Although the Gaffney house held several interested buyers, it was the townhouse which had attracted renters if not buyers. Young, quick whip teens with their fingers on the pulse and their text machines, Claire offered it up and accepted the paltry sum of rent each week, moving into an apartment block decorated in muted shades, halo spun lamps and modernist kitchen, but lacking all fibre as she felt, no soul and no heart and no vigor to go on pumping the blood round the attic of her mind, skeletons dropping only to hang over the edge as if by an invisible hook round their ankles, taunting her with red eyes with what they knew. What she told herself not to think about. She shivered and wrapped more tightly her robe about her, blowing on her coffee to cool it down, the venetian blinds hiding the shape glare of busy traffic, while all she could think about was lying down and letting it all go to waste, under Garret's inept and clumsy leadership.
It wasn't all a luxury, you know. She still had to dress and prepare for Steve's funeral, attended by his close friends and family, no spotlight or cameras to capture the event.
Selfishly, she thought that she would spend more time in the limelight as she got older, and her goals with Francis came to fruition. Sadly, she was no longer seen nor significant, only a politician's widow, a businesswoman with a charity, with no home life whatsoever.
She felt she had come too far, with not enough time left , to spend any real time on the growth within .