What I Did For Love...

By MG Woods

Three people. Two choices. One disaster...

Jim Meade is 30, single, unfulfilled at work and firmly under the perfectly manicured thumb of his monstrous mother Sylvia.

He’s also one half of west London’s least requested pub band – the other is his outrageous best friend Eric Chapman.

Jim can feel his life stagnating, slowly, in front of him.

But everything changes the day he meets the gorgeous, funny, Lucy Bradley. They hit it off instantly. Within a week, she’s moved into his flat. Within a month, they've big news.

But how will it go down with the matriarchal and desperately needy Sylvia? Especially when she’s harbouring dark secrets of her own. And how will Eric adapt to his closest friend’s changed circumstances? Not in the way anyone imagines.

Jim will find himself torn in all directions. But by trying to please everyone, will he end up losing them all?

What I Did For Love... is a romantic comedy about pride, attachment, betrayal and dysfunction. Of every kind.

(Note from the author: reader reviews on Smashwords or Amazon very welcome. Even bad ones - well, sort of! Many thanks. MG)

• Language: English
• Publisher: MG Woods
• Release date: May 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310604294

MG Woods

M.G. Woods was a journalist on several UK national newspapers for more than a decade but not quite two. When the weather's not too sunny or inviting, he still works in the media.What I Did For Love... is his first novel.

Book preview

It began with a shelving unit. Not any old unit but a wavy Formica set from Argos. It was rickety, cumbersome, much heavier than it looked or had any right to be. Even Oxfam had turned it down.

And yet, despite everything, Granny Finlay’s ‘beech-effect’ eyesore remains the most treasured piece in my furniture collection. Not that there was ever much competition.

The reason is simple: I inherited the unit on the day my life changed. The day I met Lucy.

I’m no expert on romantic locations of the world, though I’m pretty sure Kensal Rise Self Storage Depot doesn’t hit the Top 20. But it was here, among the strip lighting, plastic boxes and three-for-two bubble wrap, that I first ran into her.

Granny Finlay had died some months earlier, and Mum and her sister Joan had finally got round to clearing out her old flat. My best friend Eric and I had just returned from a few weeks in India. He’d picked up a deep tan and a couple of nubile girls; I’d got sunstroke and a couple of bouts of Delhi belly.

Since we’d travelled goat-class on the cheapest available flight, we arrived at Luton at around 4.30am on a chilly Tuesday morning. I’d got back to my place and was about to crash out when I caught a reassuringly familiar sight: a flashing home phone.

‘James, darling, tell me India didn’t destroy your gut.’ Mum rarely, if ever, left a message on my mobile. She comes from a generation that still thinks calling one costs £700 per minute.

‘Mrs D’s been telling me the most terrible things about giardia,’ the word rolled off her tongue like a rich Italian dessert. Mrs D was part-time churchwarden, full-time scaremonger. ‘She says poor Peter’s bowels have never been the same since Pakistan. Explosive.’ Mum also comes from a generation untroubled by TMI.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘Granny’s stuff is in storage now. You’d better hurry round and see if there’s anything you want. You know what a hoarder Mummy was.’

That was her shortest message. I saved the other six until the morning.

Later that day, I drove to Kensal Rise, picked up a key at reception and set off down a labyrinth of corridors. I finally reached the door and found a woman I didn’t recognise jiggling a key in the lock.

‘Don’t think you’ll find much in there,’ I said.

She turned round and I almost fell back. Even in a shapeless top and a pair of baggy grey sweatpants, Lucy was beautiful. Her nutty auburn hair was scraped up in a ponytail and immediately I noticed a dark smudge on the tip of her nose. A freckle, or the mark of a felt-tip pen? Impossible to tell but I found it incredibly sexy.

But the most extraordinary things of all were her eyes, a rich, deep cobalt blue. She hadn’t said a word but already I felt they were looking straight through me – peering, rather worryingly, into my soul.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘How do you know, you haven’t looked have you?’

‘Well, unless you’re a cousin I’ve never met – and knowing uncle Sid I wouldn’t rule it out – I think you’ve got your key in the wrong lock.’ I held up my key ring. Number 1406. ‘I’ve been told this one’s got my grandmother’s stuff in it.’

‘You’re joking? Oops, I’m so sorry,’ said Lucy. ‘You’ll kill me, but I think I’ve got the key jammed. No wonder – my door’s 1404.’

