‘I think there’s something weird about her. I’d prefer you focused on the house, actually cooking a decent dinner, that kind of thing.’

I held my tongue until I could feel words piling up in me, like water in a stepped-on hose. My only friend here, barely a friend yet, and I wasn’t allowed even that. Slowly, tears seeped out from my eyes and down my cheeks, and I wiped them on my cardigan sleeve. I never had tissues, of course.

Nick glanced over, sighed. ‘You have to sort yourself out, Suzi. It’s embarrassing, admitting I gave my wife everything she wanted and all she does is cry and complain.’

I said nothing. I didn’t realise he knew how much I’d been crying. We drove the rest of the way home in silence. He pulled up outside the cottage. Willow Cottage, what a stupid twee name. I missed living at Flat 2C, Greenham Street, EC2. ‘I have to get to work. Can I trust you to not set the alarm off?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, shuffling out. ‘I don’t know if you trust me at all.’ My voice was thick with tears.

‘Trust is earned,’ he muttered, pulling off.

Instead of going into our house, I turned and went to Nora’s. Of course she was there. She was always there. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, coming round the side of Ivy Cottage. She was in dirty gardening clothes and looked flushed with effort. ‘I wondered where you’d gone.’

‘I wanted to take you up on your offer, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Come for a walk with me?’

Nora

Nora

I was making a start on the very neglected garden when Suzi came over, pleased to feel soil under my boots again and smell the rough dirt on my hands. Gardening was something they’d taught us at Uplands, a useful skill to come out of that hellhole. It was honest, and it helped calm the spiralling thoughts inside me. The plants couldn’t hide what they were. Not like people. I could have told Suzi hers were already past help; she should have protected them at the first sign of frost.

I said yes to the walk, of course, slipping my key under a plant pot – since I was alone now, I had a fear of being locked out, with nowhere to go – and she went to get the dog, emerging in a tangle of lead and scarf and coat. I watched her set the alarm, bemused. ‘You do that every time?’

‘Oh! Yes, well, Nick insists.’

I said nothing. Country people would likely leave the door unlocked. I only didn’t myself because I had things to hide. Perhaps Nick did too.