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They talked a little more before Willow excused herself by saying she had a hundred and one things to do, but she didn’t immediately get to work. Instead she sank down on the curved stone steps that led from the French doors into the garden. She breathed in the warm morning air, her face uplifted to the sun. Birds twittered in the trees and the sky was a deep cornflower blue. Silly, but she felt nature had conspired with her to give her a break and make moving day as easy as it could be. It was a good start to the rest of her life anyway.
A robin flew down to land on the bottom of the three steps, staring at her for a moment with bright black eyes before darting off. She continued to gaze at the spot where the bird had been, but now her eyes were inward-looking.
This was what the cottage signified: the start of the rest of her life. The past was gone and she couldn’t change it or undo the huge mistake she’d made in getting involved with Piers in the first place, but the present and the future were hers now she was free of him. It was up to her to make of them what she would. Just a few months ago she had wanted the world to end; life had lost all colour and each day had been nothing more than a battle to get through before she could take one of the pills the doctor had prescribed and shut off her mind for a little while. But slowly she’d stopped taking the pills to help her sleep, had begun to eat again, been able to concentrate on a TV programme or read a book without her mind returning to Piers and that last terrible night.
She lifted up her slender arms, purposely channelling her mind in a different direction as she stretched and stood up. It had taken time, but she was able to do this now and she was grateful for it. In fact it had probably saved her reason. Whatever, she was herself again—albeit an older, wiser self.
Turning, she went back inside and through the house to the front door. Her trusty little Ford Fiesta was parked on the grass verge at the end of the small front garden, which, like the back, was a tangle of weeds, nettles and briars. The car was packed to the roof with her clothes and personal belongings, along with a box containing cleaning equipment and the new vacuum cleaner she’d bought the day before. She had roughly four hours before her bed and few items of furniture were due to be delivered, and she’d need every minute. The old lady who had lived here before she’d finally been persuaded to move to a nursing home had clearly been struggling for years to cope. The nephew who had overseen her departure from the cottage had apparently cleared it; removing the carpets and curtains—which the estate agent had assured Willow had been falling to pieces—along with everything else. What was left was mountains of dust, dirt and cobwebs, but from what she could see of the grimy floorboards they would be great when stained. And at least she could really put her stamp on things.
Four hours later she’d emptied the vacuum bag umpteen times, but at least the dust from the carpet underlay, which had disintegrated into fine powder, was gone, and most surfaces were relatively clean. The cottage wasn’t large, comprising a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs. There was a kind of scullery attached to the kitchen by means of a door that you opened and stepped down into a six-foot by six-foot bare brick room with a tiny slot of a window, and it was evident the old lady had been in the habit of storing her coal and logs for the fire here. There was no central heating and in the kitchen an ancient range was the only means of cooking. The cottage had been rewired fairly recently though, which was a bonus in view of all the other work she’d need to do, and it had a mains supply of water.
The furniture van arrived and the cheery driver helped Willow manoeuvre her bed and chest of drawers upstairs. There was a built-in wardrobe in the bedroom she’d chosen to sleep in. A two-seater sofa and plumpy armchair and coffee table for the sitting room completed her purchases; her portable TV was in the car, along with her microwave.
That night she fell into bed and was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and for the first time since she had left Piers there were no bad dreams. When Willow awoke in the morning to sunlight streaming in the uncurtained window, she lay for a long time just listening to the birds singing outside and drinking in the peace and solitude. The house she’d shared with her friends for the last months had been on a main road and the traffic noise had filtered in despite the double glazing, but that had been nothing to the noise within most of the time! And before that—
She sat up in bed. She wasn’t going to think about the years with Piers in any way, shape or form. New resolution. New start. Off with the old and on with the new. She could so do this. She’d always had her fair share of willpower.
