I Should Be So Lucky by Judy Astley

preparatory run at the new school year with a few extra lessons would keep their children safely off the streets. Sorting the garden in a fully hands-on way would be a welcome project: an essential element to making the place
hers
again.
    Reluctantly, as time was getting on, Viola closed the French doors, locked them and faced the moment of going upstairs, almost afraid to go into the room that had witnessed the last awful scene between her and Rhys. This was the big test: would she find that, after all, the place was for ever tainted by the memory, to the point where she couldn’t see a way to move on and enjoy life here again?
    ‘You OK?’ Marco asked, sensing a change of mood as they prepared to go upstairs.
    ‘Yes – I’m fine, thanks. I had a dream about the crash last night and it’s made me think about who he was with. What happened to her? Why did she never ever turn up? You’d think she would, one way or another. Maybe she has. I’ll never know, will I?’
    Marco squeezed her hand. ‘No, you probably won’t, but it wouldn’t change anything if she did, would it? Don’t let a dream hold you back, Vee, don’t let
him
get in the way of the rest of your life.’
    ‘I know, I know. And I won’t. So …’ she rallied and smiled brightly, ‘let’s go and look. All of upstairs will need paint, just to colour away, you know – that last day. I can just about run to new carpets too, I think.’
    ‘I get it, I completely get it,’ Marco said, hugging her. ‘And you don’t have to live here at all, remember. Moving to somewhere else wouldn’t be that hard – all your stuff is in storage, everything tidied and ready to roll.’
    ‘No, I want to give it a go because if I don’t move back in and try living here again then I’d never know if it would have worked or not. You and me and Rachel had a great time here, and I love the area. I’d only be looking for something pretty much identical if I
did
move, and then paying pointless thousands that I can’t afford in stamp duty. It would be mad. And it would feel like a defeat.’
    She went into her bedroom and over to the window, facing the door, picturing the last scene with Rhys, trying to work out how she felt now.
    ‘You know it won’t last!’ she’d shouted as he’d hauled his crammed suitcase off the bed and headed for the stairs . ‘It’s just another in that long line of your sluts.’ From then it had almost felt like slow motion as he’d stopped, put the case down on the landing and walked back into the room. She’d held her breath, realizing too late what he would do. The slap was quick, vicious, and when she opened her stinging eyes after it, he was halfway down the stairs.
    ‘This one’s everything to me.
Everything
,’ had been the last words she’d heard him say, his voice trailing away as he bumped the case down to the hall.
    Well, none of that had been the room’s fault. The windows overlooked the bright and sunny back garden, and the walls were painted a subtle grey-blue. She looked around, seeing it as a house-buying stranger would, opened and shut the wardrobes, inspected the little en-suite bathroom with its vivid blue and green Moroccan tiles, and waited to feel something momentous. But it seemed the room had forgiven and forgotten, and she sensed it welcoming her home. Exciting. And a delight actually to feel that way – she’d been so blank for a long time now, it was as if she was coming out of fog.
    She turned to Marco and smiled at him. ‘Palest turquoise?’
    She could hear him letting go of a held breath. ‘Yes – and I know
just
the shade. A touch of Caribbean but light and subtle, better for the British climate. Perfect.’
    ‘Brilliant. And I’ll see if I can get Kate to make me some new curtains too. And Marco?’
    ‘Yes, darling?’
    ‘Cliché or not, I think I really will get a cat.’

SEVEN
    ‘APPARENTLY,’ AMANDA TOLD Viola, ‘a party of some of our dear little charges had got a bit out of