A Spring Affair by Milly Johnson

as the hymn. There were still one or two snowdrops lingering in the flower borders, but purple crocuses and daffodils with their trumpets as orange as fresh egg-yolks had pushed through for their turn in the limelight. ‘And good morning to you, Clooney.’
    Clooney started play-biting Lou’s hand, until Tom shouted at him to stop.
    ‘He’s not hurting me,’ said Lou, getting a dog biscuit out of her pocket.
    ‘You’re spoiling him,’ said Tom. ‘He’ll not want to come home.’
    ‘I’d have him in a shot,’ said Lou.
    Tom coughed. ‘I was just wondering if you’d like to go…’ He was talking at the same time as Lou added, ‘But my husband is allergic to pet hair. Oh, I’m sorry, you were saying?’
    ‘No, it’s fine,’ said Tom quickly, whilst giving the back of his neck a hard rub and muttering to himself: ‘Oh well, that’s that then. What a shame.’
    ‘Oh, don’t feel too sorry for him–he doesn’t like dogs anyway. It hasn’t exactly affected the quality of his life, not having a pet.’
    Tom looked confused by what she had just said, but before Lou could retrack on the conversation, Clooney barked and distracted them. He’d found a rubber ball under the hedge.
    ‘Drop it. It’s not yours!’ said Tom.
    ‘It isn’t anyone’s. I don’t know where it’s come from,’ said Lou, and held out her hand for Clooney to bring it to her. She played fetch with him on the lawn whilst Tom lowered the skip off his wagon.
    ‘You’re keen, I’ll give you that,’ said Tom, looking at the bags of rubbish piled by the wheelie-bin awaiting his arrival. ‘Maybe you should have got one of the bigger-size skips.’
    ‘The mini-skip will be fine. I can’t have that much more stuff,’ said Lou. ‘I’ll have filled this today so you could pick it up tomorrow if you can. Do you know,’ she went on, ‘I would never have imagined that clearing out a few old carpets and stuff could make me feel so…’ She hunted for the word but couldn’t find it, so gestured joy with enthusiastic hands instead.
    ‘You’re not the first to tell me that,’ said Tom, nodding with understanding. ‘Some say it’s better than therapy. I might change my name to “Tom Broom, Waste Therapist” and charge double. Not that any price increase would matter too much to someone who prints her own money.’
    Lou smiled a smile that mirrored his.
    ‘I bet that was a nice little cracket in its time,’ Tom commented, pointing to the small crude rectangular stool there amongst the pile of stuff which was covered with the palest coat of sparkly frost. ‘A really handy piece to have around.’
    ‘It was, and just the right size for sitting on or standing on to reach things, as I invariably have to,’ said Lou with a little tut. ‘I must confess I still feel a bit guilty throwing it away, but it’s so battered now.’
    ‘It still looks pretty solid to me, despite the knocks. It must feel like you are giving up an old friend,’ said Tom, reaching for the stool and brushing at it with the heel of his hand. ‘It’s harder than it looks sometimes to let things go, even if they are old and useless. Thingsgather emotions to them so that people often feel they are throwing so much more away than an old vase that their granny gave them.’ He smiled and Lou gulped. This big man standing in front of her in his overalls sounded almost as if he was reciting poetry. ‘It’s amazing how attached some people can get to old rubbish, but they’ve lived with it for so long it’s become the norm. And throwing it away is too scary and doesn’t feature as an option.’
    A picture of Maureen drifted into her mind and Lou nodded.
    ‘That’s very true, Tom.’
    His head gave a little jerk when she said his name. She hoped she wasn’t being too presumptuous. Lou liked to use people’s names where she could, and calling him ‘Mr Broom’ sounded stupid. As if he was her headmaster or something.
    ‘Be careful you don’t overdo