‘Okay,’ Esther said quickly. Deciding to get to know someone was like gambling, she consoled herself, turning out of the car park a couple of minutes later, and seeing Chris Mews still framed in her rear-view mirror, waving. You piled your chips high, knowing each time that you could win or lose the lot.

Sitting on the lawnmower box half an hour later, absorbing the fact that it would be several weeks – possibly months – before the wall of brambles in front of her required its services, Esther found herself wondering how things were going with the daughter. Kelly. Fifteen, and being ‘poisoned’ against Chris by the wife, Sylvie. Esther shuddered, grateful that, despite all the distress and discord, she and Lucas had never sunk to such levels. Viv’s claim, that she missed Lucas, still rankled every time she thought about it; but that didn’t stop her recognising that her ex-husband – for all his selfishness and weaknesses – was, at heart, a decent person. It was one of the main reasons it had taken her so long to lose faith in him.

The gauntlet gloves were immediately useful, as were the long-handled shears. Esther began to feel powerful as she hacked and slashed, creating bouncy piles of clippings, which she ferried with her new barrow to create as tidy a mountain as she could manage along the fence. The nagging anxiety about Dylan began to recede properly for the first time in days. Just to be doing something felt fantastic. When the clippings had dried and shrunk, she would have a bonfire, Esther decided. It would be less hassle than trying to book in at the dump; Carmela, bless her, wasn’t around to moan, and she couldn’t imagine Sue and Dimitri kicking up a fuss.

By the time the afternoon was turning to dusk, the enormity of the task Esther had set herself had begun to dawn. Three solid hours of toil, and she had chopped into barely a quarter of the narrow thirty yards or so of garden. Digging up the roots once the clearing was complete was going to take even longer. Every so often she hit an easier patch, thanks to a few feet of a tunnel, burrowed by foxes, she assumed, but for the most part it was like macheteing her way through a rainforest. Sunday too, then, and for several weekends yet, Esther realised, sighing as she downed tools at last, pausing to admire her handiwork, as well as the setting sun, streaking the sky with red behind the trees beyond the railway line.

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