‘Oh! Excellent! A very wise decision. Our warehouse conversions are always very popular with professionals such as yourself—’

‘No, I want to buy this house.’

‘This house?’ he repeats, as if he can’t quite believe that his sales pitch actually worked.

His incredulity only makes me more determined. There’s something about this house – the way it’s been neglected and unloved – that’s stirred something inside me. It needs someone to love it back to life. I begin descending the steep, narrow staircase.

‘I’ll offer close to the asking price, as long as it’s taken off the market and we can exchange by the New Year.’

‘Right. Yes. Absolutely . . . I’ll get straight on to the vendor in Singapore.’ His footsteps follow hurriedly behind me. ‘Rest assured, Ms Brooks, at Hardcastle and Son your problems are our solutions.’

‘Oh, and Mr Hardcastle.’

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I turn to see him banging his head on the low beam and wincing.

‘Buy your wife something different this Christmas. Take it from me, she’s sick of that bloody perfume.’

London

Six weeks later

‘Is that everything?’

The removal men take the last of the packing boxes from the hallway.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

Moving Day has finally arrived. After weeks of being surrounded by masking tape and bubble wrap, the house is finally emptied of its contents.

Standing on the doorstep, about to lock up, doubt flickers within me.

‘Actually, hang on,’ I call out as the removal men disappear down the front path, ‘let me do a final check.’

I do a quick walk-through of the empty rooms. I’ve left behind all the curtains, but my footsteps still echo on the wooden floors and my mind flicks back to when we first moved in a decade ago, as newly-weds. Only then the rooms were unfamiliar and exciting, and I dashed around them bursting with energy and enthusiasm, my head full of colour schemes and a million ideas—

I stop myself.

I might have packed away all my belongings, but my memories are still imprinted into these walls. Still, now is not the time to be taking an emotional trip down memory lane. Spotting a small-framed photograph on the empty bookshelves in the living room, I snatch it up, feeling vindicated.

The photograph is one of those square ones with the white border that was taken in the seventies. It’s of me and my big sister Josie, though she wasn’t so big then. Neither of us was. We’re wearing matching denim dungarees and sitting on the wall in front of my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire, grinning into the camera and eating ice lollies shaped like rockets. We lost our mum when we were still very young and would spend all our school holidays there. Brought up by a single dad, who threw himself into his work in an attempt to cope, our house always felt sad and empty, but their home in Nettlewick was a warm and welcoming escape. Which is why I’ve chosen the village to start over again. I want to be surrounded by happy memories. To wake up in a place where, whatever happened, it has always felt like my one true safe harbour.