Page 56 of Her Fixer Upper

‘You can still be a strong and independent woman as part of a couple, if that’s what you’re afraid of,’ said Leila, trying one final push.

‘Or I can be a strong and independent woman who’s happily single,’ I retorted.

‘Happily?’ said Leila.

‘Ecstatically so. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have essays to mark.’ I turned and started marching towards the staff room, keen to find safety in numbers so I wouldn’t have to continue this painful conversation.

‘It’s the first day of term,’ I heard her calling after me. ‘Even you don’t have essays to mark.’

I waved vaguely back at her, and went to bury myself in my work.

By the end of the day, I’d signed up for half a dozen extra duties and given my students a mountain of homework which had set them groaning. I meanwhile was positively relishing being able to keep myself busy. The less time I had for dwelling on my heartbreak, the better. I spent the journey home on the bus formulating a plan of action for future life at Oak Tree Cottage, and even got off a stop early so I could have some extra time walking to complete it. I needed to demonstrate to Charlie that his message had been received and understood, and to make it reassuringly clear for him that from now on, I was going to keep things business-like and normal between us, with absolutely no rule-breaking. By the time I got back to the cottage, rather later than intended, I felt confident I had a plan that would see us through until we had sold up and moved on.

I hesitated by the front door, remembering how we had unlocked it together for the first time back in April, with so much hope and excitement at what lay ahead of us. Despite my assertion that we should change the locks, I’d not pushed the matter, savouring the memory of both of us holding the old-fashioned key, Charlie’s hand wrapped around mine as we turned it together and stepped over the threshold into our new future. I firmly told myself to get it together. If I was going to become sentimental every time I looked at the cottage, my plan was going to fall apart and I was never going to be able to move on with my life.

Mustering my confidence, I marched around the side of the building, where I encountered none other than Serena, who was checking her appearance in the wing mirror of her car prior to getting in and driving off. She looked rather tired, I thought, then I told myself off for being catty. It was probably best not to think about what had caused her to look fatigued.

‘Hello, Freya, good first day back?’ she asked, making it clear that I must have been the subject of discussion between her and Charlie at some point.

‘Great, thank you,’ I said, in a cheery manner, which sounded forced even to my own ears. ‘Nice to see you again,’ I added. ‘You know you don’t have to worry about me being in the way when you visit. I’m always happy to make myself scarce.’ There was little doubt in my mind that Charlie would have talked over the situation with her, and told her what he had done to deal with it. The least I could do was reassure her that the message had been received and understood.

‘Er, thank you,’ said Serena. I couldn’t tell if she was pleased or perhaps embarrassed by what I’d said. It must be awkward talking to the woman who has a huge crush on your boyfriend, after all. I held the gate open for her as she drove off, then carefully closed it behind her and made my way through the garden, my feet slowing down with every step. Now that the moment had come, I was dreading going into the house and having to pretend everything was normal.

Ted provided some welcome distraction, charging up to meet me when I got to the back door, going so fast that he skidded as he turned a corner and ended up bouncing off the wall.

‘Careful, Teddy boy, you’ll hurt yourself,’ I said, bending down and patting him, checking him over for damage.

He wriggled in response, then bounded off back to Charlie, who was leaning against the living-room doorway looking like an advert for DIY. He was wearing a tatty old pair of jeans that were hanging off his hips, while his grubby T-shirt showed off muscles that seemed to have only grown firmer with all the hard manual labour of the summer. I swallowed. So much for my plan to get a grip and move on.

‘Good day at work, dear?’ he said, reprising his 1950s housewife imitation.

‘Busy,’ I said, forcing myself to smile as if everything was fine. ‘Did you get much done? The accounts you look after were rather quiet today.’ As soon as I said it, I kicked myself for revealing too much. Charlie knew that I didn’t really do social media, so he’d be able to work out what I had been up to, which was surreptitiously logging onto Instagram on my computer at school between classes and trawling through the accounts I knew he managed, to see what he’d been up to, a vicarious way of feeling close to him. Now I realised it just made me look like a stalker. I hurried on, trying to gloss over my mistake.

‘Serena’s looking well.’

‘What? Oh yes, I guess so,’ said Charlie. ‘Can I show you how I’ve been getting on with the building work whilst you’ve been out? You’re right, I did skive from the business a bit today so I could make some house progress.’

I nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the house. I think we need to up the pace with the renovations. There’s still a lot to be done, and according to my research, the best time to put the cottage on the market would be in the new year. People like to get Christmas out of the way without any big changes, then they start looking for new properties in January as part of their new year’s resolutions. It would be foolish to miss an opportunity like that.’

Charlie frowned. ‘I hadn’t heard that. The estate agent I work for is normally pretty hot on such trends, if they exist.’

‘There have been several articles about it in reputable publications,’ I said, knowing I sounded prissy.

‘I guess it must be true then,’ said Charlie.

‘Good. With that in mind, I think we should have a new approach to our renovation work. Divide and conquer.’

‘Divide and conquer?’

‘Yes, that’s it. We take a room each, and focus all our individual attention on it, perhaps even set ourselves a deadline. That way we can double our efforts.’

‘Or potentially halve them, given that we’ll be halving the labour,’ pointed out Charlie.

‘I think this way is best,’ I pushed, unable to bear the thought of having to spend my free time working alongside Charlie, and the pain this would cause me.

‘Let’s talk about it over dinner,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you fancied macaroni cheese tonight? You know it’s my special.’

‘I already ate my main meal at school,’ I said hurriedly, knowing that I wasn’t yet strong enough to eat with him and pretend that everything was back to normal. ‘If I get hungry later, I might have a snack, but don’t worry about waiting for me. In fact, you should feel free to eat when you like and not bother about me. Not that you need my permission to choose what you do, of course. I just thought it might make things easier as I’m going to be tied up with school a lot this term, and I know you’ve got your own life to lead.’

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