I took a deep breath and focused on the middle distance, and then I started to run. I hadn’t run for years and years, since the days I’d lived in Liverpool. A couple of friends and I would run along the dockside there in the early morning, and now more than ten years later I was doing the same, though on the other side of the river.

Predictably, within a few hundred yards I was winded. I sat on a bench by the river wall and waited a few minutes, my chest heaving and my face burning and damp. In the distance I saw a group of runners, a club, maybe, graceful and fast, scattered along the skyline. They came toward me like a flock of seabirds and passed me, nodding acknowledgment, but still in their own worlds. It was as though I was looking at my earlier self. My earlier life. I wanted to be like them again, carefree and strong.

I stood up, full of renewed determination. I could do this. It might take a while, but I could do it.

•   •   •

Later that morning I sent off more résumés to the larger companies in the North West and filled in dozens of application forms for jobs that were advertised in the local newspaper. I felt full of energy, as though nothing could bother me now. I’d run for an hour and though I was aching, my mind had cleared. I didn’t care what kind of work I got now; I just needed something to help pay the bills. There were a couple of small local agencies advertising for temporary staff and I sent them an e-mail, attaching my résumé. Temporary work was exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t going to hang around once my house was sold. Within an hour both agencies had responded with an almost identical e-mail:

We’re sorry, we don’t have any work available for someone of your caliber.

I stared at the screen. What? What did they mean? I sent a text to Sarah, telling her about the meeting with Kourtney at Mersey Recruitment and quoting the messages from the other agencies.

How would you take this? I asked.

Sorry, Ruby, she replied. I don’t think that’s a compliment. It sounds more like an insult. Who’s it from?

A couple of agencies. Lansdowne and Hill Street.

She replied within minutes.

They all know each other. You can’t get away with anything. And they swap jobs all the time. Years back when I was temping, I was talking to a woman from one agency; when I went to another agency the next day, she was working there! They all meet up every Friday night at the pub in the square. Cross one and you cross them all.