week.’ The crew were filming a short documentary drama just outside of Edinburgh. ‘After that I’m taking a week’s leave.’
Jared switched off the engine as though he needed total silence to digest this information.
So that told you! Taylor thought, not caring if she had messed up his carefully calculated plans.
‘Where are you going?’
She hadn’t planned to go anywhere. She had been hoping for a quiet time at home, baking, shopping and generally relaxing until her next pending assignment that promised to take her away again, abroad, for the best part of three weeks. But the last thing she wanted was to tell him that and so pulling a face she said, ‘Who knows? I’m taking it as it comes. Right now I’m thinking it might be a good idea to stay in Scotland.’
‘That’s where you’re filming, I take it?’ It didn’t require an answer. ‘OK.’ He exhaled heavily and, sounding suddenly bored, ‘I’ll see you when you get back. It’s possible I’ll be away myself the week after next. By the way, while you’re up that way you could look into the Borrowdale house,’ he went on to suggest rather wearily. ‘I let it to the odd friend now and again but no one’s using it at the moment. There are a few things of yours there, though—some you might consider to be of a sentimental nature. If you’ve no intention of going back there, you might prefer to have them with you,’ he concluded, the cool delivery of his statement and his obvious acceptance that it was over between them sending a swift dart of pain down through her heart.
The house in Cumbria had been his late grandmother’s and they had spent several long blissful weekends there between their return from Hawaii and that fateful party that had ruined all her illusions about her marriage.
‘Give me a ring if you decide to…’ with a hand as steady as his voice he was taking a card out of his wallet ‘… and I can arrange to have the place aired and heated for you.’
She looked at the small white card he handed her. As though she were one of his business associates, she thought achingly. It listed his office, email and fax numbers, which she already knew, plus the number of his new mobile phone.
‘Thanks,’ Taylor said, dropping it quickly into the open side compartment of her handbag because she would only have shown herself up by letting him see how much her own hands were shaking had she tried to undo the zip. ‘If I decide to, I’ll let you know.’
She was out of the car before he could detain her any longer but, as she turned towards the modern dental surgery, the sudden whirr of the passenger side window made her glance back.
‘And Taylor!’ He was leaning across the car’s plush interior, his arm across the back of her vacated seat as she came back to see what it was he wanted. ‘I just thought I ought to let you know. If you’re planning to divorce me,’ he said, ‘then I think it only fair to tell you. I’ll fight it every step of the way.’
The week’s filming was over. Everything had gone smoothly and the crew were preparing to return to London.
Normally Taylor would have accompanied them in one of the company vehicles. She had, however, driven her own small hatchback to Scotland so that, with a week’s leave ahead of her, she could make her way back to London at her own pace.
Now, watching Craig coiling up cables, and Paul loading lenses and other photographic equipment into the back of the wagon, reluctantly she considered Jared’s suggestion about visiting Borrowdale while she was in the north.
It would probably be over a three-hour drive with the odd break, she calculated, depending on the road conditions, and the traffic, but that wasn’t the reason why she wasn’t keen to go. It was because the house held so many memories of a time when she had been so happy with Jared, and going there now would only emphasise how terribly wrong their marriage had gone; represent a finality she wasn’t sure she could face. It would, however, be totally foolish not to go and collect her belongings from the house while she was up this way, she argued with herself. And wouldn’t it be best to get things over and done with as soon as possible rather than prolong the inevitable?
‘I’m glad at least that you’ve decided not to stay in Scotland,’ Craig expressed when, having made up her mind, she told him of her plans. ‘Some pretty heavy weather’s forecast over the next few days. I’d come home as soon as you can.’
He himself couldn’t wait to get back, Taylor realised fondly, if the number of times she had heard him ringing Charity over the past week was anything to go by.
‘I will,’ she promised, having not gone into too much depth about why she was stopping off in Cumbria. The truth of the situation hurt too much for her to share even with Craig.
The light was almost fading when she brought the car uphill from the bleak and lonely valley, and turned into the little lane where Jared’s grandmother’s house stood.
Snow had been threatening for most of the journey south and now the Lakeland sky above the glowering peaks of the mountains was an ominous purple.
Having been on the road since lunchtime, Taylor was happy to leave her car exactly where it was in the lane and brave the minus zero wind-chill factor to the house.
A three gabled, grey stone building with bay windows and a sloping drive, it stood alone above a rambling garden with spectacular views across the valley, and was, she remembered from those previous visits, large enough to feel spacious, while still managing to retain a cosy atmosphere.
She hadn’t bothered telling Jared that she was coming. Speaking to him again would only have unsettled her, she had decided, and the task of clearing the house of her things was going to be painful enough without that. Besides, she still had a key.
Warmth was the first thing that struck her as soon as she let herself in, which, though surprising, was more than welcome after the bitter, late Cumbrian afternoon.
Jared had obviously instructed someone to heat the place, she thought, probably guessing that if she did decide to follow his suggestion and turn up here, she would be too proud to ring him.
A small shiver ran through her as she considered just how well he knew her.
It was a relief to shed her thick grey overcoat and boots, and make herself a sandwich and a cup of tea with some of the basic provisions she had bought on the journey down. Only then, with the aid of sustenance, did she feel able to cope with the task ahead of her.
Everywhere she looked there were memories, but particularly in the country ambience of the sitting room with its comfortable sagging sofa and its rug-strewn, flagstone floor.
There were the pen and ink drawings she had sketched of the fells, on their first visit, and for which Jared had made rustic frames during their stay using his late-grandfather’s tools, then hung them in the recesses either side of the huge stone fireplace. They belonged in this house. How could she take them down? Then there was the vast collection of books—mainly Jared’s—on various shelves around the room—bursting with so many diverse subjects. Like travel and history, the Lakeland poets, psychology. Books on different cultures, religions and philosophies, all which reminded her of how well-read and well- travelled Jared was, of his staunch opinion that everyone had a voice, and deserved to be heard.
It was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him, she remembered painfully, that depth of understanding and fairness he had always seemed to display towards most things, if not, in the end, towards her. And she
