almost a minute.

Slowly a smile appeared on her face.

"Yes. Yes, of course, the offer still stands. I… I was hoping to father my own child one day, but as that seems to be a remote possibility at the moment, I'll gladly donate some of my 'stuff' for you. I'll even pay for the treatment. How does that sound?"

Belinda looked lovingly at Nina. Maxine could see a tear form in their eyes.

Maxine leaned over and took hold of their hands.

“Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”

It was Nina who eventually answered.
“We weren’t sure. It was what… more than four years ago now.”

“I am bloody sure that I want to be the third wheel in your family. Why else do you think I made the offer in the first place. What's even better is the fact that I've decided to sell up in Reigate and move down here. If it is ok with you, I'd like to play my part in your family. If you ever want a babysitter, then you know who to call, Auntie Maxi."

She nearly said it in the style of the original ‘Ghostbusters’ theme tune but managed to stop herself in time.

Belinda and Nina hugged each other. Tears rolled down their cheeks. Maxine knew from past conversations that Belinda regretted not freezing some of her sperm before she had begun to transition.

"There is one condition, though. It isn't a huge one."

“Whatever it is, it is yours,” said a still tearful Belinda.

"I want you two to get married. You are a great couple, and I know that you are devoted to each other. Please do this for me?"

Nina looked at Belinda, who nodded.

"You two need a kick to get you to tie the knot. Isn't the prospect of having a baby together a good enough one or not?"

They both nodded.

“When did you decide to move down here? It wasn’t just tonight, was it?” asked Belinda.

Maxine shook her head.
"I have been thinking about it for quite a while now. The break at the Spa with Delphine gave me time away from the business to think very hard about my future. Then today, as I came across the moor, I stopped at an old oak wood. There I saw this thing called a slime mould. These creatures are very simple organisms. They have the ability to repair themselves in minutes if you cut them in half. Strange as it may seem, that's when I finally made up my mind to move down here."

“Then welcome to Devon Maxine,” said Belinda.
"I came down here just after I'd transitioned, and I never want to leave."

"Then don't. You two have a nice home here. It has always to me felt like a proper home, not like that Victorian monolith that I live in at the moment. It was always Adrian's home, not mine."

Then she added,
"If I can make my home even half as nice as this one, then I will have done well."

There wasn’t a lot more to be said on the issue.

---

Maxine stayed at the Hotel until Monday. She spent most of the time in one of the spare offices working hard on a project. She was keeping pretty tight-lipped about what it was all about.

"If I say nothing, then I can tell you no lies," she told anyone who inquired about her work.
“It is all a lot of wishful thinking at the moment.”

She'd sent an email to Cliff telling him that she would not be back at home until late on Monday. Cliff replied with words that said, 'it is alight for some' but, Maxine knew that she was joking.

"Hello, Michel. Hard at it as usual?" said Maxine when she arrived at Michel's and Delphine's home in Devon.

"Hi, Maxine. Delphine is up at the house if you want her?"

"It is you that I came to see."

“Me? Why?”

“Is your neighbour Janice still wanting to sell her home?”

A smile appeared on his face.
“Are you finally going to move? You have been talking about it for a while now.”

“I have finally decided that I am going to move down here, and her place seems to be ideal for me."

“There is more to it than just the house you know.”

"I do, and that's why I'm interested. Do you know if she is still interested in selling?"

"As far as I know, she is but, she does not want the hassle of going through Estate Agents. She was gazumped several times before she bought her present home."

"Then a direct sale might be the perfect solution for both of us. No sense in paying for a service that neither of us wants. Are you very busy? If not, could you introduce us?"

Michel smiled.
“Of course, I can do that but Delphine will be sad to have missed you.”

“I’m here for a board meeting tomorrow. I could come over tomorrow afternoon if that’s convenient for the two of you. I have something to discuss with you both.”

"That sounds serious. I don't think that Delphine has anything marked down for then. She's going to get her eyes tested tomorrow morning, but after that, I don't think we have anything that would stop us from meeting up later. I was planning on doing my deliveries in the morning anyway."

