Chapter 1

I would have had every right to be depressed, if not outright suicidal.

My beloved wife, Lynda, had died from a virulent form of cancer. Out of the blue she had collapsed from crippling stomach pains. She was rushed to hospital where scans had revealed the bad news. She never came out again and was dead within a week. And it happened just after we’d agreed the time was right to start trying for children.

Then I’d been laid off from my job because of the recession. Management were so apologetic about it that it was hard to feel any bitterness towards them, especially after they said they’d re-employ me in a heartbeat if things picked up.

Somehow, I found it within me to struggle through the dark days: Lynda would have wanted me to carry on.

On the positive side, we, now I, owned the house clear and mortgage-free. I’d received a nice life insurance payout, although I would have gratefully returned it with interest if it would have brought my Lynda back. I got the statutory redundancy payout from my former employer and was now getting unemployment benefit from the government. So for the moment I was financially comfortable, provided I didn’t splash out on anything outrageously extravagant.

I only went out when necessary: the awkwardness was too much to bear. Some people actively avoided me; others kept on saying they were sorry, as though they were somehow to blame for my misfortunes. Then there were the endless questions about how my job search was going, and even whether I’d met someone yet.

I wasn’t a complete couch potato. The garden constantly needed attention, and now I had the time to make the changes to it that I’d always wanted to. And I kept to a strict schedule with Lynda’s exercise bike. Actually it had been ‘our’ bike, but I’d rarely used it while Lynda was alive. Now, as well as helping to keep me fit, using it somehow made me feel closer to her

I’d just been to my regular interview to continue to qualify for unemployment benefit. I had to list the jobs I’d applied for and the refusals I’d received, which was all of the ones that had bothered to reply. At least the interviewers accepted that, as a skilled worker, I had the right to search for other jobs in the same field, but my industry was currently dead in the water. Luckily I hadn’t yet been unemployed long enough for them to insist I resort to applying for jobs flipping burgers.

I bought myself a newspaper and a coffee-to-go from a convenience store, then made my way to the nearby park to sit and enjoy the warm sunshine. Wanting to steer clear of people, I walked right to the far end, away from the busy areas like the children’s playground, to where the river was flowing fast and none of the public seating was occupied.

I took my pick of the uncomfortable wooden seats and opened up my newspaper while sipping my coffee. I reserved the job adverts for when I got home, turning instead to the puzzles section to test whether my brain was still working. It was hard to concentrate because the local duck population distracted me with their frequent splashing and quackfights. How could anyone be sad when such ridiculous birds were so willing to make fools of themselves by swimming with their heads underwater and their bums in the air!

I noticed movement in my peripheral vision and turned to see a girl ambling towards me along a footpath that would take her between my seat and the river. I guessed her age to be mid-teens, and wondered what she was doing out of school at that time of day.

As she drew closer, more details became apparent. She was wearing a loose-fitting white and yellow sun dress that buttoned up the front, and when the light caught it right it became semi-translucent, revealing a very respectable figure underneath. She had an appealing freckle-sprinkled face, framed by a mass of golden hair tumbling from under her white Panama sun hat.