Chapter 1
‘Come on!’ Eliza grumbled with agonised frustration.
She felt the sweat dripping down her back, making her already filthy, grey Ramones T-shirt cling to her in what she assumed was a most unsightly fashion.
Giving her ripped canvas duffel bag one last almighty kick, followed by a double jab channelling all the Karate Kid movies she had ever watched, she squeezed the last of her life into the boot of her trusty yellow Citroen, Daisy.
I am not rearranging this sodding car again, she thought as she tried to pull the boot down.
I will drive with this bloody bag on my lap if I have to.
With one more shove of her arse, which she was pleased to notice was feeling pretty tight after all that Pilates, the boot miraculously slammed shut.
Victory! She leant against the car panting.
Who says you need a man to pack a car? In fact, who needs a man to do anything?
‘I said I’d help,’ Henry muttered from the front door. ‘You only had to ask. Although I know that’s not your strong point.’
Eliza felt her body tense as she slowly turned to face him, irritated that he was there, still patronising her even as she left.
She had timed her departure on the basis that he wouldn’t be home, but his ‘meeting’ had been cancelled and he’d been standing there the whole time she’d been packing up her life, lounging in doorways, drinking coffee, looking annoyingly handsome.
But she still hated him. Handsome or not, he was a twat, an uptight one at that, and there was no way he was going to break her heart again just by looking at her.
‘I would rather ask anyone for help except you, Henry. Anyone in the entire world,’ she spat with more venom than she had planned, feeling her heart tighten. This was surprising as she was sure it had split into a gazillion pieces since that day in the wine cellar.
He paused, his blond hair glinting in the sunlight as he took another sip of his coffee from his ‘I Love London’ mug, looking every inch ideal husband material.
God, she needed help. ‘Eliza, I’m sorry it had to end this way.
’ He pierced her with those fucking deep blue eyes that she was trying with everything to ignore.
‘I really am. I never meant to hurt you.’
‘Really, Henry, even now you sound insincere. Like you’re reciting something off TikTok, at least try and put some emotion into it.
’ Looking away, Eliza blinked to clear what she refused to believe was anything other than sweat out of her eyes.
‘Well, I have news for you: I don’t need you, I don’t care what you do, and I hope you enjoy fucking your brainless twenty-five-year-old bimbo. ’
‘She’s thirty-three actually, and just made regional sales manager, so not quite a bimbo . . . But I get your point, and I do mean it, LiLi.’
‘Henry! I don’t care! And stop calling me LiLi!
’ she shouted, exasperated beyond belief.
The worst part was that she did care, of course she did; she had thought she was going to marry him, that he was ‘the one’.
How was she here, again? Bags packed and forced to leave everything she had hoped for behind.
The one thing she promised herself was that she would not be weak. Not now. Not in front of him.
‘As they say,’ she sighed, turning away from him, ‘everything happens for a reason. I have nothing more to say; you made your choice. Try not to let all the plants die. See you in the next life.’
See you in the next life? Was that it? After three years of pretending to find his jokes funny, building him up to go for that VP promotion, and hoping only for one tiny little thing in return (her dream wedding) – he’d had to ruin it all by shagging his colleague in the wine cellar at the event she’d been running for her boss.
Why couldn’t she have thought of a better parting line? Pathetic.
Climbing into her car before he could see the tears welling up, she took a deep breath and pulled down her sunglasses.
She could feel the sobs rising up in her chest, all the emotions of the last month threatening to overwhelm her.
Damn him, she thought. Damn him for breaking her heart and destroying her dreams. She threw the car into reverse and stalled.
‘Oh GOD! Come on, Daisy, not today!’ she shout-whispered to herself, knowing he was still standing there watching. Finally, as her car lurched forward, she drove out of Marmion Road, past the rows of identically terraced houses for the last time, and finally let the tears fall.
According to the satnav, Farmington, and her new life, was only about an hour and a half away – though she felt it might not have accounted for her rusty yellow beast struggling to go over sixty on a good day.
She’d been meaning to look into an upgrade, but she loved Daisy.
Anyway, it was going to be perfect for her new rural adventure.
