Ajay looks at me, his face unreadable. No doubt stunned into silence by having some angry, weeping, perimenopausal woman on his forecourt. I suddenly feel acutely embarrassed by my outburst. And mortifyingly repentant. It’s not his fault. What on earth am I doing? Yelling at some poor car rental salesman and pouring my heart out? He must think I’ve gone mad. I think I’ve gone mad.

‘Look, I’m sorry.’

‘My girlfriend dumped me two weeks ago.’

We both speak at the same time. I look at Ajay in surprise.

‘Trust me, I know completely how you feel.’ He pulls out a small pack of tissues from his pocket and passes it to me. ‘Here.’

‘Thank you.’ Taking one, I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. ‘I’m sorry . . . about your girlfriend.’

‘It’s all right. Afterwards I found out she’d been sleeping with one of my mates behind my back.’

‘Jesus, that’s awful.’

He shrugs. ‘He wasn’t much of a mate, was he?’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Sniffing, I pass the packet back.

‘By the way, for your information I’m twenty-nine.’

My face flushes. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. And I didn’t mean what I said, about the other thing . . .’ I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

‘You mean about me being an officious little jobsworth prat and stealing your deposit?’

Then he smiles, which makes me smile.

He closes the door of the Fiat. ‘OK, Liv, I think we’re done here. Now if you’d like to follow me into the office, we’ll settle up your paperwork.’

Ajay lets me off with solely the cleaning fee. He really is a nice man, and not an officious jobsworth prat at all. He even gives me his tissues and tells me to take as many of the complimentary mints as I’d like.

Afterwards I walk to the main newsagent’s in the high street to put a notice in the window about private tutoring, then on to the supermarket to buy a few things I can’t get at the local shops in the village.

As usual I completely overestimate how much I can carry. It looks fine in the trolley, just a few bits, but once it’s packed into bags it seems to quadruple in size. Without a car, I set off towards the bus stop, lugging the heavy shopping bags, but it starts to rain. It does that a lot here. So by the time I reach the bus stop I’m soaked.

Luckily it has a shelter, but it has no sides and the rain is now coming down in icy diagonal sheets. Standing underneath, I peer up the road, willing a bus to appear. I’ve got a new building firm coming over to give me a quote. When I called before, they were fully booked, but they’ve had a job fall through and are now available to work on the cottage. Apparently they’re the best in the area, so I don’t want to be late.