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struggling to master and a work environment that was not particularly nurturing. I would return to my shack at night, close the door against the winter cold and think about how much I missed my family.
    I became very distressed by the number of people being summarily dismissed at work and was convinced I was on the chopping block, so I worked even harder. Selling a service, as it turns out, is really difficult. Having to cold-call companies that have no desire to speak to you can be soul-destroying. I was way outside my comfort zone. Sales, I have since come to understand, is not a great profession for someone who has issues with rejection. I nevertheless stuck it out at the recruitment company for almost three years. Those of us who survived – and I use that word deliberately – developed a kind of ‘in the trenches’ mentality, but none of us left there without scars.
    I remember going to someone’s leaving lunch and feeling so anxious I couldn’t sit through the meal. A friend who knew me well suggested I go see a doctor, who promptly informed me the three most common triggers for stress and anxiety are money worries, men trouble and job insecurity. I had hit the trifecta.
    Meanwhile out at Belgrave, I had embarked upon a pet-accumulation spree in an effort to introduce some companions into my life. And so the household grew with the acquisition of Gordon the Brittany spaniel, Lola the springer spaniel and two cats, William and Henry. Their ranks were soon bolstered by the arrival of a goat called Gilbert and a sheep called Rodney. They all did their darnedest to keep me company, but I was still too young to become a confirmed cat spinster, so I took in a lodger to help with rent and provide a bit of human company. Markwas the brother of one of my neighbours, a really nice bloke who liked to keep to himself. We became good friends.
    It was around this time that Greg started making impromptu house calls. Since the time he’d hurt me, I had never allowed things between us to escalate beyond a vague friendship. He had gotten the sack months earlier, because he was consistently missing sales targets, though, if you asked him, he was the greatest salesman in the world and solely responsible for landing the biggest deal in the company. He was deluded like that.
    The house calls started on weekends. He would appear unannounced and offer to help out in the yard – taking to the undergrowth with the whipper-snipper, moving logs, you name it. I was wary but happy to see a familiar face. And being on my own with a vast yard and expanding menagerie to manage, I was grateful for the extra set of helping hands. On the odd Saturday night, Greg would stay over, always sleeping in the spare room. He would often joke to Mark and me what a perfect couple we made, and loudly predict that we would end up together. It was all very jocular, and to my mind, at least, spoke to the possibility of Greg and I having a perfectly normal platonic friendship. I think he genuinely liked me but, in retrospect, part of his attraction to me lay in the fact that he saw me as vulnerable and easy to manipulate.
    One evening I got a phone call from Greg saying he had to move out of his house and could he stay with me. I felt sorry for him and was so lonely, I said yes. And so, for what would be the first of many times, Greg moved in.
    Greg had an arrogance about him that I found offensive. He took a keen interest in alternative medicine and there were always pots of Chinese herbs bubbling away on the stove, stinking the house out. I started to notice the books he was reading – most of them about Eastern philosophy and religion. I’m not sure that heever read a complete book. He would read a chapter here and a chapter there and cherry-pick from each of them the bits he liked the sound of.
    That first time he stayed at my place for about ten months. As time went by, we found ourselves in a sort of relationship. He was quite