Falling for you

scruffier man and there was nothing he could do about it. The extent of his reaction had come as quite a shock; it was like assuming that if you had a big toe amputated you wouldn’t miss it that much, then discovering afterwards that, actually, you couldn’t stay upright.

Too late, he was discovering that Estelle was in effect his big toe and that for some time now he’d been taking her for granted.

In truth, he’d taken his entire life for granted. And where did that leave him now? With a seven-year-old son who didn’t know him. A defunct marriage. A daughter who was siding with her mother. And an ex-mistress about to leap into an affair with the local Casanova.

Oliver closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his forehead; if he was honest, he possessed a begrudging admiration for Jake Harvey. Jake had done a good job of raising his daughter. He clearly thought the world of Tiff, and Tiff in turn adored him. The thing between Jake and Juliet wouldn’t last, no question about that, but at least they thought it would. And Jake was no tycoon; he might have the looks but he’d never have money. Yet it didn’t seem to bother him, he truly didn’t care. How people could live like that, Oliver would never understand, but for the first time in his life he found himself almost envious of Jake.

God, what was happening to him? As the emotions welled up, Oliver found himself having to swallow hard. The next moment a sudden noise made him jump; having come in search of companionship, Norris had raised himself up on his hind legs and was pressing his wet nose against the closed French windows. Oliver hurried across the room to let him in before he started frantically scrabbling and leaving paw marks on the glass.

Norris licked his hand and Oliver realised that, just now, Norris probably liked him more than anyone else in the world. If that wasn’t enough to reduce a grown man to tears, what was?

‘Ugly mutt,’ he told Norris gruffly, giving the dog’s broad silky head a rub.

Norris gave him a not-very-hopeful look.

Oh, what the hell, it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

‘Go on then,’ said Oliver, clicking his fingers and pointing out to the hall. ‘Fetch your lead.’

Norris couldn’t believe his luck. Was he hearing what he thought he’d just heard? This was the one who never took him for a walk. Mesmerised, Norris hesitated, awaiting the magic word that would put him out of his misery.

‘Walk,’ Oliver said at last.

Yay! That was the magic word. Joyfully Norris scrambled out to the hall, locating his lead on the cushioned window seat. It was weird, when he’d first come here he hadn’t enjoyed going for walks at all. Who’d have believed that these days they’d be his absolute favourite thing?

The phone began to ring as Oliver and Norris were leaving the house. Since it couldn’t be anything to do with Tiff – Juliet would have rung his mobile, not the landline – Oliver locked the front door and set off without answering it.

Twenty minutes later, a taxi pulled up the drive. Gulping a bit at the sight of Oliver’s car, Estelle dialled the number again and breathed a sigh of relief when it went unanswered. Oliver was probably still at the hospital, at Tiff’s bedside. With Juliet.

‘I’ll be half an hour,’ she told the taxi driver. ‘There’s a nice pub in Main Street if you want to wait there, then come hack and pick me up at two.’

The look on the taxi driver’s face suggested that if Estelle had an ounce of decency about her, she would invite him into her vast house and make him a nice cup of tea and a sandwich. But for once in her life Estelle didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to make polite conversation with a complete stranger. This was her home, where she’d lived for the last twenty-seven years, and she needed to be alone in order to say goodbye to it.

Having watched the disgruntled driver execute a three-point turn and head off down the drive, Estelle fitted her key into the front door.

It felt strange to be back, stranger still to be tiptoeing through her own house. Except there was no need to tiptoe, was there? Everyone else was out. She was here to collect the rest of her clothes, hopefully without interruption.

In the kitchen, which smelled heartbreakingly familiar, Estelle located the roll of black bin liners in the cupboard under the sink and took them upstairs. The suitcases, dauntingly, were piled on top of the wardrobe in the unused spare bedroom. Wasting no time, she rifled through her own wardrobe, pulling out anything she was likely to wear again. When she’d finished doing the same with the chest of drawers and dressing table, she stuffed everything willy-nilly into the bin liners. Oh God, that looked terrible, she couldn’t do it. Was there anything more naff than leaving home with your belongings in a bunch of bin bags?

Checking her watch - heavens, five to two already - Estelle told herself not to be such a wimp and braced herself for an assault on the wardrobe in the spare room. This entailed pulling a chair over to the front of the wardrobe, carefully balancing a foot on each of the rolled arms, then reaching up until she was juuuust able to grasp the dusty handle of the large blue suitcase stored on top of it.

It was the most ridiculous place to keep them. Estelle couldn’t imagine whose bright idea it had been in the first place. Now, maintaining her balance on the padded arms of the chair, she had to ease the cobalt-blue case slowly forward then tip it at just the right angle, so that it slid gracefully into her arms rather than crashed unceremoniously down onto her head.

Panting a bit with the effort, Estelle managed this. She was doing fine, absolutely fine, all she had to concentrate on now was— ohhh .. .

Falling backwards, falling backwards .. .

‘ Fuck,’ gasped Estelle, finding herself flat on her back on the floor with the suitcase over her face.

Pushing it off, she clutched the side of her head and felt the sticky warmth of blood where the metal-edged corner of the case had gouged a hole in her scalp. Oh well, at least the damage wouldn’t be visible, it was only in her hair.

At least, it wouldn’t be visible once the bleeding stopped.

Gingerly levering herself into a sitting position, Estelle brushed dust from her shirt and felt her head begin to