commented on hadn’t been disturbed, although Deira had a sudden wild image of her sister trying out one of the vibrators. She clamped down on it immediately before deciding that she was never going to be able to use any of them ever again.
Before starting to unpack, she rang the local Thai restaurant and ordered honey pepper chicken for delivery. When she’d finished eating, she opened the envelope from the insurance company, took out the forms and signed them.
She found it hard to believe that it was less than a fortnight ago that she’d sneaked into the car park of Gavin’s building to take the Audi. She remembered thinking of herself as a spy back then. And now what was she?
A woman on her own who had decisions to make.
But who really wasn’t sure how she was going to make them.
Even though the house had felt big and empty after Ken’s death, Grace hadn’t been bothered by it. But today, after Aline had kissed her goodbye and gone home, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the stillness and silence surrounding her. For the first time, her husband’s passing seemed real to her; she accepted he was gone and wasn’t coming back.
She pushed open the door to his office. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with books. His desk was piled with papers. Box files overflowing with even more papers were piled up on the floor. Everything about the room spoke of Ken.
She sat in the swivel chair beside the desk. It was the first time she’d ever sat in it, and it was more comfortable than she’d imagined. She wondered if, in the hours that Ken had been locked away in here supposedly working, he’d done what she was doing now: sat back in the comfortable chair, closed his eyes and propped his feet up on the desk.
‘I’m busy!’ She could hear his abrupt tone as she tapped on the door. ‘Don’t disturb me.’
But maybe he’d been busy enjoying the peace and quiet of his private space while she dealt with the competing demands of Aline, Fionn and Regan and whatever crisis had taken hold. She couldn’t blame him if that was the case. She’d often wanted a private space herself.
She opened her eyes and stood up again, walking out of the office and through the house. It had been a perfect family home, with its four bedrooms, two reception rooms and extended kitchen, but she was no longer living as a family. She was a woman on her own. She was a woman in charge of her own life.
She was going to put it on the market straight away.
Deira dropped the signed forms at the insurance office on her way to her interview with the CEO of the tech company. As with her current job, she’d be able to walk to work if she took up a position there, a benefit of being so close to the city. Nevertheless, that depended on being able to continue living in the canalside mews, which would be in doubt if Gavin took an adversarial approach to their separation. She’d never really thought about what might happen if they split, because she’d never thought they would. And on the occasions when Gill had mentioned that she might be in a better position legally if she married Gavin, she’d dismissed the comments as further interfering in her life. Yet Gill could have had a point and she’d been a fool not to listen. Perhaps she’d misjudged her sister. Maybe she always had.
She turned towards Hanover Quay, where so many tech companies were now headquartered. Except for occasional visits to the contemporary theatre nearby, it wasn’t a part of the city she usually visited, and she was struck by the energy of the glass and chrome buildings around her, somehow more dynamic and less forgiving than the warm terracotta of the Solas Life and Pensions offices.
Am I dynamic enough or modern enough for them? she wondered as she walked up the steps of Arc Tech. Or am I like my damn eggs, approaching my best-before date?
Yet she was enthused rather than dampened by the wide space inside the building that the young CEO told her was the designated area for the proposed visitor centre, and she couldn’t help envisaging herself working there.
‘We want to make it welcoming and accessible,’ said Ardal Crane. ‘We want to showcase art and culture. We want to make people feel that we’re part of the community.’
She asked questions about the