The Men in her Life

busy...’
    ‘Anything interesting?’ Clare asked, keen to be distracted from the sense of empty futility that was descending on her.
    Spurred by the adrenalin of almost being caught out, Holly’s mind scrabbled through the events of the past few weeks, keen to find any memory that did not contain Matt.
    ‘I sold The One, did I tell you?’
    Normally she kept the sums she negotiated for her clients strictly confidential, but she found herself naming the price she had achieved just to keep her end of the conversation going for a while longer.
    ‘Wow! I wish you could advise me how to make some money,’ Clare said, ‘I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to understand that money is freedom. When we came to Cornwall I thought that having no money at all was freedom, and now, just when the country gets rid of the Conservative government, I become a capitalist...’
    ‘This lot are capitalists too,’ Holly said. She was beginning to feel slightly disillusioned with the Government. They had been in power for a hundred days now and nothing had changed.
    ‘... except that they’re now going to charge fees for university...’ said Clare. ‘We’re not sure where that ' leaves Ella because of her gap year...’
    ‘I can’t understand it,’ Holly said, ‘I thought it was all supposed to be education, education, education... I’m beginning to think Blair is a complete phoney...’
    ‘They talk a lot about opportunity, don’t they, but I don’t think they understand what it’s like somewhere like this,’ Clare said, forlornly, ‘of course people want to work, but where are the jobs...’
    ‘You could start a business...’ Holly suggested. ‘Doing what?’
    ‘You could sell your jam...’
    ‘I’ve thought of that. Organic jam made from Cornish raspberries in little pots with linen covers... but I haven’t got the money to set up, and anyway, I don’t have a zeal for jam... I think you need to believe in your product if you have a cottage industry, like Body Shop, you know, and I just can’t get excited about jam...’
    Holly laughed. ‘Can’t you get some money out of Philippa?’ she asked, then added quickly, ‘sorry, I think I know the answer to that question... Do you think that if Jack had known he was going to die he would have left us something?’
    Clare thought about it.
    ‘He wouldn’t have left me anything. He was always really mean with pocket money. He thought that because he had come from nowhere everyone else had to start off like that... I hate the way that people like Jack are held up as examples of what we could all achieve if we wanted to. The whole point is that they’re the exceptions. They’re famous because they’re so unusual.’
    There was silence at the other end of the phone. Holly had bucked the system too, Clare remembered.
    ‘God, now I’m beginning to rant like Joss...’ she apologized.
    ‘How are things with Joss?’ Holly asked.
    Clare hesitated. It didn’t seem right to tell her on the phone, and she didn’t know where Joss was. He might come in at any moment.
    ‘Not great,’ she said quietly.
    ‘Well, probably your only option is prostitution,’ Holly joked, getting back to the discussion about money before Clare had a chance to ask her a reciprocal question about her love life.
    I’m already doing that, Clare thought. Except, instead of gening paid for it, she was buying time to allow herself to think. She didn’t know what her position with the house would be. Joss had bought it and made it what it was, but she had kept it all going for years, so surely she must have a stake in it. She wondered if it was her right to get him to leave, but even if it was, even if she could imagine herself having the courage to ask him, she was absolutely sure that he would not go. And even if he did go, she didn’t want to stay in Penderric, so what was the point. What she wanted was the house and garden miraculously transplanted to another place where nobody knew her and she could start again. The more she thought about it, the more elusive the dream of leaving seemed to become. She was going round in circles.
    She desperately wanted to talk to Holly about it, because she was sure Holly would know about the legalities, but now was not the right time.
    ‘Will you come down again soon?’ she asked her plaintively.
    ‘Well, there’s a lot going on, but I’ll try,’ Holly lied.
    Clare put down the phone. The conversation hadn’t made her feel very