‘I don’t think so.’ He frowned. ‘No. I’m sure she didn’t. But she’s on the train back to London right now.’
‘Then what? What aren’t you telling me?’
He sighed, scratching his even trimmer beard. ‘Shehasbeen in touch with a couple of estate agents.’
‘You’re selling the cottage?’ The sense of betrayal – stupid, irrational, but there nonetheless – was a punch in my guts. ‘But youloveliving here.’
‘Maybe so, but it’s not just about me. And I’ve told them I won’t accept an offer from Fisher on principle. I can’t imagine there’ll be many other people queuing up to pay the asking price.’
‘Things don’t work out with her boyfriend, she comes running back and suddenly you’re giving up everything for her? Are you moving back to London? You hated living there.’
‘I know you’re angry, but that was way out of line.’ Mack spoke through a clenched jaw.
‘I have nothing, Mack, but this wreck of a house. Nowhere else to go. This is the first place I’ve ever felt like I could build a home and a life. And now I have this great big list of impossible stuff I have to do,by the end of the month, on a part-time salary and the few quid I get for flogging the least horrendous parts of the mounds of horrendous crap I have a week to get rid of. Right now, I can’t even afford to mend my glasses! Your wife has forced me out. She’s the one who crossed the line. So, forgive me if I don’t know where the hell it is any more.’
I managed to keep all my angry, rejected, terrified, hopeless tears in check until I’d made it back into what was, for now, my home.
31
Once the flow from my tear ducts had dribbled to a stop, I decided to look for an answer in the June sunshine. Leaving the bike in the shed, I paced through the trees, letting my feet carry me wherever they felt like, roaming deeper through the dusty trails, overgrown with prickly branches and bracken. For the first time in weeks I was able to push on without even a whisper of fear. The mood I was in, I was ready to face the Beast of Middlebeck head-on. Nothing could be worse than what I’d already faced that morning. Bring it on.
By the time I’d reached the village, hungry, thirsty and about ready for a long nap on the Camerons’ sofa, I had narrowed it down to the same two options I’d started with.
One. Spend a week salvaging what I could from the Hoard and then swap my house, my history and my dreams for one of Fisher’s soulless flats. Two: I could fight.
I was plumping for option two.
I just needed some sleep first.
Mack came round that evening, letting himself in before I’d had time to take my shoes off.
‘Seriously? After what’s happened we aren’t back to knocking?’
‘Nope.’ He slid onto a kitchen chair.
I busied myself making two cups of tea, ignoring how glossy and glowy and (ugh)happyhe looked.
‘She’s gone back to London?’
‘Yes.’
Ooh – maybe he was happy because she’d gone?
‘She’ll be back next weekend.’
‘Lovely. You’ll have to introduce us properly.’
Mack leaned back on two legs of the chair. ‘Not until you’ve lost that manic glint in your eyes.’
‘Why are you here again?’ I took the chair opposite.
‘To help. I don’t know if the estate agent contacted Environmental Health, but it was nothing to do with us.’
Mack was anusagain. Good for him.
‘I can take a few days off work, help you get through the last of the Hoard, sort a skip, find storage for the stuff you want to sell and start work on some of the other problems.’
‘I don’t want your help.’ If I gripped my mug any harder the handle would snap off.
