Free Nobody but Him by Victoria Purman

that had to be emptied of odd tools, mysterious ice-cream containers full of odd screws and nails, and dried-up tins of shoe polish. There were no memories for Julia in any of it. They were simply the accumulated accessories of a life as wife, mother and widow.
    She’d already taken a quick glance at her own things, crammed into her old two door wardrobe and discount store chest of drawers. She’d left behind almost everything when she went to Melbourne and a cursory inspection now had her resolving to ditch the whole lot. All that was left was an old rain jacket hanging next to a stiffened wetsuit she hadn’t worn in fifteen years, which jostled for space with a box of rolled-up posters and a box of CDs. None of it meant anything to her anymore.
    Julia hadn’t had much in the way of cool clothes or shoes when she was growing up. Her mother’s favourite stores, more through philosophy than necessity, were second-hand ones. She never owned the cool jeans or the surf gear that all the city kids wore when they came down to Middle Point for the summer. Julia’s bathers and thongs had never been name brand, but discount department store, something the too-cool-for-school city kids had taken great pleasure in pointing out on the beach. The humiliation of those moments still burned in her. She’d gladly left all that behind when she’d shut her bedroom door for the final time all those years before.
    ‘Hello!’
    Julia poked her head up and peered over the kitchen bench. Lizzie had pushed open the front door with a swing of her hips and was carrying a pile of cardboard in her arms, wine boxes unfolded and laid out flat.
    ‘I’m over here,’ Julia called out, ‘Excavating the deepest darkest depths of my mother’s cupboards. Check this out.’ Julia stood and set a metal tray on the bench with a clatter.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘It’s a muffin tray. I swear I don’t remember my mother ever baking anything. She was so not a mother who baked. Why on earth did she need a muffin tray?’
    Lizzie dropped the pile of cardboard onto the floor in the living room with a thud.
    ‘Jools, Mary may have actually discovered the muffin in the fifteen years you were in Melbourne, and perhaps even the friand, verjuice and quinoa.We make a point of keeping up with the times in little old Middle Point, you know.’
    Julia crossed her arms. ‘You’re telling me off again, aren’t you?’
    ‘Things weren’t preserved in aspic when you left, which you would know if you’d ever bothered to come back.’ Lizzie smiled naughtily.
    Julia blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, after it had cunningly escaped her ponytail. ‘Believe me, I can see how much this place has changed. I see it every time I step out the front door. I just didn’t think Mum would change, you know?’
    Lizzie found Julia and gave her a tight hug. ‘You can either make me cry or put me to work. Which is it going to be?’
    ‘Work. Definitely work.’
    An hour later, Julia and Lizzie had filled boxes for donation, others for storing and there were plastic garbage bags in a pile in the corner ready to be thrown out. Lizzie had pushed the council rubbish bin out onto the edge of the front yard and was slowly filling it, while Julia had her head stuck deep inside the oven, rubber gloves on, scrubbing and wiping.
    ‘Hey, Lizzie, can you chuck me another scourer?’ Julia’s voice echoed. ‘This one has just died.’
    When she didn’t get an answer, she got to her feet and surveyed the silent living room.
    ‘Lizzie?’ Her best friend seemed to have been gone longer than was strictly necessary for a walk to the edge of the street and back. The gust of wind blowing into the house and billowing the curtains seemed to suggest she was still out there.
    Julia crossed the room and stepped out the front door.
    When Lizzie and Ry turned to look at her, she realised it was a split second too late to go back inside with any dignity. Her rubber gloved hands waved in the air