went up to the attic. Work called. She was over-run, too much to do, too little time. In the last year her secret business as a web designer had gone from nothing to an astonishing success. She worked from the moment Rob left the house to the moment he returned—well, a few moments before, if she could manage it, so she could slip into something elegant and create a little havoc in the kitchen so he’d think she’d been cooking all afternoon. It was amazing how many things she could produce now in less than half an hour.
She had no time to herself any longer, no time at all. Her friends had all but given up on her, because she kept fobbing them off with excuses, and one by one they’d drifted away. That was fine. She didn’t need time for anything except this, the challenge she’d created for herself. The other challenge, the one she kept failing to meet, was harder because it was out of her control. Out of Rob’s, too, and for the first time in his life he’d discovered something that money couldn’t buy.
Well, it could, in a way. It could pay for expensive testing in private clinics, and IVF and other treatments till the cows came home, but in the end it might still be the same answer.
And anyway, as busy as she was, perhaps it was just as well. She wasn’t sure how a baby would fit in, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted one.
She stopped, her fingers coming to rest with a bump on the keys of the computer. A line of Xs appeared in front of her, and she lifted her hands and dropped them in her lap, stunned.
She didn’t want a baby? Good grief. What a realisation. She thought about it, analysing the random thought that had dropped into her head as if from nowhere, and realised it was true. She didn’t—not now, and maybe not ever. Not yet, at least. Not like this, with all the hassle of taking her temperature and phoning him at the office and having him drive home—he’d even flown back from Paris one time, to make love to her—make love? Huh, that was a joke.
They hadn’t made real love in ages. More than a year. It had to be the right time, the right position—the right angle, for heaven’s sake!—to maximise her chances of conceiving.
Well, she couldn’t do it any more, and she wouldn’t. Another realisation dawned. Not only did she not want a baby, she didn’t want Rob’s baby. She didn’t want to be that tied to him, not now, when their marriage seemed to be a thing of habit rather than the joy it had been at first.
When had the gloss gone off? This year? Last?
When she’d failed to get pregnant immediately, she realised. A chill seemed to have crept in, a disappointment in each other, a sense of failure and perhaps reality. Their golden world had come to an end, and maybe there was nothing structural underneath to support them now.
She needed to think. Needed space and time to consider their relationship and their future—if they had such a thing. And she couldn’t do that here.
Reaching for the keyboard again, she scrubbed what she’d been doing for the past few minutes, found a property website and clicked on Scotland. She loved Scotland. She’d always loved it, ever since her childhood. Maybe she could think up there. Two estate agents came up. She chose the one in Inverness. It was further away than Edinburgh.
She jotted the phone number down on a Post-it note, then dialled with shaking fingers.
‘I’m in a hurry to move to Scotland,’ she told them. ‘I don’t need a mortgage—just somewhere small for me and the dog, with a home office if possible. Remote, if you can, and as cheap as possible but civilised. It must have heating and plumbing, though, and it needs a phone line.’
‘Do you want to buy or rent?’ the young lady asked. ‘Only we’ve got a property that’s just come on the books which sounds ideal, but they want to rent it just for a few months until they decide what to do.’
‘Furnished or unfurnished?’ Laurie asked, suddenly thinking of all the things she’d have to buy to equip a new home, and wondering if she was quite mad.
‘Oh, furnished,’ the agent told her. ‘It’s fully equipped and really lovely—two bedrooms, although at the moment you’d only have the use of one because they’ve put a lot of personal stuff in the second, but there’s a room over the garage you could use as an office. They’ve gone to France and won’t be back unless things don’t work out, but it won’t be very expensive even if they do sell it, not that far north. The only thing is, there’s no guarantee it’ll come up for sale.’
‘That’s no problem. It would help me now, at least. How far north?’ she asked, her curiosity aroused.
‘About an hour from here—near where Madonna was married. Near Tain, on the Dornock Firth. It’s got wonderful distant sea and mountain views, if you don’t mind the isolation.’
Mind? Just then she’d die for it. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said instantly. ‘When could I move?’ Excitement was fizzing in her like champagne, the bubbles forming on the walls of her veins and tingling through them, bringing her to life.
‘You haven’t even seen the details!’ the lady exclaimed, but Laurie had heard enough.
‘What’s it called?’ she asked.
‘Little Gluich.’ She spelt it, and Laurie wrote it on the Post-it note next to the agent’s number and stuck it on the wall over her desk.
‘Can you fax me all the details?’ she asked then, and within two hours it was set up, and she’d arranged to call in for the keys in two days’ time.
All she had to do now was get there …
The house was empty.
Odd, how he knew that the moment he set foot over the threshold. The dog was missing, of course. That was a bit of a giveaway.
She must be walking him. At four-thirty, just barely into February? It was dark, or it would be soon. Not really safe on the roads. She’d probably gone over the fields instead, but it was very wet. In fact, he thought, remembering his drive home, it was pouring with rain.
She must be mad.
Unless she’d just found out she wasn’t pregnant again. That made her do crazy things sometimes. Oh, lord, not again, he thought heavily. Poor Laurie.
He put the kettle on. She’d want tea when she got in. Tea and sympathy. Hell. He wasn’t very good with the sympathy thing. He never seemed to hit the right note. In the meantime, he’d go and change out of his suit and put on something more relaxed. He’d been in a suit day in, day out for days. Weeks. Years?
The bedroom was very tidy. He’d obviously been away too long, he thought, unless Mrs Prewett had been today. Friday—or was it Thursday? He couldn’t remember, and he wasn’t sure now which days their cleaning lady came. He didn’t think he could even remember what she looked like.
He scrubbed a hand tiredly through his hair and dropped onto the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes. Where was Laurie? It was dark now, the fingers of night creeping across the sky. Surely she wasn’t walking the dog still? It would be dangerous in the wet and inky blackness.
He stood up and crossed to the window, peering down into the garden, but he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have taken shelter in the summer house?
Unlikely. She would surely have run back to the house if she’d been caught in the rain.
Maybe
