Ever since then she had felt paranoid about what peoplemight be saying about her, leading her to live an increasingly reclusivelifestyle. She went to work and she went to the pub and that was the sum of herlife. The first she had to go to or she would starve, the second was the onlypublic place she felt comfortable in, and even then it took several vodkasbefore she could truly relax. At least in the pub she was among those of asimilar ilk, other losers and alcoholics, all drowning their souls together. Ifnot exactly friends, at least she knew where she was with them.
Her job was minimum wage, soulless work which barely paidher rent, let alone anything else. Unable to face the world, on her days offshe spent most of the day holed up in her flat until it was time to go to thepub. Recently, most nights had ended alone with her crying herself to sleeptrying to figure out how and why her life had gone so wrong.
When she was eighteen, she had seemingly had it all. She wasone of the brightest girls in her class and put it to good use in her exams,achieving three straight A’s in her A levels. She had stunning looks, too,having been blessed with a natural beauty and a lovely hourglass figure.
Not only did she have brains and looks, she had aneasygoing, bubbly personality, too. It was rare for people to have all three ofthese things in abundance and it didn’t go unnoticed. She was popular among thegirls at school, all of whom wanted to hang out with her, but never abused thatpopularity by acting like some sort of queen bee.
As for the boys, they were swarming all over her in herlater years of school. Most would have walked over hot coals if it had giventhem a chance to be her boyfriend. She resisted all offers, though, wanting towait for the right one.
With offers from both Oxford and Cambridge she seemingly hada glittering future ahead of her, but she wasn’t in any hurry. Before leavingschool she had already decided to put off going to university for a year tofulfil a desire to go travelling. Not only was this going to be an amazingadventure that would broaden her horizons, it also fitted in nicely with herlong-term plans. Unlike many her age, she had very clear ideas about what shewanted to do with her life and how she was going to make it happen.
She was going to travel the world, then return to do adegree in media studies. That wasn’t something Oxford or Cambridge specialisedin, but she had no qualms about going elsewhere in order to get the degree shewanted, even if those other universities didn’t quite have the same prestige.She wasn’t one for standing on ceremony.
She planned to work hard and make sure she graduated with thetop honours. Afterwards, she would forge a career in television, making andpresenting travel documentaries around the world.
She could have undoubtedly achieved all of this had it notbeen for one fatal flaw in her character. Despite her high intellect, commonsense and clear ambitions, she had a blind spot when it came to men. Waitingfor the right one to come along had not worked out for her, and eventually herhormones overcame those good intentions. From that point onwards her judgementin that area had been terrible, and she knew it.
Looking back, she could pinpoint the precise moment it hadall started to go wrong. A bad choice of date for her end-of-term school ballhad set in place a chain of events that had led to her being married with ababy by the time she was twenty-three.
Even that she could have overcome and still forged thatcareer later if she had married the right man, but she hadn’t. Her choice ofball date had been unwise, but she didn’t learn from that mistake. Hersubsequent choice of husband had been nothing short of disastrous.
Dark, despairing thoughts swirled around in her mind as shestruggled up the street, just like the few final, stray autumn leaves blowingaround her ankles. The wind was from the east and directly in her face as shebattled on through the bitter cold. Her attire of short, red skirt and skimpyleopard skin top provided scant protection against the elements. She had boughtboth cheaply in a charity shop, items that less than a year ago she would neverhave dreamt of wearing. They made her look like a slag and she knew it, butthen everyone thought she was one anyway, so why bother to hide it?
The plastic advertising board for the local paper outsidethe newsagent’s was being severely buffeted in the wind and looked like itmight blow over at any moment. “CHRISTMAS KILLER STRIKES AGAIN” screamed out ather from the board.
She passed a police van, the occupants uneasily keeping aneye on the noisy crowds emerging from Ye Olde Chapel, a chain pub at the otherend of the town. From there it was only another couple of hundred yards, past arockers’ pub and an old men’s pub, to the chip shop, above which lay her homeof the past nine months.
The thought of yet another night ahead in the grubby littleflat with its yellow-stained walls and constant stench of fish filled her withgloom. The flat had been intended as a temporary stopgap. but there didn’t seemto be any hope of her finding anywhere better anytime soon. Not with the wayher estranged husband was deliberately dragging his heels over the divorce.
Although she had long reverted to her maiden name andreferred to herself as a divorcee to anyone who might ask, she was technicallystill married. Her ex was making things as difficult for her as he possiblycould, even by his standards.
The divorce proceedings which she had instigated
