The builder's skip arrived on Friday and the boys together removed all of the carpets. Bill and David painted a room, the allocated person stripped the floors and then the room was varnished. From Fiona's room, they could hear loud buzzing and a lot of swearing over the constant replaying of Human League's Dare album.

They would all stop for allocated breaks of tea, cake and sandwiches provided by Jilly and by Saturday Night all rooms were completed. Fiona brought down the roman blinds and cushions she had made from the material she found in Jilly's flat. Whilst the inside of the house was being transformed, Jilly's friends from the Physic Garden took on the task of turning the back garden into something that was fit for human habitation.

When everything was completed, Fiona called the boys and Jilly's friends outside for a BBQ and with beers she had organised with Jon the barman at the Hospital Bar. They invited Jilly in to look at the house and she burst into tears.

"It looks just like it did when I was a girl, I grew up in this house my father left it to me in his will. Thank you darlings!" she air kissed them all and went to her wine cellar.

"Has she gone to the cellar?" asked Dan excitedly.

"Think she might." nodded Richard a grin spreading across his face.

"Oh Fiona, you wait, she has seriously powerful French wine. We will all be twatted by 10. Now get out of the way woman, I want a turn on the flames." Dan fought off the rest of the boys each of them vying for the tongs. Jilly came out from her flat with several dusty bottles of wine and set them out on her table.

"What is it with men and BBQ's, they can't wait to cook? Any other time, unless they are gay or trying to impress you, they run in the opposite direction of a kitchen?" Fiona asked.

"Fiona darling it's the cavemen in them, look they see fire and they are fascinated." Jilly poured them both a huge glass of red wine from a very expensive looking bottle.

"True Jilly, true." they chinked their glasses of red wine together in acknowledgement.

"It's lovely having another girl in the house you know, I sometimes have soirees with my friends and I think you would love them," she blew the most elegant smoke ring into the sky, "you know, that poor Yank can't take his eyes off of you."

They both stared towards David, who at that point was staring at Fiona when he saw them both look to catch him he immediately dropped his gaze.

"He is not used to the idea of a woman who has a brain and an opinion. I am as curious to him as if an alien has landed, it will wear off Jilly." Fiona hoped it would. She found herself having a few glances in David's direction and the more she gazed the better he looked.

"As long as you are sure poppet, anyway changing subjects, how is your new job?" Jilly saw right through Fiona. She knew there was a spark.

"It's great really, the senior midwife is lovely, women are a little posh, to be fair babies all come out the same no matter where you are from.." Fiona loved her new job. She had settled much quicker than she thought.

"Glad I never did any of that!" shuddered Jilly, "Please don't be graphic darling, I will have nightmares thinking about it. Does Pat O'Rourke still work there?"

"Professor O'Rourke? You know him?" He had terrified everyone apart from her on the ward round the previous day. Fiona had answered all of the professor's questions and asked a few of him. At the end of the round, he asked for Fiona to take his patients every day.

"He was a lowly houseman when I knew him, dynamite in the sack, kinky as hell!" Jilly nodded.

"I will never look at him the same again on the ward round Jilly!" Fiona was not going to shift that mental picture anytime soon.

"Nice colleagues?"! Jilly asked. What she meant was anyone you have your eye on.

"Yes cannon fodder for this lot Jilly, I am resolved that the ones I don't like I will let them near the boys, so that they can be willing victims." That was the truth. She didn't like to mix business and pleasure.

The house phone rang and went to answer machine.

"That's the eleventh call today for the lads Jilly, I thought I was fucked up, until I got a window into the world of crazy that is single women in London." she laughed, "Come over and listen."

Jilly and Fiona sat on the outside step whilst the tape played back the messages.

"Dan it's Sally from new accounts at Neimans, let's hook up again, perhaps next time it won't be in the Ladies ciao."

"Dr DAVE! Its Suzie from the 999 night, wow you are a big boy and as you said I am a big girl, call and we can do it again."

"Emms it's the librarian from work give in you know you want to!"

Jilly and Fiona rocked with laughter listening to each message more bizarre than the last one.

"Darling, have you ever left such a message? I mean men like to do the chasing, faint heart never won a fair lady."

"They aint no ladies Jilly!" Fiona pointed to the machine then suddenly Fiona's blood ran cold as she heard a familiar female voice. She held her breath as she heard the message play through.

"Paul, I just saw the wee wife's car leave ten minutes ago pick......" Somehow, the cassette  had held on to a message. One that Fiona was never meant to hear. It was horsey twatface Gillian.

Fiona paled, turned around and promptly threw up on the grass. The woman's voice was like a punch in the guts.

