She opened the Screwfix app again. Scrolled past the machete listing— 64 reviews, 4.7 stars —and added a pair of thorn-proof gauntlets and a head torch.
She raised the blade.
She drove to the bramble-choked lane behind her rented cottage. The ivy had swallowed the fence. The blackberry canes had reached out like claws across the path to the shed where the fuse box kept tripping. A tree surgeon had quoted £400. She had £47.
It felt absurd. A contradiction. A machete from a place that sold tap washers and trade packs of caulk. But the results loaded with cold, logistical certainty. machete knife screwfix
She clicked ‘reserve for collection’ before she could talk herself out of it.
She stopped. The shed door was visible now, grey and listing but there.
Tomorrow, the laurel hedge.
Jenna stepped out of the car, the machete in her right hand. It felt heavy in a way gym weights never did. Heavy with potential. Heavy with the knowledge that she could, if she swung it wrong, remove her own shin.
Thwack.
“Order for Jenna,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. She opened the Screwfix app again
Back in her car, she tore the sleeve open.
She thought of the other things she could order from Screwfix: a drain rod, a sledgehammer, a respirator. Tools for the living. Not for fighting, but for clearing. For carving a way through the mess that had grown up around her since Mark left.