It took about an hour for reception to get a locksmith out but I was praying he’d got stuck on a jailbreak – it was one of the best hours of my life. Once we’d got the introductions out the way, Lucy couldn’t stop talking and I couldn’t stop listening.

In no particular order, I heard all about silver service at Sunbury Travelodge, her mum’s underactive thyroid, childhood holidays in Lyme Regis, her fourth failed driving test, her recent surprise 29th birthday party, a flaccid flasher on the 08.14 to Waterloo…

And then, when I’d digested all this and more, mercifully passing with flying colours, I heard all about Lucy’s not so dearly departed ex-boyfriend Rob. The one who cheated on her with a biology teacher. The one she talked about marrying but now wished would rot in hell. The one whose flat she’d left only weeks ago, never to return as long as she lived.

As I heard this tale of unbridled woe, I managed to maintain a thoughtful yet sympathetic expression, as if I was watching an award-winning documentary on child trafficking. Inside though, my heart had shot up my windpipe and was pounding my molars. Things like this happened to people I knew. Like Eric. They just rarely happened to me.

That afternoon, Lucy barely came away with anything more than my name – partly because I was a human sponge, keen to absorb every last detail about her, but mainly because I was desperate to avoid saying anything to put her off me. There’d be plenty of time for that later.

‘All yours,’ the locksmith said, pushing open the door.

‘Thanks,’ I replied, insincerely. ‘Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to be worth the wait?’

Lucy and I stepped inside as I patted the wall for a light switch. The room was smaller than I’d expected – an airless, windowless box with half a dozen chairs stacked up along one wall. About a year before she died I remember Granny recalling with pride how she’d picked them up from a jumble sale for two quid each. Even with cataracts she still had an eye for a bargain.

But it was sobering to see the remains of a 94-year-old life in such a sterile, empty space. After surviving the Blitz and losing two brothers at Dunkirk, Granny had devoted herself entirely to her beloved husband Frank – and, of course, her family. ‘Nothing else matters,’ was our mantra.

And yet, apart from an ornate headstone, what did she actually have to show for it? A pile of cardboard boxes, some chipped crockery, a plastic wall clock, dozens of odd shoes, a cupboard full of M&S cardigans and pleated skirts.

And of course, shoved back into the corner, one bulky oddity: a Formica shelving unit from Argos. £14.99. Reduced to Clear. The USP (apart from the price) was that the supporting beams were wavy – a radical design which meant it would topple over and flatten you without two bits of cardboard wedged firmly underneath.

I’d gone to pick it up for Granny one Easter. She’d insisted on giving me the cash beforehand, then pressed a fourth crumpled fiver into my palm.

‘Go on, take it,’ she winked. ‘It’s worthless. You know me, James. I only like the crisp ones.’

I nearly had a double hernia lifting the unit on to the bus and spent the next day and a half putting it up – mainly because Granny kept picking up the screws, then forgetting where she’d left them.

‘Did you know her well?’ asked Lucy.

‘Oh yeah,’ I replied. ‘She was a wonderful little woman. Full of life and energy, like a coiled spring. Not that you’d know it from this. It must be weird to see your entire life in one room.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Lucy, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve only been here a week but I’m already terrified I’ll turn into Jenny.’

She signalled to a bedraggled middle-aged woman trudging down the corridor with a mountain of washing. ‘She’s here at the crack of dawn to get dressed and back after work to unwind among her special things. Told me she’s been doing it for years. Think this place must creep up on you, like that hotel song.’

‘Greensleeves?’

‘No, the one with the boring guitar bit that goes on for ever.’

‘Oh, you mean Hotel California?’

‘That’s the one. You know, something about checking in and never leaving.’

She was wrong, of course. Lucy Bradley and every single item of her storage would soon check in to my place. Along with Granny’s shelves.

And I hoped they’d never leave.

Chapter 2

‘I think I’ve met someone.’

‘Well, have you or haven’t you? Come on mate, it’s not rocket science.’

‘OK, I have.’

‘Excellent. Boy or girl?’

Talking about girls – an enduring passion. Of course, Eric and I discussed plenty of other things too. Well, maybe just a handful, but talking about girls was easily the most rewarding. Eventually we’d learn to venture out into the real world and talk to girls. But that came much later – and, for me at least, was slightly less productive.