"Darling is that the reason you are here?" Jilly held Fiona's hair until she had finished throwing up.

"Her name is Gillian and she was a friend of Paul's family my ex," she began, "in fact if his family had a choice, Gillian would have been number one candidate for bride to be." She sniffed "I hated Gillian and her perfect hair and teeth and figure and manners, she can go and fuck herself horse faced bitch." Fiona took a deep breath. "It would seem that it wasn't once that they slept together like Paul said, my gut was right, they were clearly going at it for a while."

Fiona pulled herself together and began to apologise to Jilly when after the next beep she heard an even worse voice. It was Paul pleading with Fiona to answer the phone, "..Please Fiona, please speak to me, I can't fix it if you don't talk to me. I..you...what you saw, it was just ...let's meet..."

The rage erupted within Fiona, she sprinted from the garden to the hall and she grabbed the tape out of the machine. She bounded the stairs to the fourth floor and came down armed with a box. She took each item out of the box and threw them into the BBQ along with the offending tape.

She instantly regretted launching the perfume like a hand grenade, as indeed it had the same effect when it ignited. The boys and Jilly's friends ran for cover with the flames from the barbecue shooting up  twenty feet in the air.

"Well the chicken is fucked." howled Jilly, "Glad you got that out of your system love? He sounded like a total prick!"

"I am so sorry Jilly. Lads, I think I might have been bottling up my rage for the last month or so. That was the last of the things he bought me that I Napalmed. His voice, her voice, too much...." She began to sob "I am so embarrassed."

"More or less embarrassed than when David saw your fanny?" asked Dan putting his arm around her in an attempt to console her.

"Less." she snorted through tears, Jilly gave her a handkerchief and she blew into it loudly.

"Good." he laughed "Because we all want the opportunity of seeing your fanny so cheer up you mad sod."

"She is the Ginger Ninja!" shouted Richard extricating himself from a tree he had hidden in.

"Sorry gorg but now that's your nickname Ninj – it will stick!" laughed Dan.

"Oh that is totally shite." Fiona sniffed, "I hope you all have shite nicknames. What's everyone else's?" she looked round at the boys.

"Dan is deadly, Emlyn is Emms, Richard is Dick, Bill is Buff and David is Boston."
"What about Jilly?" she enquired

United they all shouted "Jilly the Filly!"

"Deadly, Dick, Buff, Emms, Boston, Filly and Ninj sounds like the worst 60s band ever." she laughed through her snivels.

"Oh I think I have some cracking brandy from the 60s to toast that, did I tell you when I went on tour with Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beeky, Titch and Mick," shouted Jilly, swaying on her way to the cellar. "Good times, good times."

They all sat around the BBQ chatting, drinking Jilly's brandy until the wee hours. Fiona left them all around the fire and crept up to her room. She hadn't thought or cried about Paul for over a month now, which seemed a nigh on impossible task in April. Hearing his voice was like an old wound re opening. She was desperate to talk to him, be with him, lie in his arms, talk about the future, get married and have those babies they both dreamt of. She fought the need to call him. Instead she quietly placed Kate Bush's The Red Shoes on her CD player and cried herself to sleep.

Richard and Dan stood outside her door listening to her sobs, quietly discussing should they go in and talk to her when David swayed upstairs with one of the neighbours from down the street.

"Guys meet ehm.." David stammered desperately trying to recall the name of the short haired woman he was with, squinting hard at the effort of remembering her name.

"Shannon." the thin, short woman answered extended her hand to them both, "Which one is yours big lad?" she asked in her thick Irish accent, motioning between the two rooms on the landing.

"That one." he pointed to his room door, he looked at Richard and Dan quizzically, "Go in and take all of your clothes off, get started and I will be there in a minute." he patted her on the bottom. He turned to Richard and Dan. "What's up guys? Why are you on my landing?"

"She has been crying in there for half an hour, should we do something?" asked Dan.

"Do what guys? She is heartbroken, we have all been there, no cure but time." David shrugged his shoulders, "I don't think she is suicidal, I don't think she is going to do anything stupid and I am sure sobbing to Kate Bush is good enough cure for anything." David smiled at them both, "Maybe we should just make sure no other idiot will get to her until she is ready, I am including us all in that," with that he walked towards his door, "however I have someone who is aching for little David, so if you don't mind ..."

David, Richard and Dan all left the hallway and wished her a speedy recovery of her broken heart, the strains of "You're The One" and Kate singing "You're the only one I want" sending them all on their way to their rooms. All of them recalling the time when they felt the same as Fiona.
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Authors note

Have you ever been so heart broken?

What did you do to get over it?