Page 2 of Wild About You

‘And would you like to ask anything, Lord Roxdale?’ Tally said, breaking into her first smile of the interview.

Throughout this process, my soon-to-be boss had kept his mic and camera turned off, remaining a black square with the words ‘Jamie Mulholland’ staring out in white.

We all waited a moment as he unmuted his mic. I surreptitiously took a screenshot.

‘Nothing to add,’ a male voice said, curtly. Which was the sole impact my new employer had on my recruitment.

Happy Christmas!came Fi’s message an hour later.You’ve got the job!

As I drank my ninth ‘calm blend’ tea of the day, choking on its floral fumes, I messaged Rose.

ANNAI’ve got the job.

ROSEYes yes yes!! What was the Lord like?

I sent her the screenshot of the video interview.

ANNADidn’t get sight of him. He kept his camera off.

ROSEHow inconvenient of him. That other guy looks like a bit of yeah. Time to get back in the saddle?

ANNA**Absolutely not.**

As I packed, I was rejoicing in the power ofNo, and all of its beautiful variations, turning down invitations to Christmas drinks and politely declining an exit interview at Mackenzie’s. I started journalling to try and explore my emotions (no one needed to hear me say the same things again and again, plus it was an excuse to buy new stationery).Nowas the very first word I wrote in my new journal, and I liked it so much I coloured it in and outlined it with my new gold pen and glitter glue. Which isnotthe kind of thing I normally do.

CHAPTER 2

NO REGRETSwas the heading on page two of my journal.

It was an instruction to embrace my new direction, and not to chicken out of my decision, even as I received multiple messages from my London friends and colleagues, all along the lines of ‘if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life’.

No regrets, I told myself when I packed up my possessions in the silent flat on a January afternoon, considerately vacated by Sean so he could go to an ‘er, meeting’, which I suspected was a date, from the amount of aftershave he was wearing. I had taken as many boxes as I could fit into the back of Rose’s car, so I was selective: books, photographs, an ornament, a set of bath towels. All the time holding in my emotions, so tense that I felt as though my stomach and chest were bound tight in an iron corset.

I took the train to my new home and the weather steadily got grimmer and wilder as we journeyed from the softer landscapeof the south to the wilder landscape of Northumberland (I was going to rewild it, so no problem there). I sat in the train, eating chocolate and watching the scenery change to a different kind of beauty, as though I was watching a film. ‘Is that a tattoo?’ the girl sitting next to me said at the slogan ‘no regrets’ I’d written on the inside of my wrist in biro as a reminder. I shook my head and smiled.

Fi met me at the station, and I saw the look of concern on her face as she opened her arms, enveloping me in a warm, incredible hug. ‘Just in time,’ she said, leaning back, taking my face in her hands and inspecting me as if she was looking for signs of damage.

‘Yes,’ I said, trying to smile as brightly as possible. ‘Down, but not out.’

She drove me through narrow, winding lanes to the estate cottage I’d been allocated as a job perk. It was an impossibly sweet Neo-Gothic cottage built of pale grey stone, with mullion leaded windows. As I got out of the car, open-mouthed, I stared at its steep gables and fish-scale roof tiles. There were even gargoyles on the guttering. ‘It’s not as big as it looks,’ said Fi, handing me the key. ‘Basically one-up, one-down – it’s 40 per cent attic. But it’s cosy downstairs. I’ve had the woodburner going this morning.’ The door opened onto the main living area, a sitting room with a kitchen area at the back. The flagstones were grey and smooth, the walls plastered in a buttercream colour, with a navy blue sofa by the fireplace, and a pine coffee table and bookshelves. My boxes were sitting in the middle of the floor, having been brought up by van overnight.I went straight to the one marked KETTLE and cut through the tape with my new door key.

Fi had put milk and a home-made lasagne in the fridge and a poinsettia on the counter to welcome me. ‘I didn’t know if you wanted to come round to ours this evening, or settle in?’ she said, as I hugged her in thanks. I could see how carefully she was watching me, as though I was one of those ornaments that you had to pack in a box with the words ‘THIS WAY UP’ and ‘FRAGILE’ emblazoned across the box.

I glanced at the ‘no regrets’ on my wrist, which had already started to fade. ‘I would love to come over tomorrow,’ I said. ‘But tonight, I’ll unpack a bit, get settled.’ I was determined that I wasn’t going to be a burden; that despite the last few months of her mainly seeing me on video calls either sobbing, or mascara-less fromhavingsobbed, this marked the beginning of a new phase. Strong Anna, capable Anna. She nodded, gave me another hug, and put on the kettle, just to delay her departure a few more minutes. I loved her for that.

I had a week to unpack, carefully building a small pile of self-help books on the floor of my bedroom and placing some more ‘guest-friendly’ novels on the small pine bookshelf in the living room, just in case anyone dropped by in future. I made a lot of tea and ate a lot of biscuits as I washed my crockery and cutlery, layered throws on the sofa, and decided where to place my various framed photos: one of me, Rose and Mum; a framed compilation of photos of friends; and some arty landscape shots I’d taken of various woodlands and marshlands near London where Sean and I had spentweekends escaping the city. I remembered how I’d initiated those walks, although he’d been happy to potter along with me as we’d discussed this and that, including playful mentions of our imagined future: where we would raise our family and what kind of dog we would get. Inspecting our relationship from a distance, I wondered whether he’d been in as all-in as I had been; if our positions had been reversed, I couldn’t have imagined leaving him. Then, just when I had started hating him a little bit, I would remember the feeling of our hands clasped together, the sound of his laugh as we argued playfully over what kind of house we wanted. As I put the pictures on the wall, they helped, in their own quiet way; in the shots of trees silhouetted against the sky, or of water reflecting cloud, I caught sight of the essential Anna who had always been there, and still remained, even though so much of my identity felt stripped away.

The first night, I was kept up by the sound of mice scampering around above my bedroom in their lofty palace. So I put the bedside lamp on and got my journal out to write action bullet points, which then morphed into a shopping list:

Establish daily meditation practice, beginning with five minutes.

As you meditate, practise ‘Sean’ becoming smaller and distant in your mind. He can start off full size but should end up like a tiny stick figure, waving his arms on the horizon.

Start the day with hot water infused with lemon juice.

Buy humane mousetraps.

After a week of dozing, rearranging cushions and eating lavish meals at Fi and Richard’s, my first day of work arrived. Fi picked me up and took me to the office by car, even though we’d walked the estate route once on my week off. ‘You should arrive in style on your first day,’ she said with a smile. ‘Also, it’s a muddy walk after all the rain. We need to break you in gently.’

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