Free I Should Be So Lucky by Judy Astley Page A

it didn’t, they’d move.
    Viola arrived before Marco, left the car in front of the garage in her old familiar parking spot, then stood on the path facing the central front door, staring at the outside of the building, taking in its familiar features, checking to see what had changed. Apart from a bit of recently flaking paint on the doorframe and the New Dawn rose that had grown so much that it now smothered the little porch roof and looked as if it was trying to force its way in through the bedroom windows, it was all just the same, just as she’d left it months ago.
    Marco’s Mini whizzed into the driveway and stopped a millimetre short of the Polo’s bumper.
    ‘Perfect parking!’ he called to her as he climbed out. ‘How’s our lovely old gaff looking? Have you been inside yet?’
    ‘No, I’ve only just got here. I thought I’d wait for you.’
    ‘Yeah – I get it.’ He put an arm round her and gave her a squeeze. ‘Hard to face the memories? You could just put it on the market, you know. Come and live in Notting Hill near me and James?’
    ‘Notting Hill? Like I could afford to! No, sweet idea but I’m sure I can deal with the memories, because so very few are bad ones and I’m
not
going to let them crowd out the good stuff. Mostly, I still think of it as when you and I moved in here, which were the best times, the Rachel-as-a-baby times. Rhys made very little impression on it, really. Even when he
was
there I still thought of it as just mine and Rachel’s because he brought so little to it, apart from the crazy women knocking on the door and hoping he’d come out to play. I should have known that he wasn’t a keeper. Everyone warned me. Why didn’t I just live with him for a bit instead of getting married? It was his idea, you know. He seemed absolutely set on doing the family thing , had me totally convinced and yet he was trying to pull a waitress even on our honeymoon. What an idiot I was.’
    ‘Well, of course you were convinced – he wasn’t a top actor for nothing, was he? And we can all be idiots. Look at me: all those years denying I was gay just because my father thought all poofs should be lined up and shot. But then if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have Rachel. Something good often comes out of the tricky stuff. Shall we go in? I’ll hold your hand.’
    Viola opened the front door and stopped for a moment to sniff the air. It didn’t smell like her house, not at all.
    ‘Blimey, was she ever keen on vanilla!’ Marco wrinkled his nose. ‘She must have bought up a job lot of air freshener.’
    ‘Or candles. She looked like the candle sort,’ Viola said. ‘You know, late thirties and single, candles all round the bath, smelly gunk and rose petals in it, a big fat glass of Pino G and a book that isn’t too precious to matter if it falls in the water.’
    ‘Is that how you’re going to be now?’ Marco asked.
    ‘
Me?
With candles?’ she laughed. ‘Are you mad? I’d be sure to knock one over, set fire to the bath mat and end up naked on a ladder over some poor fireman’s shoulder, with all the neighbours watching.’
    ‘Yes, you’re probably not wrong there. But I’d pay folding money to see it. Your bum would look hot on YouTube.’
    Viola left the front door open to waft in fresh air to replace the vanilla scent. Even that could have been worse – it could have been Rhys’s usual overdose of Calvin Klein. If that had been so ingrained into the carpet that she couldn’t
not
remember him every time she walked up the stairs, it would have been a no-brainer about selling the house.
    The decor didn’t seem to have suffered since she and Rachel had last lived there. The creamy-yellow walls of the sunny double-aspect sitting room had a few faded patches where pictures could have been but, really, she could get away with not repainting it, although she decided she would, if only to freshen it up with a lighter, brighter version of the same colour. The kitchen looked as if it had