Nina! That is wonderful. Really wonderful!’ Olivia enthused.
‘I just have one question,’ Nina said.
‘Yes?’ Olivia sounded a little nervous.
‘When do I start?’
Dominic scratched his head as he looked down at Nina’s teacup. If the blue and white china hadn’t been sporting a smudge of pink lipstick, he might well have believed that he’d just invented an entire scene in which his mother had asked Nina to stay at the mill. But there it was. Pink lipstick; as bright as the Norfolk Broads’ daylight.
Dominic smiled as he remembered the tickle of her hair as she’d bent over him to help him with his homework that time. He’d been eleven years old and she’d spent twenty minutes reading through a comprehension and helping him to answer the questions, but he hadn’t heard a single word. Well, he’d heard her; the soft lilt in her voice, the way it rose so beautifully in the middle of a question and the melancholy tenderness with which she read the story; he just hadn’t heard any of the answers.
His teacher had given him two out of ten.
But, as with most childhood crushes, she’d been placed, very firmly, in the back of his mind as he’d grown up – the image of her fading over time, along with those intense boyhood feelings he’d had for her.
So why then did he now feel as if he’d swallowed a snake? His insides were wriggling about in a most disconcerting way. Ten long years separated him from those feelings – yet he could still recall them, and that made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t still harbour feelings for her, could he? He didn’t even know Nina. He had never really known her. But that, in its own way, had been part of her appeal. She’d always been rather elusive; like a movie star whom you can dream about, but whom you’ll never meet. It would be completely irrational to think he was in love with her. It would be utterly insane to suggest that the old feelings could just bob back up to the surface in the space of a smile and a hello.
Wouldn’t it?
He took a glance in the mirror and his eyes widened with horror. He’d suspected he might look like an extra from a low-budget horror film, but it didn’t prepare him for the reality. No wonder Nina had been smiling at him so much. He looked hilarious. Like Groucho Marx after an electric shock.
He shook his head in despair and left the mill before Nina could clap eyes on him again.
When Nina finally got home, she looked around her flat and smiled at the peeling wallpaper with the damp patch in the shape of Italy. She’d wasted many fruitless hours trying to cover it up with a succession of posters and cheap prints in frames, but the thing had merely spread to enormous proportions.
She smiled down at the ancient carpet that was so hard underfoot that you could grate cheese on it. She smiled as she heard her neighbour revving up the motorbike he’d been fixing in his kitchen for the last four months, and she grinned widely as she smelt the familiar waft of curry, courtesy of her other neighbours, through the air vent in the open-plan kitchen. This had been her home for the last two years, and she was smiling because she was leaving it forever.
She knew it would be reckless to give up her little place, but she meant to continue as she’d started – if she really wanted to get her life back on track she was going to throw caution to the wind and leave it for good anyway. Determination fuelled her, and a sudden sense of calm and purpose filled her. She was getting good at leaving things recently. This could very well be the new Nina, the new direction, the new way forward that she’d been looking for, she thought.
The flat had come fully furnished, so Nina only had a few personal belongings to pack up and, if at the end of the summer she couldn’t find a new place to rent, she could always make do with Janey’s futon until she got on her feet again.
‘Goodbye mouldy wallpaper!’ she yelled as her neighbour revved his motorbike. ‘Good riddance crumbling windowsill!’ And, just for old times’ sake, she pressed a finger into the woodwork and the paint flaked away under her touch.
‘Farewell clanging pipes!’ she sang, deciding to put the radio on; it was one of the few things in the flat that actually belonged to her. She’d pack her things, tidy around and get out of there, taking her keys to her landlord the very next morning, and then she’d take the bus out to The Old Mill House, walking down the potholed lane to a place where she felt truly welcome.
Olivia was absolutely delighted. She was also rather anxious. It had been a great shock losing ‘Teri with an i’, and Olivia had no intention whatsoever of losing Nina – although she doubted she would, as she remembered how well Nina and her husband had got on in the past. Still, she’d have a word with Dudley about the situation and make sure he behaved himself and that he was especially nice to Nina. She knew all too well that he could be brusque once the creative mood took hold, but he had to be warned that it would be at his own peril. Poor Teri used to surface from the study positively shaking after her encounters with Dudley – her face pale and her eyes wide in terror.
‘I can take dictation, but I won’t take being dictated to!’ she’d once cried, before grabbing her bag and leaving. Olivia had been left to sort the mess out, appeasing Teri by telling her that the creative muse could take many a strange form and that it took a special sort of person to handle it, and that Teri was obviously one in a million. And the flattery had worked. Well, for two further weeks anyway, before the next verbal volcano had erupted. Dudley, of course, had denied all knowledge of why Teri had left, although Olivia believed that there was more to it than just her husband’s temperamental nature.
Anyway, she wasn’t going to let it happen again. She wandered back into her husband’s secret domain and trailed a finger over one of the few empty spaces on the desk before inspecting it. Just as she thought: it was as if she’d dipped it into a sack of flour. Dudley hated having anyone invade his special place, but Olivia was quite determined that she’d get Marie in with the vacuum and dusters before Nina started work the next day. Anything to help make Nina’s job easier. After all, Nina would have Dudley’s mood swings to cope with, a study that looked as if a tornado had passed through it, plus the three boys hanging around the house for most of the summer. There was no guarantee that she’d like it, let alone actually stay. But then again, miracles were known to happen.
Nina handed the keys to her flat to a bemused Mr Briggs, who said he’d have to keep her bond because she hadn’t served out her period of notice. But she didn’t care about that. She was free – free of her job and free of her flat. Free to start again. After the last few dark weeks, she felt as if she was on the edge of a great adventure and, right there and then, she made a promise to herself – to steer clear of men. The recent months with Matt had left her scarred and scared, and she felt that it would be a long time indeed before she would even want to think about entering into another relationship.
No, Nina thought, she was going to focus solely on herself for a while.
She arrived at The Old Mill House at ten o’clock the very next day, as agreed, and Olivia was ready to greet her.
‘Nina! I was so worried in case you’d changed your mind,’ she said, ushering her into the hall. ‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ she added with a smile. ‘Gracious – is that all you’ve brought with you?’ Olivia said as she saw Nina’s modest suitcase and her portable radio.
‘It’s all I need,’