“That’s good for me.”

“I take it that you’d like to go over to Janice’s now?”

"If possible, then yes."

"Ok. Let me wash my hands, and we can go."

---

“Janice? Are you there?” called out Michel.

We’d walked across the fields from his home to hers. It had taken almost as long as it would have if we had driven.

We heard a noise from the upstairs part of the house.

Suddenly a window opened, and a woman poked her head out.

"Oh, it is you, Michel. I was expecting a delivery, but as usual, they seem to have got lost. I'll come down."

Shortly afterwards, a woman of about the same age as Delphine opened the door. Maxine saw right away that her hands were very arthritic. She wondered if this was the reason for her wanting to move.

“Janice, this is my good friend Maxine.”

"Oh. I've heard a lot about you from Jacques… sorry Michel. One of these days, I'll get it right."

"Don't worry, Janice. At least half of my customers plainly refuse to call me anything but Jacques."
“Janice,” said Michel becoming more formal.
“Maxine here might be interested in buying your house. If you are still interested in selling that is?”

Janice’s ears pricked up right away.

“Won’t you both come inside? I don’t like talking on the front step.”

Maxine thought ‘She sounds just like my mother’.

“Thanks, but Delphine will be wondering where I have gotten to,” said Michel.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Don’t forget tomorrow Maxine.

With that, he left. That was him all over. He wasn’t one for idle chit-chat.

Maxine followed Janice into the house. It seemed far more homely than her home in Reigate could ever be. She warmed to it right away.

Maxine was asked to sit down in the very spacious kitchen. There was an old wood-fired Aga range in the middle of one wall. She couldn't see any evidence of a Gas Boiler.

"Thanks, Janice. I hope that this isn't too much of a surprise. I thought it better for Michel to introduce us rather than coming here on my own."

Janice smiled.
"If you had done that, I probably would not have answered the door. There are some unsavoury people around at the moment. They trick their way into a house with some story and see if there is anything worth stealing. If there is, they and their friends come back when the occupant is out and rob the place."

“Thanks for the heads up,” replied Maxine.

“Janice, Michel told me that you were looking to sell up.”

"I am, but honestly, I don't want to go through the whole selling and buying process, dealing with multiple estate agents who do nothing but lie to you."

"I know what you mean. If we can come to some sort of agreement between ourselves, then there is no need to involve an agent in the sale."

“What do you suggest?” asked Janice.

"If you could get a couple of valuations and I'll pay the average of the two prices. I will be a cash buyer, so there won't be a chain to worry about from my side."

“It sounds like you have given this some thought?”

Maxine smiled back at her.
“I talked things over with my Accountant and the Company Lawyer.”

“You have an Accountant?”

She grinned back at Janice.
"I don't, but my company does."

Maxine dived into my handbag and pulled out a card.
“That’s got all my contact information on it.”

Janice took the card, and after studying it for a moment, she smiled.

“How about I give you the grand tour?”

“That’s great. Lead on.”

---

“Well, Maxine, what do you think of my little kingdom?” said Janice with some pride.
She’d showed her all the house and the outbuildings, especially the 1970's cowshed.

“I think it will do me perfectly. The large empty barn is just what I’m looking for.”

“There are some restrictions on what you can do with it. You can’t run a food production business from it without applying for planning. As you can see, I park my car in there. The rest of the things are mostly junk that I’ve never gotten around to taking to the recycling centre.”

“I certainly won’t be doing anything that would break planning. My first aim would be to cover the roof with solar panels.”

Janice let out a small laugh.
"Jacques has been on at me to do that. It is a mystery to me how the two of them manage with a pile of old car batteries as their source of electricity. Before he met Delphine, I could understand it but now that there are the two of them… It must be touch and go."

"I know. Delphine is a little worried as well. Perhaps I could sell him some of my excess power?"

Janice laughed.
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you tell him that!”

“Do we have a deal on how to proceed?” asked Maxine.