Eliza and Daisy, taking on the world. At least a car couldn’t be unfaithful.
Just thirty minutes into her life-changing journey, green fields were starting to replace the concrete, the traffic was starting to flow and her sobs had turned into the occasional sniffle, helped by the fact that she had finally stopped playing Phil Collins’ ‘Against All Odds’ on repeat.
She’d driven this road only once before, with Henry, for the first viewing of Willow Tree Cottage a few months earlier.
He hadn’t been keen to move to the country, but she’d persuaded him that it would be an exciting new adventure – and a perfect place to start a family (though she hadn’t said that bit out loud).
In retrospect, perhaps renting a cottage in the country for three months hadn’t been the best decision, especially as Henry seemed completely uninterested in bringing a baby into the world.
But she was so grateful for it now; there were only so many nights a thirty-eight-year-old could stay at her best friend’s house drinking all her wine and bemoaning the end of her ‘perfect relationship’.
Even though she loved Nancy’s kids and her husband had come up with some very creative insults, the heartbreak had started to make her feel more like a pitied squatter than treasured friend.
So, when the rental company emailed to confirm the deposit had cleared and that she could arrive any time, it had felt like a big sign from the universe.
She used to be such a risk taker, before Henry lulled her into his boring middle-class wine quaffing world which she never really liked anyway.
It was about time she started taking ownership of her life, and took a leap of faith.
If she was being totally honest, perhaps moving to Africa, living in a wooden shack and starting some kind of charity would have been slightly more impactful than driving ninety minutes down the road, but it was a start.
Looking back on it, Henry’s reaction to getting mud on his suede brogues when he’d stepped out of the car at Willow Tree Cottage had seemed a little extreme.
Not to mention his irritation at banging his head on the rustic low-hanging beams. Whilst when Eliza had walked into the cottage, she’d felt an immediate sense of calm, and a complete sense of coming home.
The views from the windows looked out over the river below, and she found the sound of the birds tweeting and the low hum of the tractors in the neighbouring field weirdly appealing.
As she turned onto the country lanes that would lead her to Willow Tree Cottage, the final sniffles dried up and Eliza felt her excitement building.
‘Living on a Prayer’ was blasting out on the radio, and even though she didn’t know anyone and was single at an age her mother deemed inappropriate, she suddenly didn’t care.
She could always freeze her eggs – everyone seemed to do that nowadays; why couldn’t she?
Worst-case scenario, her mother would try to set her up with her highly religious neighbour’s son who had also failed at love.
Although sweet, he had been cheating at Monopoly since they were eight, so she couldn’t possibly trust him.
Rounding a hairpin bend, she finally saw a sign for Farmington, and her heart leapt. This was it, her new home, her new beginning.
Rolling down the window, Eliza let her new life blow through her hair.
No more unfaithful arse around to ruin her life!
Who knew what happened in the countryside, but if TV shows were to be believed then, by the time a week was up, she’d likely be having hot sex with a muscly-armed farmer in a field.
And Henry would end up crawling on his hands and knees, begging her to take him back. But oh, what a sight he would see . . .
Jolted out of her revenge fantasy with a massive thump, Eliza crashed back to reality. What was that? The steering wheel was jumping under her hands . . . something was terribly, terribly wrong. No, no no! Pulling off to the side of the road she peered around.
‘Bollocks,’ she muttered. ‘Now what!’
Here she was, stuck on a small country lane, tucked into a muddy layby, and, by her calculations, at least a fifteen-minute walk from the new cottage – well maybe twenty in her leopard print ballet pumps.
Throwing aside the few things that had landed on her lap during the sudden stop, she climbed out to check the car, and sure enough it was a flat tyre.
Shit! Her spare was buried under the years of acquired clutter piled precariously in her boot, and there was no way she would ever be able to get to it without emptying her entire car.
That aside, her memory of how to change a tyre was hazy – the hot mechanic sent to teach them how to do it in their last year of school as a ‘life lesson’ had been very distracting.
She only remembered his rippling biceps and being reminded to ‘tighten the nuts’. The rest was a hysterical blur.
She checked her phone – no reception.