‘No. They’ve sold a few of my paintings already.’

‘I didn’t realise you were doing that well.’

‘Well, now you do. So the sooner I can move, the better. Is it a deal?’ She held out her hand and they shook solemnly.

Thanks to Mary’s hard bargaining, the house was sold quickly and at an excellent price, and she pushed the buyer significantly higher than the amount first offered.

Elise felt good to see the load of financial worry lift a little from Mary’s face at the prospect of being paid for her efforts.

With Harriet’s energetic help, the house was cleared of everything Elise no longer wanted or needed. At the same time, she enjoyed working with a much younger person and hearing a very different view of the world.

There was still one big problem, though. She’d been house-hunting, both online and in person, but couldn’t find anything suitable. And it was even worse with rental properties. The ones available were either too small to have a room that was right for a studio or too expensive, given her limited funds. She was reluctant to waste her capital on rent anyway, because she needed to invest some of her money to bring in additional income. At her age, you couldn’t rely on staying healthy enough to keep earning money.

What was she going to do? The contracts were being worked on, a provisional exchange date had been agreed and she had to get out of her house in three weeks’ time.

Stacy settled into her new flat quickly, though it was rather small and felt horribly cluttered with her bits and pieces in it as well as the owner’s furniture. She had to pile things up and weave around clumps of furniture, and the ugliness of it all depressed her.

Most of her art things and the furniture she’d taken from her marriage were still in storage. Desperate to find somewhere to house her art things so she could get to work on the ideas she’d had, she wondered whether it might be quite cheap to hire a small industrial unit.

She found her way to the main industrial area and drove round it slowly, but it was mostly single workshops or factories with few to-let signs showing and none on suitable smaller premises. When she came upon a group of smaller units, she parked and went to see if she could get chatting to someone. Perhaps a local might be able to point her in the right direction.

A guy in stained overalls was standing outside the second unit with a mug of tea in his hand. He was young enough to try to chat her up, but stopped when she told him bluntly that she had just come out of a messy divorce and wasn’t interested in men at the moment.

He backed away, hands held out in a keep-away gesture. ‘Been there, done that. Good luck to you. My damned ex took me to the cleaners, the lying bitch.’