Eric Chapman and I go back a very long way, to the damp, airless music room and torn-out Penthouse centrefold he gave me once after school. The image was slightly troubling to a naïve young 12-year-old on the brink of adolescence; and all I’d done was teach him a few chords on the guitar. But it was a small act of kindness at a time when tokens from other pupils were in short supply – unless you count being squirted by syringes full of piss or struck by snowballs packed with rocks. Which, strangely enough, I didn’t.

I suppose I was an easy target, in every sense. I was fat years before it was fashionable. Way ahead of the curve. Back then, child obesity was still a novelty in the playground. There were just one or two in each year, which meant we were singled out for a special kind of abuse.

Eric, meanwhile, was taller and skinnier than a sherbet straw – he still is. He also hasn’t lost the cheeky face or defiant dolphin-fin tuft of hair. He was never especially cool though, or tough, sporty, theatrical or nerdy. In fact he didn’t fit naturally into any box – except the clown one. And everyone loved him for it. Even the teachers had a soft spot for him because, no matter how much of a fool he played during the rest of term, when exam time came round he’d always manage to pull something special out the bag. A cheat sheet, usually.

So no one ever laid a finger on Eric. And after we became friends, no one laid a finger on me. What did he see in me, apart from 12½ stone of wobbling, pre-pubescent bulk? Perhaps a similar sense of mischief, though until he came along I’d been too shy to act on it. Walking around school together we must have looked like Laurel and Hardy without derby hats. But Eric had self-confidence. Boundless self-confidence. And some of it rubbed off on me. For that alone, I owed him a lot.

The night after meeting Lucy, I’d once again joined Eric in the dingy, lager-soaked backroom of the Hare & Hound – or Hairy Mound, as he insisted on calling it. Twelve years after leaving school, we still tried to come together every other Tuesday night – to play in west London’s least-requested, but most persistent acoustic band.

We had our own loyal handful of fans, like old my college mate Mark and Eric’s commercial property partner Dodgy Dave. But the rest were made up of stragglers who’d find us en route to the toilets. They were easy to identify – the way they crashed through the doorway with purpose, searching for the Gents sign as if peering over a garden fence. An encouraging few stopped to listen on their way back to the bar, dropping by again when their bladders were suitably distended.

As I described Lucy in careful detail, Eric listened intently while tuning his guitar. From time to time he’d rest it on his knee and jot a few imaginary notes down the neck as if he was taking a witness statement.

‘She sounds perfect,’ he said eventually. ‘What’s the catch?’

I’d been contemplating that question from the moment Lucy and I had swapped numbers. I’d assumed hers was fake until she called me in the car park to check she’d taken mine down correctly.

‘At the moment,’ I said ominously. ‘I honestly can’t find one.’

The door swung open and a guy ran in.

‘Excuse me guv…’

‘…Down the corridor, second on the right,’ said Eric. He turned back to me. ‘Come on, Jim, there’s always a catch. Remember that girl in Ibiza?’

He leant forward to show me the livid scar on his ear. ‘Bastard came at me out of nowhere. Nearly ripped it off.’

‘To be fair, he was her husband,’ I said. ‘And her wedding ring was a bit of a giveaway.’

Eric sighed. ‘Jimbo, how many times to I have to tell you?’ He raised a bare ring finger. ‘Most girls wear them as decoys. They’re everywhere, man.’

I’d never run into this kind of decoy, but then I’d never looked quite as far, or as hard, as Eric. I don’t think anyone had. When it came to chasing women he was in a league of his own. He was good at it, too. He could wangle a stranger’s phone number from anywhere: recycling plants, job interviews, even a dentist’s waiting room after tricky root canal surgery. (He scribbled notes until the anaesthetic wore off.)

Of course, Eric was often generous and democratic in choice of targets, and never afraid to play percentages. Ask ten random girls on a date and you might get one. Ask 100, you might get 10, and so on.

Nor did he believe any chat up line too corny to deploy:

‘Excuse me, but is there an airport nearby – or is that just my heart taking off?’

‘Hello love. Do you sleep on your stomach? Can I?’

And his own, homemade favourite:

‘Clapton, god of music; Cantona, god of football; Chapman, god of love.’

Eric may have carried a collection of battle scars but he was never short of dates – they just rarely blossomed into full-blown relationships.

‘So, where you gonna take her?’ he pondered, more to himself than me. ‘Let’s have a serious think about this.’

