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a sense of accomplishment.
    Next she tipped out the odds and sods drawer, suspecting she might be putting very little of it back. A broken mirror, five combs (none of which had a complete set of teeth), some grubby Sellotape, cheap pencils that had needed sharpening for about four years, a yellowing pattern for a cricket jumper she would never knit, an incomplete set of playing cards, sixteen CDs and DVDs given away as freebies with various newspapers, cracker novelty prizes from last Christmas…Into the bin went everything but the scissors and a pair of tweezers that she thought she’d lost months ago. She collected all the loose paperclips into an empty matchbox that she also found in the drawer and took them to the desk in the small study next door.
    Clear and redeploy as you go , the article dictated. And the newest disciple to the religion of clutter-clearing obeyed.
    Next she tackled the cloth drawer, throwing out all the old vest bits and tatty floorcloths because she had just found three new packets of J-cloths that had been hidden under everything. She had just got on her knees for the under-sink cupboard, when the doorbell rang.
    She hoped it wasn’t Michelle, then felt immediately mean and treacherous. She had really started to enjoy herself and just for once didn’t want to talk over and over about what a man really means when he tells you to piss off because you’re a bunny-boiling bitch. Then again, it could have been the postman. She stole over to thewindow and sneaked a look. It was a lot worse than Michelle and her mother combined. It was Mr Halloween himself–her brother-in-law, Des.
    ‘Oh knickers,’ Lou said, and quickly stepped back against the wall, confident that she hadn’t been seen.
    Luckily for Lou, there was no detectable sign that she was in–no TV or radio on, and her car was safely hidden away in the garage so, to all intents and purposes, she didn’t look at home. She waited in the silence until she was pretty sure he must have gone–then, to her anger and amazement, she heard the key in the lock, the door opening and footsteps in the hall. She really would kill Phil when he got home. He’d obviously done what she told him never to do again, and lent Des his key There was nothing for it now, no place to hide. And even worse, she’d got the old white T-shirt on that made her boobs look massive.
    Lou braced herself, burst into the hallway and, hands going to her chest, feigned a big shock to try and get the point across that this really wasn’t on, without actually daring to spell it out directly. Lou was just too soft for confrontations these days.
    ‘Oh Des, it’s you. What are you doing? You scared the life out of me.’
    ‘I knocked,’ said her brother-in-law in his nasal monotone drawl, thumbing back to the door, ‘but I didn’t think you were in. I called in to see Phil at the garage. He lent me a key in case you had gone out shopping.’
    ‘Oh, right then,’ said Lou, who really wanted to say other things that weren’t so polite. ‘So, what is it that you wanted?’ she urged after waiting in vain for Des to explain. He had no gene that allowed him to feel awkward in longsilences but a big one that gave him the ability to make Lou’s flesh creep.
    ‘I just came to borrow Phil’s golf clubs.’
    ‘Ok,’ said Lou. ‘Did he say where they were?’
    ‘No,’ said Des helpfully. Not.
    Lou took the quick option and rang Phil’s mobile, only to get the message that his mobile had not responded and could she please try later.
    Oh, how Lou wished she were one of those people who didn’t feel obliged to be so polite and could just usher him out to come back when Phil was in. She was forced to go from room to room with Des following behind her in that way of his that had no respect for personal space. Phil said he was just stupidly insensitive, but Lou sometimes wondered if he got kicks from being such an unsettling presence.
    Des Winter-Brown arriving at your door