“I think we do.”

"Good. I await the findings of the valuations. Please don't let the agents try to sign you up there and then on one of their so-called 'sole agent' deals."

"I know all about them, and I'll put on my dithering female act for them at the appropriate time."

Maxine laughed.
“If you were only my age Janice, I’d have a job for you.”

"Thanks for the compliment. I'm retired and, when this goes through, I'm going to move to somewhere a lot smaller. I'm afraid that my eyes got the better of me when I bought this place. It has been just too much for me to manage. Don't get me wrong, I love the place, but I have things I want to do with my life and… and being here just didn't allow that to happen."

“I know what you mean.”

“You do know that there are animal care duties to consider living here?”

“You mean feeding Michel’s flock?”

“Yeah. You’d better get used to being given the run around by those geese when trying to round them up at night.”

"I know about them. Even Michel has problems at times with the roundup. I've seen him end up face down in the stream but don't tell him about that. It was not his finest hour."

---

"Morning Cliff," said Maxine on Tuesday morning.

“Ah… the wanderer returns. Have a good week off?”

"Don't you start? I did a good deal of work while I was away if you must know."

“Yeah, having a massage is really hard work…”

“Ok, if you want, I’ll book you and your wife in for a trip. Then you can see how easy it is.”

“Pah!”

“The trip did allow me to do a good deal of thinking. Don’t groan because it concerns you as well.”

Cliff sat down. His eyes went towards the kitchen.

“Tea can wait.”

"Ok, Maxi. Let me have it. Both barrels."

“Cliff, it isn’t like that at all. If you must know, I’ve decided to move down to Devon.”

Cliff smiled.

"At last. Took you long enough, didn't it."

"I don't know what you mean?"

"Adrian told me the day before he moved to the Hospice, and I quote, 'Don't be surprised if eventually, Maxine decides to sell up and move to Devon.’ I’m just saying as how he told me.”

“That does not surprise me. We did discuss it before he got the final diagnosis.”

“When and where?”

“The when is open. The where is I’m going to be a neighbour of Delphine and Michel.”

“It sounds like you have made an offer on a place already?”

"Not quite an offer. I have come to a verbal agreement with the owner to pay the average of two valuations.”

Cliff sat back in his chair and looked at his hands. This was a sure sign that he was thinking hard.

"Don't think so hard, Cliff. I'd like to move down to Devon before October. However, until I get myself established down there, this will still be our base of operations. If you press me hard, then I see this place going on the market around Christmas time. That means, Cliff, that when this place is sold, and empty, you can retire and move down to Barnstaple.”

Cliff just glared back at Maxine.

“Did I say anything wrong?”

“Moving to North Devon is out as far as the wife goes. Her sister has taken up with a man that is a total loser. He’s living out of the back of his camper van that is currently parked on her driveway. It is pretty obvious to everyone but her that he is only after her money. He's been bankrupt three times and owes a lot of maintenance to his two former wives. Do I have to go on?"

Maxine chuckled.
“How? How did you find all that out?”

"I just googled his name. One of the former partners is out for blood. They got back together just long enough for him to make her pregnant again. Within an hour of her telling him the news, he was gone leaving behind a load of debt that was somehow in her name. It is all there on Facebook."

“Does your sister-in-law know this?”

Cliff nodded his head.
"That's what caused the rift. She told us to loudly and with a good deal of profanity to never darken her door again."

“At least you tried. So where is next on the retirement list?”

"North. The Far north. Just to be a long way away for when it all goes pear-shaped."

“You mean Scotland? Or farther north than that?”

“I mean Berwick upon Tweed. I have a couple of cousins who live near there. One has fishing rights on a section of the Tweed.”

Maxine laughed.
“That sounds like a good place to be a cast-away!”

Cliff just groaned but managed a smile.

[to be continued]

[1] The wood in question is called Wistmans Wood and was in the news recently
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-57602915

The picture of the interior of the wood on the BBC site shows how strange it is.