The door swung open again.

‘Down corridor, second right,’ said Eric, without looking up. ‘You know, it’s a shame York’s has closed down.’

York’s was an exclusive members’ club in Covent Garden – though calling it a club was in breach of the Trades Descriptions Act. It was actually two tiny, claustrophobic rooms in a West End dungeon.

Calling it exclusive was also unfair, though not strictly inaccurate. Apart from Eric and the terminally morose owner Garcia, I never actually spotted another member. Eric had come across the club when he started working in town, and persuaded me to pay the £110 subscription fee. I couldn’t really afford it but it seemed like a decent enough place to stop off for a drink on the way home. Until we discovered the only thing on offer was brandy sour – and the only company was sour Garcia.

It was not a shame York’s had closed down.

Eric was now lost in thought; I could almost hear his brain rifling through its vast database of venues.

‘Right, OK, got it. You know what I’d do?’ he asked excitedly. ‘I’d kick off with a cheeky cocktail at Windows, wander round to Scott’s for a couple of courses – but make sure you’re done by nine. Then jump in a cab to Victoria and second act Wicked. I tell you, girls love it. And gay men. And me, as it happens.’

Second acting musicals is another of Eric’s obsessions. He picked it up years ago as cash-strapped student. But even now, with plenty of money, he can’t shake it off.

I went with him in the early days. We’d arrive five minutes before the interval. The doors would fly open and all the smokers would teem out on to the street. We didn’t care about them, we were looking for anyone leaving the theatre for good. Why? We wanted their seats.

When the bell rang for the second half we’d slip back inside with the crowd, all the way up to the upper dress circle. We’d look over the balcony, casing the joint until we struck gold. And then, just as the lights dimmed, we’d swoop down to claim the empty seats.

Usually things would go the plan. But sometimes we’d hit a snag, like a couple of middle-aged latecomers. As he and his wife examined their ticket stubs, we’d get up and shuffle back along the row. At this point I’d dash for the nearest exit, but Eric was made of sterner stuff. Who else would suffer the humiliation of getting turfed out of four different seats during Blood Brothers before eventually finding one in the disabled bay?

‘Thanks mate, but I think I might give the theatre a miss,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure Lucy like musicals. And if she did, she might prefer seeing the whole show.’

‘Fair play,’ said Eric, doing his best not to look offended. ‘I always like a bit of drama and excitement on a first date. But you, amigo, must do what you have to do.’

‘Thanks. I was thinking we’d go for a walk in the park.’

‘Jeez, she’s not a bloody Labrador.’

‘I know, I know,’ I laughed. ‘But this time I just want to keep things nice and simple. That way I reckon it’s harder even for me to screw it up.’

Chapter 3

Even to an eye as familiar as mine, it looked nothing like her – not even a roughly sketched E-fit. The shape of her face was all wrong, the features had none of their natural refinement – the sharp, angular lines of an ageing but defiant beauty queen. It was Mrs Potato Head not Mrs Sylvia Meade. My Mum.

‘Of course it’s terribly early days,’ said Jeremy Brocklethorpe through a nervous cough. ‘A mere foetus on canvas. But can you just start to see the likeness?’

I couldn’t, but there was a desperate look in his eyes, so I found myself nodding.

‘Agh, the waiting…it’s agony,’ said Mum. She was reclining on a chaise longue about three feet from the easel. A sphinx with lipstick. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.’

Jeremy took a prolonged slurp of tea. ‘You must, Sylvia. All works of beauty take time – think of the Sistine Chapel.’ Good to see he wasn’t setting the bar too high.

‘As long as you lose these dreadful lines, Jeremy,’ she gestured to her crow’s feet, ‘Or I’ll have to turn the painting to the wall. Or banish it to Papillon.’

Papillon was the gîte Mum and Dad part-owned in the Dordogne – the place they descended on each summer for a fortnight of enforced leisure.

‘Lines, Sylvia?’ simpered Jeremy. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

The room fell silent as Jeremy removed his head from Mum’s arse and returned it to the canvas. His concentration was broken suddenly by a crash from outside.

‘Colonel Sanders!’ he cried, rushing to the window. ‘The lawnmower!’

Jeremy Brocklethorpe was the local painter/decorator – and not especially good at either. He once did such a poor job on our kitchen that when he announced he’d finished, we assumed he was joking. It was almost impossible to tell where dry paint ended and Jeremy began.

