Meg's Casebook

Lauren fixed the neatly-written label on the last packing case and smiled. Her family had said her desire to build a dream home was mad. But she’d done it, she was moving in. A cash-aware, practical Taurus, Lauren knew it was the only way to get a luxury home.

At first Jimmy, a Taurus like her, had resisted. But she made him see sense as she called it. He agreed to demolish the small house with the large garden that his aunt left him to rebuild it as Lauren’s mansion.

She took nightclasses in plumbing and electrics, supervised Jimmy in the heavier building work. Decorated it as style magazines decreed. She thought of nothing else, sometimes it seemed to her like a living thing that soaked up everything she had, energy, hopes, even love.

She smiled, planning their first night in the new house. Love would be back on the agenda. Besides, she rather liked the way that she had refurbished him, sending him to an upmarket hairdressers, buying new suits.