But I had finally run out of excuses. It was time to clear the last vestiges of my presence from Richard’s flat. Monique clearly applauded this decision, providing me with an extended lunch break and an enormous cardboard box to transport my belongings out of Richard’s life. ‘It is time you close the door on this chapter of your life, Emma,’ she advised with charmingly mixed metaphors. ‘I know. But every time I try, Richard just keeps jamming it open with his foot.’ ‘Then you must stamp on it,’ she suggested, tempering the words with a disingenuous smile, ‘then it will close.’ I did the familiar drive to Richard’s flat on autopilot, wondering as I turned into the residents’ car park if this was the last time I would ever visit this place. Probably. I pulled into Richard’s empty parking bay and hefted the cardboard box out from the back seat. Working on muscle memory my fingers automatically punched in the code on the keypad at the entrance. The block was quiet; the residents were mainly young professionals who were most likely at work at this time of day.