Colonel Sanders was Jeremy’s adored miniature schnauzer. Named after the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder? No, he reminded Jeremy of his Army days. Not that these were particularly fond memories – Jeremy had been thrown out for gross insubordination. Effete, witty and prone to melodrama, it was difficult to imagine him playing a role in the military, other than Carry on Corporal.

So why was Jeremy painting Mum’s portrait? It was Colonel Sanders’ fault. A few months earlier, the dog had hurled himself out of Jeremy’s car window and broken both hind legs. Dad had spent all night in surgery saving the dog’s life. It was his job, of course – Dad’s a vet. But Jeremy was overwhelmed with gratitude.

‘I’ve just got to do something to thank you good people,’ he’d begged Mum. ‘Something you’ve never had before.’

A well-painted kitchen flashed across our minds, but then Jeremy mentioned he was ‘branching out’ into still lifes and seeking his first muse. Before he’d gone any further they’d both realised he was looking at her.

Jeremy untangled Colonel Sanders from the lawnmower lead and retied him to a garden bench. Generally dogs weren’t allowed inside our house. Given Dad’s job, this may have seemed a bit odd, but Mum was never wild about animals. In fact, apart from children, she and Dad had little else in common.

They didn’t actively hate each other like some other parents we knew. My sister Catherine and I hadn’t spent our childhoods cowering at the top of the stairs. But Mum and Dad had met and married young, before realising their lives had wildly conflicting courses.

Dad loved nature, anything that involved getting freezing cold, wet, dirty, windblown – preferably all at once. And, of course, animals. There was always a cat to neuter, a horse to tranquilise, a dog to worm.

Mum wasn’t an outdoors person. She could barely function when the thermostat blew on her Audi seat warmer. But she was active in plenty of other ways, with a finger in every local pie – from the church and Samaritans to the primary school, hospice, village hall, tennis society, art classes, spring fete, bridge club…

Together Mum and Dad were the Pied Pipers of Sevenoaks, they just played different tunes. They’d unite for big social events – like the legendary Meade charity parties – but would go about their day-to-day business separately, unless Catherine or I dropped by.

This may have been why my sister and I ended up spending so much time at home. It wasn’t just guilt, though that played a part too. Our presence would suddenly open lines of communication, guarantee attendance at the supper table, bring the family together. And, far more than baking or book clubs, family meant everything to Mum – as if any of us needed telling.

‘So, darling, any excitements in Chiswick?’ Mum still refused to accept I lived in east Acton.

‘Nah,’ I replied. ‘Same old stuff really. Work’s boring, flat’s OK, no news really.’

Of course there was news. Potentially electrifying news. But I was damned if I was bringing it up there and then. For one thing it was much too early, even in my own mind. I’d made the mistake of being prematurely excited about girlfriends before – and almost as quickly paid the price for it.

But then I’d also made the mistake of telling Mum about a few relationships in their infancy. Far worse, I’d brought a few girls to Sevenoaks without warning them about what to expect – and had seen my sex life implode within days. Of course this could have been a coincidence, or maybe it was down to me. It was difficult to be sure. But it had certainly got to the stage where I was paranoid about leaving Mum and a new girlfriend alone, in case another landmine exploded in my absence. I’d returned to those uncomfortable silences a little too often.

‘Did you ever get down to that storage place?’ Mum asked. ‘Your aunt Joan says her boys went yesterday morning.’

I nodded. ‘Missed them. I was there in the afternoon.’

‘Find anything interesting?’

‘Nope, not really.’ Apart from the obvious.

‘Locusts,’ she snarled of her two nephews. ‘They’d have pawned her false teeth by now if I hadn’t taken them. I don’t know what they do with their lives but waste them on booze and drugs and tarts.’

‘Sounds splendid,’ tittered Jeremy. ‘Well, the first two.’ He hopped over to the chaise longue with a hand outstretched. ‘Now would you raise your chin a moment please, Sylvia? That’s it, a little more. Perfecto.’

Over her left shoulder I could see the dining table already set – a crisp white tablecloth adorned with a selection of china, glass and polished silver, a carafe neck poking out from behind the wax summer flower arrangement.

