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Amanda held the keys to her new house.  Opening the freshly painted door she experienced none of the expected anticipation, instead she felt a continuing sense of loss.  Closing the door and picking up the ringing phone.  “Have they arrived yet, pet?” Her mother was trying her best to sound upbeat. “The van left here a while back; I’ve a flask of tea and I’m coming on over with Elvis.”  For ten months Amanda and her cat had been staying with her parents.  Today was the day she had to start to move on.

“No, not yet Mum; I’d leave it a bit before coming.” With no sign of the removal van, Amanda walked around the empty rooms; she had to start and think of this as home.

She had shared her last home with William, loving him unreservedly, trusting him whilst he was quietly destroying her life.  Ruth was teaching at the same school as William.  Amanda was not suspicious of their affair until William, ashen faced, came to tell her that he was in love with someone else.   So, the wedding was off and their house, her home, was to be sold. 

The daze that followed seemed to last for days. Eventually Amanda’s mother had to take over and arrange for the removal of all she felt was her daughter’s from the house. Whilst persuading Elvis, the old, grey cat, to climb in a box and to also come with her for a while. 

Nearly eighteen months later, waiting for the removers to arrive Amanda stepped out of her kitchen only to be struck by the dullness of the garden.  It was early March and the ground looked black and leaves lay dead where they had fallen.   The garden was long and thin with little to lift her spirits. Along one side there was an old, wooden fence; facing this was an old red-brick wall.  Halfway along this wall there was an ugly patch of irregular concrete blocks which ripped though the neat lines of brick; crudely patched with rough cement the result was ugly and disfiguring.  Amanda shrugged as she admired the hideous blight to the wall’s line, how well it reflected the shattering scar in her previously happy life.