LITMIR.BIZ

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my ankles, so I gave up. Looking at my progress I could safely assume the ground staff at Wimbledon weren’t going to come calling any time soon. But somehow the beauty of the countryside was getting a hold on me. I had been feeling I was never going to get myself back on an even keel but the garden kept sending out buds and shoots of greenery like a powdering of hope over the bare branches.

      I was used to designing the inside of a house. I had made colours and fabrics work even when Ian had pulled that face and voiced his doubts. Now I began to wonder if gardens could work the same way. Perhaps if that hedge was removed, if those trees were cut back?

      Crocuses were beginning to sparkle in the grass at the end of the garden; white and golden yellow and purple – heralds of a new spring that only a few weeks ago I didn’t think I had the courage to bear.

      I kept darting looks at Ivy Cottage, half hoping Bryn would come out, see how incompetent I was and take over, but the kitchen curtains remained shut; the top half of the stable door closed. Perhaps he was away? Maybe he was ill?

      I carried on messing about at the end of the garden for the rest of the afternoon. There was a fair amount of debris to remove from the neglected borders. Apart from the bath there was a collection of foil takeaway trays, a rusted child’s bike, the remains of several very large nylon dog bones (that explained the damp dog smell) and a broken basketball hoop buried in the nettles at the end of the patch. There was also a rotting wooden construction, not so much a compost bin as an additional rubbish dump. I toiled away for a couple of days while the weather was good, and then realised I had only succeeded in moving the debris from the garden where it had been well hidden, to my driveway where it wasn’t. Perhaps I needed a skip? I couldn’t afford a skip.

      I didn’t know what to do with all the stuff I had accumulated. Should I put it into the car and take it somewhere? If so, when and where? Bryn would know. And with all those muscles and also the use of his useful pickup truck, he would make short work of it. Perhaps I could take him up on that offer of a beer too. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone for nearly a week, apart from the boy in the mobile phone shop who had sorted out a new contract for me, and a friendly cashier called Maureen in Superfine who always seemed to be there in the afternoons. I’d tried going to the village shop in a sort of ingratiating desire to support local industry but they seemed to open and close when they felt like it.

      I decided to give up for the day; I needed bread as I seemed to be living on sandwiches and my endless tea and coffee consumption meant I was always in danger of running out of milk.

      As I drove into Superfine’s car park I wondered why I wasn’t cooking any more. I loved cooking; I even enjoyed watching other people cooking on television programmes yet now I was living on tins of soup and cheese toasties. Perhaps I should make more of an effort? Maybe then I would ask Bryn over for a meal by way of a thank you. He would like that. I didn’t suppose he had much company either. He seemed to live on his own. I wondered if his arm had healed up OK? Probably; after all it was three weeks ago and I hadn’t seen any ambulances pulling up outside.

      ‘Back again, my duck?’ Maureen said as she scanned my shopping, weighing my fruit and vegetables and frowning at the scale.

      By then I knew all about Kyle, her son in the Navy, and Himself’s (her husband’s) bad back, and more than I wanted to know about her ‘various veins’.

      ‘I’m always running out of milk,’ I said.

      Her face brightened. ‘Got a cat, have you?’

      ‘Well no—’

      ‘My cat gets through pints of the stuff, although Himself says it’s not good for ’em. I says to him, well if you’m so clever you tell Fluffy, ’cos I’m not.’

      She scanned a packet of chocolate cookies and looked at them admiringly.

      ‘They looks nice. I couldn’t have them though. I’m supposed to be losing weight and if I had them in the cupboard I wouldn’t get no peace until I’d eaten ’em all. That’s fourteen pounds twenty. Having a busy day, are you?’

      I handed over a twenty-pound note. ‘Well I’ve not lived here long. I’m doing some decorating. For a friend.’

      Maureen rolled her eyes. ‘You can come and do mine when you’re finished! I’ve been waiting for Himself to paint the front room for years but it’s still not done. The paint will be solid in the tin by the time he gets the lid off. And there’s your change, me duck.’

      I hesitated. There was no one behind me waiting to be served.

      ‘Are there any jobs going here, do you know? It’s just…well you know.’

      Maureen sucked her cheeks in. ‘No, I don’t think so. You’d have to ask at the so-called Help Desk. Not that they will be much help if they can avoid it. Too busy gossiping and complaining and messing about with rotas. But you could ask.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      I wandered past the Help Desk where two women in purple suits were busy tapping in barcodes and sighing as they tried to organise a refund for a harassed-looking woman with two toddlers who were rolling on the floor kicking each other. Perhaps another day.

      Three days later I noticed the stable door into the kitchen was open again and my heart gave a little leap. Bryn was back from wherever he had disappeared to.

      I went upstairs to change into a clean T-shirt, slick on some red lip-gloss and run a comb through my hair. After fiddling about for a few moments I tied my hair back and wiped off the lip-gloss. Then I changed into another shirt and faffed about wondering how many buttons to do up or undo. Then I added some blusher and a smudge of grey eye shadow. And a pink lip-gloss.

      I took a look at myself in the bathroom mirror and rolled my eyes. For heaven’s sake, my brown hair needed cutting, my blue eyes under the badly smeared eye shadow looked tired. More than that, I looked like a right clown. What on earth was I playing at? I just needed the man next door to come and help me move a bath, it didn’t matter what colour my mouth was.

      On my way to Bryn’s front door I noticed a car parked around the side of his house. A red, soft top sports something and I wondered how he would fit his long legs into that. I went and knocked on the door.

      After a moment I heard someone moving about inside. I hesitated, my hand raised, wondering if I should knock again and then the door opened. Not Bryn at all but a glorious redhead in tight jeans and a baggy boyfriend jumper that was in danger of slipping off her tanned shoulder.

      ‘Hi,’ she said.

      She looked down at me from atop her long legs and gave a dazzling smile that spoke of several thousand pounds and many hours at the orthodontist.

      ‘I’m Bonnie, you must be the caterer.’

      Bonnie? She certainly was. But caterer? As if. And who was she? Sister? Girlfriend? Wife?

      ‘Bonnie?’ I said.

      She laughed and tossed her because-I’m-worth-it hair about.

      ‘Short for Bonita. Which is a ghastly name isn’t it? Do come in,’ she said.

      Mesmerised, I followed her pert bottom down the hallway and into the kitchen. I had assumed this house was a mirror image of mine but it was bigger. There was a conservatory tacked onto the side and some sort of extension or office in the garden beyond, half hidden by some bushes. I suppose I should have told Bonnie I wasn’t the caterer but at this stage I was far too busy being nosey.

      I caught a glimpse of a sitting room painted in dark red with floor to ceiling bookcases, a beautiful grandfather clock in the hall and then she took me into the kitchen. It was rather old fashioned with a huge built-in dresser and under the window a Belfast sink with a red gingham curtain underneath it.

      ‘So it’s going to be a surprise party,’ Bonnie said, leaning back against a newish and familiar-looking granite worktop (probably Sahara Sparkle), ‘for about twenty. OK?’

      ‘Well I’m not actually…’

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