Fresh napkins were laid out too, tucked into their familiar wooden rings – souvenirs from an ancient family holiday in Florida. At the time Catherine and I were amazed to see our own names carved into the wood. Fifteen years on, our sense of wonderment may have faded but Mum still produced the napkins rings for every family meal. A small gesture perhaps but one that seemed to make her feel calmer, happier, in control again. Just as she liked it.

She’d certainly been behaving more and more oddly of late. Granny’s death had hit her hard. But it wasn’t only that. There was something else going on but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

‘You will stay for lunch won’t you, Jeremy?’ she asked.

‘Well, OK then,’ he replied, as if he’d somehow had a choice in the matter. He started packing up his paints. ‘But you mustn’t let me be too long. I promised the Palins I’d finish off their cabinets après midi. You know how I adore a glass of lunchtime claret but it does seem to slow me down.’

The phone rang. Dad was on his way back from morning clinic. Catherine and the kids would be home soon too. The comforting smell of roast chicken and butternut squash filled the house. It was a typical Meade weekend.

During lunch though, I found myself drifting in and out of conversations, not retaining anything at all. Instead I was trying to imagine how Lucy would fit in at the table. Where she would sit, how she’d react to the others, the kind of things she’d say.

Of course, I was jumping way ahead of myself. What was I thinking? I didn’t know Lucy. She didn’t know me. She’d spent barely an hour in my company. And if I carried on moping around like a lovelorn 14-year-old, she was unlikely to spend a minute more.

Chapter 4

I got there in plenty of time. I had to. Important events render me incapable of arriving anywhere like a normal human being. There’s no middle ground – I’m embarrassingly early or offensively late.

Anyway, it gave me a chance to cool down and have a drink, an iced tea. I’d never had one before and soon discovered how little I’d missed.

Despite Eric’s protests, I’d stuck to my guns and arranged to meet Lucy in Hyde Park. We’d had a brief phone call, followed by a flurry of playful texts that seemed to get progressively unfunnier (on my part) and go on several messages too long (me again). The pitfalls of text closure.

The Lido café is a lovely meeting spot. During one of our short-lived fitness drives, Eric and I often spent the morning sampling its all-you-can-eat fry ups. Of course we were then too full to run anywhere, though we did burn off about 17 calories ambling back to the Tube.

Now I was sitting alone outside the pavilion overlooking the Serpentine. It was one of those breezy late October afternoons, a little chilly when the sun disappeared behind the clouds. There was plenty of activity on the lake. Swans, ducks, pedalos were all out in force; a handful of swimmers were even oiling themselves up for a dip.

And then I saw her, right over on the opposite side of the lake. She seemed to be marching straight towards the water’s edge, as if a speedboat was suddenly about to appear out of nowhere, scoop her up and deliver her to my table.

But then she did a 90-degree turn and continued walking around the lake. I watched her most of the way, while trying not to appear too much like a stalker. As she got nearer I did my best casual smile – a closed mouth Mr Happy-style grin which Eric says looks like more of a grimace, as if I’ve just farted in a jam jar.

She was wearing skinny jeans, cool trainers and a sparkly green top, revealing what a team of Swiss physicists must have calculated as the perfect amount of cleavage – suggestive without being slutty. Her hair was down to her shoulders this time, though I noticed an emergency hair band on her wrist.

I don’t know why or how but the second we locked eyes I knew, in a moment of rare but searing emotional clarity, that she’d be lumbered with me for the rest of my life.

‘Hello. How you doing?’

‘Great, thanks.’ Her voice had a catch to it, she was slightly out of breath. ‘Nothing like a brisk walk to get the blood flowing. You?’

‘Fine, thanks. There was a little congestion on the Uxbridge Road but…’

I stopped. If I carried on like this I’d have bored her to death then drowned myself before reaching the end of the sentence.

‘…Actually, can we start again?’

‘Sure,’ she laughed and strolled off gamely.

‘Hello there. And how are you today?’

‘Very well indeed, thank you. And what about you?’

‘Just fine thanks. Now, would you like an insipid iced tea, or shall we go for a wander?’

Being in Lucy’s company was even more relaxed and addictive than I’d remembered. She told me the latest newsflash from the storage depot: ‘Jenny’s moving up to Blackburn – a huge lorry came yesterday to collect her stuff.’

But this time I found myself talking a lot more and volunteering the kind of information I never really discussed with anyone. Nothing especially controversial, just regular, everyday thoughts and feelings that cross one’s mind but don’t tend to go further.

Lucy