GROWING CLOSE
My heart sank as I looked around the dark, gloomy sitting room. It was all so different from the flat I’d shared with Tim for three years. We’d planned on getting married. Having children. But now life was scarily uncertain. The girl next door didn’t help.
‘Make sure you put your rubbish in the right bins,’ she told me. ‘There’s an old lady in the block who’s a real pain if you get it wrong.’
During the next few days, I threw myself into my work as a freelance illustrator, as well as putting my own stamp on the apartment; making new curtains, buying rugs from the market and hanging my paintings.
No sooner had I knocked the first nail into the wall, than there was the ring on the doorbell. On the other side stood a tall, thin woman with a sharp nose who was probably, at a guess, in her mid-70s.
‘Your noise has disturbed my
