“You didn’t mind me taking Dad’s car, did you? One of our neighbors said they were interested in buying it.”

“Of course not,” I said. I’d been relieved it had gone. Every night before I left home I’d see his car come up the drive and my heart would sink. I’d learned to be supersensitive and to be able to know what mood he was in as soon as he got out of the car. I was glad I’d never have to see it again. “How long will you be away for?” he asked.

“I’ve no idea.”

“But you’ll be in touch?”

Now I wasn’t acting. I could be my true self. “Of course I will,” I said. “I love you, Josh.”

CHAPTER 79

Ruby

The guys that the women’s refuge had hired to pack and move everything arrived early the next morning and by midday the house was empty. I sat outside on the low patio wall and wrote a good-bye card for Oliver while they carried boxes and furniture out to the vans. I couldn’t bear to see the dismantling of my home. I didn’t want those memories. When they called to tell me they’d finished, I went to see them off, put the card through Oliver’s door, then went back into the house.

It was empty now; even the curtains had gone. Nothing of ours remained. I took one last walk around the house. Everything looked light and bright, bearing no marks of our life together. I thought of the day we’d come to view the house and the hopes and dreams I’d had for our future. It was our first home together; we’d bought it after we’d been together a year, and we married just before we moved in. Tom had held my hand as we walked around and we’d talked about which room would be ours, which would be Josh’s. Those early days were lovely and even now I don’t know whether that was his true self or whether the man he became was the man he’d always been, deep down.

I called a taxi, then opened the door to the shed and saw my handbag and suitcase standing there just as I’d left them early that morning so that the removal guys wouldn’t take them by mistake. The sun shone in, flooding the little room with light, and instantly I was taken back to the day I’d left Tom. So much had happened in those few months; I wasn’t that woman anymore. I didn’t know who I was, that was the trouble, and when I found out, I wasn’t sure how much of myself I could reveal to anyone I met.