LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘Why move?’ they had said. ‘Let him be the one to go. He’s found a new life, a new woman; let him find a new home somewhere else.’ But she knew she couldn’t do it. The house was their house; the garden their garden; the furniture mostly their furniture that they had chosen together. She wanted to move on, to start again with nothing to remind her of the past and how happy they had been.

      It had been very hard when she knew she was losing him. Shock, pain, outrage, anger had all taken their place in the queue with loss of self-esteem, but she had forced herself to come through it, and now here she was in a small Victorian terraced cottage instead of a large modern house, in a town instead of the country, with new furniture and even – especially – a new bed. She had defiantly chosen a huge king-size bed. It took up most of the bedroom and came with a gloriously comfortable mattress – not the iron-hard orthopaedic job Steven had needed for his back. She smothered it in a bright duvet and dozens of pillows, and had a TV in the bedroom.

      That part of being divorced was good. She could watch her choice of programmes all the time and take her supper to bed if she felt like it. Or breakfast. Or lunch. And she had independence and freedom. And a new-found ability to make decisions and realise that they were perfectly valid. And time for herself. And money.

      It might have been better had she needed to work, but Steven had been generous – guilt, she supposed – and that was the problem. A delightful town, a picturesque street, pleasant neighbours, but no friends. She was lonely. She should have stayed where she was, where her friends had been supportive and sympathetic and angry on her behalf. But they had been too angry. Angrier than she was. They kept on about Steven and what he had done, and they wouldn’t let her move on. She wanted new friends who hadn’t known him. People who would show her how to get over that one last hurdle: the feeling that she hadn’t been good/beautiful/successful/young enough to keep her man. But how to meet them? And how to feel a different person?

      She stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and surveyed herself critically. Figure – not bad. Skin – quite good. Legs – still definitely an asset. Eyes – beautiful, or so Steven used to say, and presumably they had not changed. Hair – neat, quite attractive. But even naked the overall effect was demure. How could one look demure naked? She tried a few un-demure poses. No, she had to admit, demure seemed to come naturally.

      She went into her bedroom and threw open the cupboard. Smart/pretty. Mid-length hems. Court shoes. Demure. And – she had to face it – middle-aged! But she wasn’t middle-aged! It came out as a wail inside her head. Was she?

      Steven obviously thought she was. The new wife was twenty years younger than she was. But also, to her astonishment when she had finally seen (not met, not allowed to meet) her successor, she, too, was demure. So that proved that she had been the wife Steven had wanted her to be. The wife he had conjured out of the malleable young girl she had been. He had made her demure, and she, Janet, didn’t want to be demure any more. She went back to the bathroom and stared at herself again. What could she do about it?

      Strangely, it hadn’t occurred to her to throw out her clothes when she began her new life. They had escaped the blitz intact, to every last Jaeger sweater and Jacquemar scarf. The trouble was, how did she want to look? She wasn’t sure.

      She put on some clothes – a sensible skirt, tailored shirt, double row of cultured pearls – brushed her hair neatly, and slotted her handbag on her arm. She set out purposefully for the centre of town, where she veered away from the stores she usually frequented and headed for the network of medieval lanes behind the cathedral, looking for the smart ‘little shops’.

      Meeting Annette was providential.

      Janet was staring at a strikingly attractive narrow window display on the corner of St Anne’s Lane, featuring a dress of the kind she secretly coveted but had never had the courage to buy, when she noticed another woman apparently rapt in admiration of the same dress. She gave her a shy glance. ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’

      The other woman was, Janet saw in the quick scrutiny she allowed herself, stunningly attractive. She was slim, dressed in a style not dissimilar to the clothes in the window, and had an enviably relaxed elegance. Janet gave her another surreptitious, admiring look. The woman smiled. ‘I’m glad you like it. I’ve just finished arranging it. That’s why I was checking what it looked like.’

      Janet felt herself blush. ‘It’s your shop?’

      The woman nodded. ‘I’m Annette.’ She indicated the sign on the fascia. ‘Do come inside and look round if you like.’

      It was the first shop Janet had entered on her quest for a new identity and she looked round curiously, made an instant assessment of Annette’s obvious grasp of style, and, as the shop was small and empty at that moment of other customers, and the smallness and emptiness fostered a feeling of confidence and confidentiality, she told Annette everything.

      And found herself trying on long, soft dresses with plunging necklines, shoes with platform soles, ropes of beads and fringed scarves. She was made to bend from the waist and comb her hair up the wrong way until it stood round her head in a wild ruff which made her look – and feel – twenty years younger. She was bullied into trying new eye-shadow and lipstick out of Annette’s own cosmetic bag, and at last she was allowed to look at herself in the full-length mirror.

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