Chapter 1

Hannah had been his special pet all her life. They didn't see each other all that often - living on different continents, but it was like he was always there for important things and he always wrote her and encouraged her, never missing a birthday and always sending her spot-on presents. She was a modest child but whenever she protested that Uncle George spoiled her too much, he would laugh and say "It's practically what uncles are for" and that became a catch cry. 'Uncle' was actually a misnomer. He was married to her mother's much younger cousin - an exceedingly bright and pretty girl that had been swept off her feet by the urbane European, married him after a whirl-wind romance and gone to live with him in far away Norway, making a name for herself at the local University and raising a family. So no, he wasn't really an uncle. But he had always been 'Uncle George' in her mind and she couldn't think of him in any other way.

He invited her to Europe after high school and treated her like a daughter - she was only slightly older than his oldest. She was going to spend Christmas with the family near Oslo, but to give her a feel for more of Europe, they spent the week leading up to Christmas in London shopping, sightseeing, and going to a show.

While they were there they had joked that after she had become a nurse - she had applied to study nursing - she should come and live nearby for a while. Learning Norwegian would be too difficult, but working in London would be fine - there is always a shortage of nurses and the Australian ones are popular. When Beth, her oldest second cousin, had pointed out that the shortage was partly because the salary of a newly trained nurse was too low to cover the cost of living in the British capital, she had joked that "Uncle George will just have to buy me an apartment," adding with a grin "It's practically what uncles are for." Beth shook her head - rational to a fault, but Anne, her younger sister, loved the idea and embellished on the day-dream. She and Hannah even looked up apartments on the internet and found fantastic places 'for a measly £2 million'.

It was not surprising that Hannah hit it off better with her 14 year old cousin than the older sister. Hannah could best be described as a little girl in a woman's body. Not that she was in any way lacking in her mental or emotional development, but her nature was sweet and naive in the most positive sense of the word. Her body was perfect - from her thick dark brown hair, olive green eyes and pretty freckled face down past large firm breasts, an hourglass figure, and long shapely legs, to her small, sexy ballerina feet. But she was as yet uninterested in sex - she was a virgin and her passions were more like that of an early teen than of a budding university student. George, who had never harboured sexual thoughts about her, just feasted on her beauty and enjoyed her sweet company.

Hannah went home. While not a top student, her high school grades were fine and she gained entry to the nursing school at the local university which she enjoyed very much. She saw little of Uncle George over the next couple of years. He was 'down under' once or twice on business, but she was busy with her studies and social life, so she neglected writing him. There was otherwise a lot to tell. Her studies were going very well. She had also - finally - found a serious boyfriend, entered the world of womanhood at the unusually high age of nearly 21 and gone on to share a small apartment with him. The fact is this would have pleased Uncle George to know, but somehow she felt shy telling him; and not just about the sex - that's fair enough. But in a strange way she felt she would be admitting to 'cheating' on him if she told him about having found a boyfriend. She knew it was irrational, but it kept her from writing. He still kept up letters and cards and e-mails, but they were getting rare and were missing their usual sparkle. It took her a while to discover it, but when she did, she worried. When she asked her mum if she knew why, the answer shocked her. Her aunt was ill. As in very ill. She was undergoing experimental treatment but was unlikely to pull through.

She didn't. On the same day that Hannah passed her finally exam to become a registered nurse, her aunt died in far-off Norway after 6 months of excruciating pain. And still there was a huge bunch of deep red carnations - her favourite flower, a silver necklace in a Viking design and a sweet card from George on the occasion of her graduation two weeks later. She wept. Her boyfriend, Greg, had no clue and made a stupid remark about 'making her cry on her graduation day' that hurt. In terms of him marking the day, his present had been completely uninspired; he got seriously and irritatingly drunk during the party - a BBQ in her parent's garden - and she felt a pang of regret that she had let him be her first.

That regret was intensified more and more over the next six months. She had gotten an excellent job at a major hospital continuing working in the neo-natal area that she loved. She got better and better at it. Her boyfriend on the other hand showed no inclination to finish his education and get on with life. When sober he was a bore - almost the stereotypical Aussie male to whom foreplay is a call of 'Oi, are you awake?' When intoxicated - and that was more and more frequent - he was intolerable, bordering on the abusive. He did none of the housework; so Hannah was shopping, cooking, cleaning and washing, in addition to being the breadwinner. Greg had been an occasional recreational drug user - something Hannah only discovered late and disapproved of completely. When he started using harder drugs, the most unsavoury characters were coming to their apartment at all hours and Hannah started fearing for her safety. Greg's habit undermined their already fragile finances and he tried to pressure her into stealing the drugs for him at the hospital. That was when she gave the landlord notice that she was leaving the joint rental agreement and fled home to her parents.

Her parents, with palpable relief, took her in. Her dad summoned her older brothers - all hefty fellas who could look intimidating if they tried, although it was completely contrary to their kind and easygoing nature. They drove a Ute - as the Australians call their beloved coupe utility pick-up trucks - over to the apartment and stripped it of everything that was Hannah's. "The place had a funny echo when we left," her dad said when they came back. The ex-boyfriend flew into a rage when he discovered it, drove to Hannah's parents place and tried to kick in the security door. The only thing that got him was a broken foot, a summons for attempted criminal damage and attempted breaking-and-entering, a small fine for driving an unregistered vehicle and a huge fine and demerit points on his driver's license for a DUI violation. It was not the first, so his license got cancelled.

When the police had left, a shaken and miserable Hannah got on with picking up the pieces of her life, starting with setting up her old room at her parents' place. She powered up her trusted PC and it auto-connected to the house WLAN, reinforcing her sense of belonging. Not 15 minutes later an e-mail from Uncle George popped up. It read:

My dear Hannah,

Nearly 4 years ago, when you spent Christmas with us in Norway, we joked
about you coming over to work in London once you had done your nursing
degree - provided I would buy an apartment you could live in. Well, I have!

Before Helen's last illness we actually thought she was cured, and since
we had just made a windfall from some of my company's intellectual rights,
we realised an old dream of buying something in London. As you know, we
were cruelly deceived about Helen's health so we never got to use the
apartment even once. It is still empty, in fact, and none of your cousins
are likely to need it for anything long term in the foreseeable future.

So it's yours for the taking. I will furnish and equip it for you and you
won't have to pay any rent in return for looking after it and letting us
use it occasionally.