He was down in the yard now, talking to someone about the demolition work, and she got up from her desk to look out of the window. She didn’t want to become only a partner, although a partnership was in the offing; he had said as much. She wanted more than that. Her life with Albert had been boring and predictable. One day was much like the last and would be the same as the next, and she had known when she married him that she didn’t love him; she doubted that he had loved her. For some reason they had both wanted to change their lives but had found, too late, that they had made the wrong choice.

Now she wanted a challenge in her life, but she also wanted love, and she didn’t know if it was possible to have both. She needed a strong man to match her sometimes cynical personality, to make her want to show her softer side; she had one, she knew that, but she kept it hidden from everyone, except perhaps from Ellen, who was more perceptive than most.

I’m as mixed up as he is, she thought, as she saw him turn and look up at the office. I don’t want to be simply a shoulder to lean on whilst he is putting himself back together, only to be discarded when he has recovered. On the other hand, does he feel more than he is presently saying?

She turned back to her desk and threw her notebook across it. ‘It’s such a pain being a woman sometimes,’ she said aloud. ‘Look at Ellen, holding back on something she wants to do, telling herself that she only wants to do it to help the family finances, when it isn’t true; in her heart, she wants to do it for herself, just to prove that she can.’

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

It was true, there was a young girl living opposite. Ellen hadn’t seen her or her mother before simply because she hadn’t been looking, which isn’t at all like me, she thought. Generally I’m aware of people around me. I’ve become wrapped up in my new house, looking after the children and Harry, and my domestic work.

Every morning on arriving home she changed from her work clothes into her house ones, and after having her own breakfast she started the household chores. She loved her cottage and kept it tidy, and this and cooking and baking in her new kitchen range kept her occupied. If it was a fine day, she and Harry took the children for a walk.

The following morning when she arrived home she made a point of sitting at the window with a cup of tea, noticing who was about and where they lived. And there she was: the young girl in the cottage opposite, opening the curtains and windows upstairs and down.