The Barn on Half Moon Hill by Milly Johnson

mean. Gaynor’s struggling and anger is her way of dealing with it. Even if it wouldn’t be yours or my way of doing
things.’
    All of them wished for her sake that Gaynor could move on, and they knew she wouldn’t do that until she stopped denying her Mick the divorce he wanted. She was being as awkward as she knew
how, not responding to his solicitor’s letters and making her presence felt in any way she could as punishment for leaving her for a girl over thirty years younger than she was.
And a
Bellfield at that
. There were some rough renowned families in the town: the O’Gowans, the Clamps, the Crookes; but the Bellfields were considered the worst. Young Danira Bellfield (or de
Niro as Gaynor so scathingly called her) was as different from Gaynor as she could be, which wasn’t very flattering to Gaynor, and gave a gigantic clue to why Mick had left his wife two weeks
after their Pearl Wedding Anniversary. Danira was plump and loud, peroxide-blonde and wanton. But Gaynor, for all her Hyacinth Bouquet pretensions, was a good woman who’d worked hard to make
a comfortable home for her family, only to be rewarded with a duplicitous husband and a self-obsessed daughter.
    There was the sound of a flush in the background, so Linda quickly switched the subject to the neighbours.
    â€˜Annie and Joe next door are renewing their marriage vows in Jamaica next month.’
    â€˜I bet he was doing the dirty on her,’ sniffed Gaynor as she walked back in and immediately joined in the conversation. ‘Couples who renew their vows usually have that story to
tell.’
    â€˜Actually, you’re wrong because—’ began Linda, but Gaynor cut her off.
    â€˜You mark my words, they won’t just be doing it because they’re still so much in
lurrrve
.’ Gaynor loaded the word with all the sarcasm it could carry.
‘It’ll come out eventually. He’ll have been dipping his wick where he shouldn’t have been. He was always too good-looking for her,’ she huffed derisively.
    That couldn’t be said of her own marriage. Mick Pollock was a smart, handsome man but Gaynor more than matched him for looks. She had the same dark colouring, wide mouth and big brown eyes
as Sophia Loren. In fact that was the first line Mick had ever said to her:
Excuse me, could I have your autograph, Miss Loren?
Corny, but it worked on her. She had always taken care over
her appearance, maybe too much so. Maybe she had been too polished for Mick’s tastes, if the slobby Danira was anything to go by. The past year was telling on Gaynor though. Her mouth was set
in a downward arc and she radiated waves of resentment. If she had been born a cobra, her hood would have been permanently expanded.
    â€˜A fucking Bellfield!’ exclaimed Gaynor, sliding into dark, slimy waters in her head. ‘Lowest of the low. And what does she see in him? He’s thirty years older than her
for a start. When we got married, she wasn’t even born.’ She shuddered as if that somehow made him a paedophile. ‘It won’t be anything to do with his bank balance, will it?
Anyway, he can whistle for his divorce. I burned the last set of papers in our firepit and I’ll do the same with the next lot. Bastard. I’ll make it as hard as possible for him to get
me out of his life.’
    The room crackled with Gaynor’s electric bitterness. The only sound was Iris’s cup hitting the saucer. Then Caro’s soft, smoky voice broke through the silence.
    â€˜Do you think maybe, for your own sake, you should let him go, Gaynor love?’
    Gaynor’s lips narrowed until they were almost invisible.
    â€˜You are joking?’
    Caro prepared to back up her words with more of the same. ‘No, I’m not. Look around you, Gaynor. You’re in a room full of people who care for you. You’re young enough to
start a new life, find a new man. All this