Peony Place. Jules Wake

fit enough to live independently. I run around the park, just one loop, every single day. Rain or shine. And no one’s going to stop me.’

      ‘I remember you,’ I blurted out. ‘Sunshine-yellow tracksuit.’ Startler of pigeons. Harbinger of coffee disasters.

      ‘That’s my particular favourite. So good of you to notice it. I have a rather lovely emerald green one as well. Which reminds me, I haven’t done my stretches and at my age, they’re a must.’

      She stood up and began doing a series of lunges. I watched in amusement as she bounced around the small area with more enthusiasm than skill.

      Finally, jogging on the spot, she waved a hand at me. ‘Right, toodle-pip. Same time tomorrow.’

      I shrugged. Today’s attempt at running had been woeful. Maybe I’d been a bit hasty emailing Dave about the 5k. The treadmill in the gym always seemed so much easier. Maybe I’d get the train into Leeds and visit the gym instead.

      With a sniff, she turned and began to jog away down the path to join the main drag through the park.

      I watched her retreating figure. At least it had been nice to have some company; she was a character and she’d made me smile quite a few times. In fact, my face felt positively mobile for once instead of having that stretched, clenched-teeth feeling that, now I thought about it, had been around for a lot longer than a few weeks. When was the last time I’d felt anything other than an insidious sense of doom and that everything was about to go wrong?

      Chapter Seven

      The kitchen looked as if a small tornado had swept through it. Spilled milk on the table, dried cornflakes in the bowls, which had acquired superglue-like properties, and abandoned toast crusts – apparently Ava’s hair was curly enough – as well as a pool of sticky orange juice that had been tramped across the floor, down the hall, and there was one tacky footprint on the cream lounge carpet. Breathe, Claire. It was okay. I could do this. I’d got the girls to school… and only five minutes late. I didn’t dare look at the bedroom where I knew there’d be a pile of abandoned school uniform items. Who knew children could generate so many dirty clothes? Little Ava could attract food, mud, and paint to her clothes, skin, and hair in equal quantities. There were even red paint and orange juice stains on her white ankle socks – although grey would have been a better description; they hadn’t been white for a long time.

      The mess set all my tidy-senses tingling, bringing with them that familiar on-edge something-bad-was-going-to-happen feeling. As soon as I’d cleaned the juice from the floor by the fridge, I realised that underneath the fridge was filthy. So I pulled that out. Then I attacked the dust behind it. But the sides of the kitchen cupboards beside it were disgusting, so I cleaned off the sheen of grease, only to find that the extractor fan was also covered in a film of the same grease. With each bowl of hot soapy water I filled, I felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Each time I pulled out or moved something, there was more to do. The tiles behind the cooker were food-stained. The ceiling needed painting. The flooring was marked.

      I stopped, realising that my breath was coming in shallow pants. This was ridiculous.

      But even though my brain registered the onset of panic, I was still taking the shelves out of the oven to scrub them.

      This was crazy. I should be at work, not doing this. Work, where I knew what needed to be done. Knew what I had to do. Where I had a million things to do. There were reports to be written. Data to be analysed. By now a gazillion emails to be responded to.

      I also missed the routine of going to work. Getting up at six. Leaving at six forty-five. Wearing a smart suit. Being someone. Being recognised in the office. People there knew who I was: a senior manager. I missed having things to do.

      Oh God, I needed something to take my mind off things.

      I grabbed the BBC Good Food Magazine, almost in desperation. Cooking. That would give me something to do. And I was not going to think of the meeting that I should have been at in Bradford this morning. Who was taking it instead of me? Would they be presenting my work? Would the client know where I was? Surely the company wouldn’t tell them I was off with stress. Please no. And would they have found the additional notes I’d made?

      I put down the magazine in despair. I looked at my watch as I spotted the cobweb in the corner of the room. Should I phone Ros and tell her where to find the notes? She could email them over. I could almost feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it all.

      ‘Hi Ros, it’s me,’ I said at the same time as reaching up the wall with a duster.

      ‘Claire, how are you feeling?’

      ‘I feel fine,’ I snapped, immediately irritated and frustrated because I’d spotted another bloody cobweb. ‘I’m not ill.’

      ‘No, dear. Now, if you’re phoning about work, I’m not to speak to you. If you want me to tell you that TJ got an A in his biology exam, I can do that. And Rissa was in a dance show last week and Ty took a catch in his cricket match.’

      ‘But I just need you to tell the team that I—’

      ‘Claire. You are signed off. I’m telling you, you’re not my boss at the moment. So I get to boss you around. And I’m telling you: clear your head. Work will carry on, just fine. I’m going to miss you but you have to give yourself some time.’

      ‘But there’s nothing—’

      ‘I’m no doctor but even I could tell you haven’t been right these past months.’

      ‘What? That’s rubbish.’ Even as I said it, I could feel a slight trembling of my hands.

      ‘Claire. You’ve been running on empty for a long time. Now, make the most of this time. Learn to dance, enjoy the sunshine, and smell the flowers. Do the things you enjoy instead of being cooped up in this stuffy place. It’s just a job, honey.’

      I reached for the cobweb and noticed my hands really were shaking. Do things I enjoy? What things? I enjoyed work. I wanted to be there.

      It had never ever been just a job. I was a career woman. On track to make partner.

      My stomach lurched with the horror of realisation.

      They wouldn’t give a partnership to someone who’d been signed off with stress. My career was toast. And my kitchen was a mess. Just look at the state of it. I couldn’t even manage to get that straight, so how the hell could I hope to salvage my career?

      The panic that, like a malignant shadow, had been dogging me all morning with the frantic cleaning, suddenly engulfed me. My throat closed up and my breath stuttered in my chest.

      I put my head down on the kitchen table and wept.

      The bout of crying left me feeling worn out and lethargic, too tired to do more than raise my head from the table and glare around at the kitchen with all the half-finished jobs. I was as wobbly as a new-born giraffe and didn’t trust my legs to stand up yet.

      For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps Dr Boulter had a point and that I should think about taking better care of myself. I was clearly run-down. I scowled at the tatty kitchen floor which looked no better for my manic scrubbing and the hideous red and orange wallpaper on the ‘feature’ wall. This was supposed to be my grown-up, Instagram-perfect, I’ve-made-it home. It was laughable; I couldn’t even get my house straight let alone do my job. An epic fail on both counts.

      Oh God, I had to sort myself out. Prove to them back at work that I was fine. Dr Boulter might be right about my need to be healthier but he was wrong about the stress. I snatched up the BBC Good Food Magazine. In the next three weeks, I was going to cook. Proper nutritious meals. Get myself back on track. Proper exercise, proper meals, just like the doctor had ordered. But would it help?