Love-40 by Anna Cheska Page A

the bookcase. Also empty.
    â€˜I’ve had enough,’ she told the face of the grandfather clock, peeping from between the creases of its sheet shawl. But the question remained – of what?
    *   *   *
    Upstairs, her microwaved lasagne sat on the table where Estelle had left it. A candle flickered on the shelf where she’d already arranged her collection of green glassware – as if, she thought ruefully, this flat could so easily become a home …
    She thought of Stan’s stained smile – the smugness of it, the conviction that he held all the cards, that she and Suzi would fold under the slightest pressure. Not a game for women, indeed. What a bloody, bloody nerve the man had.
    Sod him. Estelle pushed the lasagne to one side. She wouldn’t give in so easily. Starting up this business had meant more than a new method of earning a living because she was fed up with customer complaints. It had meant independence – a way of shouting from the rooftops, to Liam and anyone else who’d listen … This is mine and it’s important. This is my new pathway and I’m going to make it work. It wasn’t too late, she thought, to be able to make it alone.
    Slowly, Estelle got to her feet, switched on the kettle for coffee. She’d chosen antiques, because she’d always had a hankering for the past. And a fear of it too. Liam used to tease her about it – when they’d visited old churches or National Trust buildings on rare Sunday afternoons out. He’d catch her in a dream and say, ‘Good vibes or bad vibes, Estelle? Who lived here? What did they get up to?’
    And she’d laugh and stop wondering, but not for long.
    History fascinated her, and it had been no hardship to teach herself enough about antiques and their value, what to look for in ceramics, glass and wood, until she knew enough to get by. She was still learning, of course, and learning that some parts of the business interested her more than others.
    Suzi, she was aware, had joined her because Estelle needed a partner and some more money to sink into the venture and Suzi not only had some spare capital she wanted to invest, but had been thinking of leaving her job and doing something else anyway. Working in the library had been great, she’d told Estelle once, when she’d been able to spend half the working day reading voraciously. But times changed, new managers appeared with new concepts and vocabulary like creative time management, customer challenges and target borrowers. And Suzi had decided she too wanted a change.
    But the important thing was that they trusted one another and Estelle had needed someone to trust, someone with whom she could share the responsibility of the business.
    Liam … she smiled … had splurged his share of his mother’s money on everything from poetry books to CG’s tennis and youth club, from a state of the art computer to a host of good, or more likely, political causes. But Suzi was more cautious and Secrets In The Attic had benefited from that caution.
    Estelle sighed. Whether or not Suzi had benefited was more open to doubt. Suzi …
    Estelle sat bolt upright, suddenly sober. Christ. What would Suzi say when she saw what Estelle had done?
    *   *   *
    By the time Deirdre returned with a tray of bland, milky coffee, the arguments had grown more heated.
    Erica and Margaret had staunchly maintained that their private members were and would always be the backbone of the club, that high subscriptions would enable CG’s to maintain standards (though whether of facilities or members, Suzi wasn’t sure) and that better facilities would, in a roundabout way, bring more young people – and the right young people – into the game. Liam had scoffed that the right young people were those whose parents could afford extortionate fees, that she was perpetuating the archaic idea of tennis as