Chapter One
Flora Fraser unlocked the door of her flat and walked into the bright and welcoming hallway.
When she had bought the apartment a few years ago she had fallen in love with it straight away.
It was on the first floor of a traditional tenement block in Marchmont, a vibrant and bustling area of Edinburgh, close to the university.
She had lovingly restored the flat until it was her kind of perfect.
The rooms were decorated in soothing shades of green, lilac and biscuit with matching cushions and throws which she had made on her beloved sewing machine.
She had sanded and varnished the floorboards in the small kitchen herself and put in cream cabinets and décor.
The table fitted perfectly in the window overlooking the communal garden.
She loved sitting there with her morning cup of tea watching the birds hop around the grass and listening to them sing.
The front room was flooded with natural light thanks to its large bay window.
It had an original fireplace with intricate cornicing, and traditional sash and case windows which Flora had carefully sanded and painted.
It had been a stretch to buy her own property but she’d managed to scrape together a deposit and moved in after securing her dream job as a lecturer in fashion and design at the university.
But now as she walked into the kitchen and unpacked her small bag of groceries onto the worktop, she reminded herself that if she didn’t find another job soon, she would be unable to pay the mortgage.
It had been a few weeks since she’d been made redundant.
To begin with she had embraced it as positively as she could, despite feeling absolutely gutted.
Some of her older colleagues had also lost their jobs.
But they had been delighted to escape the daily grind.
Flora, however, loved the predictability of her routine and teaching and sharing her enthusiasm for fashion and textiles with students.
And now, at the age of thirty, she was wondering who she was without her job.
The thing that made her feel most productive had disappeared.
Flora used to leap out of bed in the morning and walk, with a spring in her step, across the Meadows.
She loved that her commute involved a walk through the large park, criss-crossed by tree-lined paths, as it meant she could connect with her second favourite thing after fashion.
Well, maybe third, if her morning coffee was also included.
She loved being outdoors so part of her self-care morning routine was to have a mindful walk through the park and connect with nature and the different seasons.
She loved the carpet of red and gold when the trees shed their leaves in the autumn, the snow and grey slush of the winter, the snowdrops, daffodils and blossom in the spring and now summer which was her favourite season of all.
Summer meant lazy picnics with friends in the park; day trips to one of the beautiful beaches with yellow sands on the East Lothian coast; the sound of bees and lawnmowers; chocolate mint ice-cream; glasses of dry white wine; and sketching.
She made herself a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table.
Then she took a bite of one of the chocolate-covered custard creams that she seemed to be consuming vast quantities of lately.
Flora scrolled through the positivity quotes that swamped her Instagram account: Stay positive, stay hopeful and know you are where you are meant to be.
Why was it that the algorithms of social media seemed to know what was going on in her life?
She popped the last piece of biscuit in her mouth and threw her phone down in frustration.
She flinched when she saw her reflection in the window.
Her mass of wavy, dark hair, scooped in a messy bun, resembled a bird’s nest. Her face was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes.
Flora had to come up with a strategy and a plan for what to do next and fast. It was all very well to “trust in the universe” and believe that “you are where you’re supposed to be right now”.
But she didn’t think that kind of chat would land well with the mortgage company when she started to default on her payments.
She had sent off some job applications; some she had filled in more reluctantly than others, especially as she couldn’t face the upheaval of relocating to a new city and having to start again.
At this moment, it felt as though her career was over.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen it coming.
Everyone knew that the cuts were looming, especially as the higher education sector had faced massive losses.
But to be told she was no longer needed had still been an enormous blow.
She felt embarrassed about telling people that she’d lost her job, which she knew was silly.
But she couldn’t help feeling a failure.
And the thought of not receiving a regular salary left her feeling physically sick.
Her redundancy package was small and would tide her over for a couple of months.
But she was already having palpitations at the thought of that dwindling fast. Should she learn a new skill?
Give her CV a makeover? As she pondered what to do, she glanced at the clock on the microwave.
It was just after ten and she had been up since six o’clock.
Rather than embrace enforced duvet days, a consequence of redundancy, she woke early, her mind full of worry, and had even started running to give her day a focus.
She was meeting her friend Nita in an hour for coffee.
It was cheaper and healthier to catch up over hot drinks rather than alcoholic ones.
It also felt very strange to be able to do that on a Thursday morning in June when she would normally be in the office swapping gossip with colleagues, chatting to students about their assignments or marking essays. She now felt lost.
The city’s festivals that she had previously enjoyed so much, would soon be in full swing and with them the thousands of people who descended on the capital to take part in or watch the different shows.
Usually she loved the atmosphere, the buzz, all the different nationalities and languages.
But now all she could think about was the fact that she was jobless. She needed a plan. And fast.