Six weeks later, the first week in May, I picked up the keys to my Dream House. With pounding heart I spent an afternoon stepping through the stillness of unlived-in rooms with Steph, as we planned and pictured where my current possessions and the items I still needed to buy would go. I’d learnt how to use a sewing machine before I could read, and had already picked out the material to run up curtains and cushions. The previous owners had left behind the furniture they’d purchased before the big win, so I had a red checked sofa and end tables in the living room, and a kitchen table repurposed from an old barn door, along with matching chairs. Upstairs, there were plenty of fitted storage units, but the sagging double bed in the main room would have to be replaced.
Steph had brought a bottle of fizz and two plastic wine glasses, and she insisted we sat in the kitchen and raised a toast to hopes and dreams for the future.
‘Don’t worry about driving home, it’s non-alcoholic,’ she said, pouring me a second glass.
‘Of course.’ Given her parents’ car-crash relationship with alcohol, Steph had never drunk.
As soon as we’d taken the first sip, Steph got out her laptop. ‘Right, now that this is officially happening, it’s time to get some ground rules in place.’
‘What?’ The steely look in her eye made me wish that the bubbles contained some alcohol after all.
‘I know you, Ollie Tennyson, and I also know how tough it is to break habits formed at an impressionable age.’ Steph was a social worker in children’s services, acting as protector and advocate for children whose parents were either unwilling or unable to do so. She was amazing at her job, but it was somewhat irritating when she started applying the significant psychological expertise amassed over the years to me. ‘You’ve spent twenty-nine years trying to please your mum at the expense of your own wants, needs or opinions. We need to make sure that you don’t prise yourself off her only to reattach to the next available person looking for someone to dominate.’
‘You make me sound like a limpet or something.’
‘You said it, not me. Anyway, my point is this. Until the Dream List is complete, you need a No-Man Mandate.’
‘A what?’
‘You need this time to focus on you, for once. Like I said, to give yourself time and space to practise becoming your own woman, so that by the time the list is complete you can start dating knowing what kind of life you want, and what kind of woman you are, so that you don’t readapt yourself to what someone else happens to want.’
I thought about what Steph said. It was true that the thought of living day to day on my own, with no one to please but myself, felt like yanking out the tether to Planet Earth, leaving me floating off into an unknown universe. The temptation to find someone else to help me decide on what to do and how to do it was at times overwhelming. After some more discussion, Steph typed up a copy of the No-Man Mandate:
I, Olivia Anne Tennyson, hereby swear to adhere to this No-Man Mandate until the Dream List, as currently stated in my journal, is completed in its entirety, without exception. The No-Man Mandate states that:
I shall not date or accept an offer of a date, even if said date is to be delayed until the completion of the Dream List.
I shall not kiss, hug, hold hands or have any physical contact with a man that is not wholly platonic.
I shall not sign up to any dating apps, websites or other means of acquiring a date.
I shall remain completely single in every conceivable sense of the word.
If at any point I am in doubt as to whether an action is in breach of this mandate, I will consult with Stephanie Prince, and in all instances accept her decision as final.
Before I knew it, the No-Man Mandate was signed, dated and saved on her personal cloud so I couldn’t edit it later.
It was a good job that Prosecco was fake. My head was swirling enough thanks to the combination of excitement and panic-induced terror. This was my house, but unless I somehow found the strength to face what I had to do next, it would never become my home.
To force me into action, prompted by many a challenging comment from Steph, I had agreed with Karina that this evening we would execute the next stage in the plan. I was expecting fireworks, tantrums, and quite possibly a trip to A & E.
‘Come on,’ Steph said, once we’d rinsed out the glasses. ‘Let’s walk off that stress before we go.’
‘I don’t think it’s humanly possible to walk that far.’
‘Nonsense. It’ll be impossible not to feel better once you’ve soaked up some nature.’
We crossed the lawn and let ourselves into the forest through the back gate. The May sunshine was warm and hazy, the leaves above our heads dappling the dirt footpath as we wound our way through the trees. I sucked in a few lungfuls of air, tangy with earth, pine and hawthorn blossom, and had to admit that Steph was right. Here, in the quiet of the forest, my fraught muscles began to unwind as my thoughts settled.
Apart from a squirrel, and a couple of tiny, roly-poly brown birds, we didn’t spot another living creature, until suddenly, turning past a particularly large tree trunk, we found ourselves at the edge of a clearing carpeted with bluebells.
‘I can’t believe that this is basically your new back gard—’ Steph stopped, mid-word, and turned to me, eyes round and jaw hanging open. In the split second before I had a chance to respond, the surprise morphed into a wicked glint, causing my own eyes to widen in alarm as I mouthed, ‘Don’t you dare!’
She shrugged, pressing one hand to her chest with a puzzled, who me? expression that made me want to scuttle back behind the tree. Especially when I grabbed her arm and turned to go, and instead of moving with me she took a big step into the open.
‘Helloooo!’ she called out as my stomach plummeted into the dirt.
The man on the other side of the clearing lowered the chainsaw in his hand and turned to see who’d yelled like a teenager trying to get a selfie with her favourite boyband. His broad chest was bare, faded jeans riding low on his hips. When I tried to swallow, it appeared as though every drop of moisture in my mouth had evaporated along with Steph’s sense of shame.
The man placed the chainsaw on the ground and quickly shrugged into a checked shirt, which only made me feel even more embarrassed. He had the type of physique earnt through a lifestyle of hard work, rather than pumping away in a gym, and the way the shirt hung slightly open to reveal the tiniest smattering of hair on a solid chest seemed almost worse than when he’d been half naked.