The Baby Question

by Caroline Anderson

  He just looked at her, that level, searching look that made her heart sink.

  ‘Stop procrastinating,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I think it’s time we had a little chat, don’t you? Suppose you tell me what this is all about—why you ran away.’

  ‘I didn’t run—’

  ‘No, you drove—in a car you’d bought yourself, with income from a company you’re running that I didn’t even know about. I think I deserve an explanation, Laurie, and I’m not moving until I get one.’

  So much for their truce!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘LET’S start with why,’ he said, his voice slightly softer, and it made her want to cry.

  She swallowed hard. No way was she giving him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, but she owed him her honesty.

  ‘I just felt trapped,’ she said slowly. ‘I felt we’d lost our sparkle. I didn’t know you any more, you were never there, and when you were all we seemed to do was try and get me pregnant.’

  ‘Is that the trouble? Is it because you can’t conceive? Or because you don’t want to?’ He hesitated, and his eyes speared her like twin blue lasers. ‘Tell me something, Laurie—are you on the Pill?’

  She stared at him, shocked. ‘On the Pill? Don’t be so silly. Why should I be on the Pill?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You tell me. So you don’t get pregnant?’ He looked away, his face taut, and when he next spoke his voice was quiet and deathly with control. ‘Are you having an affair, Laurie? Is that it?’

  She nearly dropped her mug. Instead she set it down, very carefully, and wrapped her arms round her knees. He thought that? He really thought she’d do that?

  ‘I can’t believe you think I’d do that,’ she said hollowly. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because you’re bored? Because I’m never there? Because all you want is my money, and my constant absence is actually a bonus, only now, of course, you don’t need the money—’

  ‘Stop! Rob, that’s just not true! I wouldn’t do that!’ She was hurt, rubbed raw by the doubt in his voice and his bitter accusations, despite the fact that she had given him plenty of reasons to ask such questions. But even so, how could he not know her better than that? ‘I couldn’t do it,’ she went on, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. ‘I wouldn’t have an affair! Sex isn’t that important—’

  ‘Isn’t it? It used to be—for both of us.’

  His eyes locked with hers, burning like blue flames, the heat scorching her. She remembered when they’d been eager lovers, unable to get enough of each other, their hands and mouths greedy, their bodies insatiable. Heat pooled in her and she looked hastily away.

  How long ago it seemed—and what a sad and lonely road she’d trodden since.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t say anything about sex,’ he went on. ‘You might have met someone else and fallen in love. Someone who had time for you—who was there when I couldn’t be.’ His voice was taut, but she didn’t really hear the pain in it, only the words.

  Someone who was there. Someone who actually noticed her. What a thought. ‘It sounds tempting,’ she said a little bitterly. ‘And you’re right, I was alone too much. So much so that I thought, if I was going to be alone, I might just as well do it properly and really be alone—hence the move. Although I must say it doesn’t really feel very different, except for the location. I haven’t been any more alone here than I was in Hertfordshire, or it hasn’t felt like it. I’m amazed you missed me, but then I suppose if I rolled up the carpet in the hall, you might realise something was missing. I’m just an extension of the furniture, something that’s always there. Sometimes I don’t think you even know I’m alive,’ she said sadly, and he gave a short, humourless huff of laughter.

  ‘Oh, Laurie, don’t be stupid. Of course I know you’re alive. I think about you all the time.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘You don’t think about anything but work, even when you’re at home. You’re totally focused.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t think about you on another plane.’

  ‘But you don’t know what I’m doing. You’re quite unaware of my activities. You’re never there to know what I’m doing.’

  ‘And you chose not to tell me,’ he pointed out, his voice hardening again. ‘You know where I am—you can ring me at any time and talk to me—I tell you what I’m doing every minute of every day. You don’t tell me anything—or at least, not the truth.’

  ‘I was going to.’ Her conscience was troubling her on that, and had almost since the beginning, but it had just never seemed to be the right time, and after a while it had grown even harder to know how to tell him. Now it was too late for anything but damage limitation.

  She sighed harshly and scrubbed her hands over her face. ‘I didn’t keep it a secret so you wouldn’t know,’ she said, trying to explain. ‘I just didn’t want to tell you at first because I thought you’d laugh or shoot it down in flames or tell me I was doing it wrong and take over—’

  ‘As if you’ve never done that to me.’

  She remembered their wrangles at work, and coloured slightly. ‘I know. You must have hated it.’

  ‘Not as much as I hated it when it stopped—when you gave up coming to the office so you could be at home. Maybe that was a mistake.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wanted it at the time, but then I suppose we both thought I’d get pregnant straight away—I mean you do, don’t you? It happens. Why not to us? Only we didn’t, and now I wonder if maybe it wasn’t a good thing that it hasn’t happened.’

  ‘You don’t want a baby any more?’

  His voice was cautious, as if he felt he was treading on thin ice, but he needn’t have bothered. It was a question she’d asked herself over and over again in the last few days, and she’d given up being sensitive about it. Instead she was just confused. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. We’ve focused on it so hard I’ve lost sight of it. Does that seem silly?’

  ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees? No, it doesn’t seem silly at all. It doesn’t explain, though, why you didn’t talk to me about the business once it was a success, or why you ran away. Particularly why you ran away without telling me, without talking it through with me. Didn’t you think that, after five years, I had a right to know?’

  The reproach in his voice cut her to the quick, even though she could see his point. ‘It wasn’t a question of rights,’ she protested softly. ‘I just—I’m not ready for this conversation, Rob. I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know what I think. I can’t explain it to you because I don’t know myself. If I did we’d all be a lot happier. All I can say is I’m sorry.’

  She blinked away the tears that were threatening and picked up her tea again, wrapping her trembling fingers round the mug and holding it close, sheltering behind it.

  He didn’t say anything, just watched her, and she could feel his eyes boring through her, looking for answers she wasn’t able to give him. Wasn’t able to give herself at the moment.

  Midas lifted his head, his ears cocked, and she reached out a hand and fondled them. ‘What is it, boy? Surely not another stray to rescue?’

  ‘I can hear something,’ Rob said. ‘A tractor or something.’

  He stood up, putting his mug down on the hearth and going to the window, peering out sideways towards the road. ‘I can’t see anything. Do any windows look that way?’

  ‘In the kitchen. There’s one that looks up the track. It’s probably the guy at the top of the hill.’

  They went into the kitchen and looked out over the featureless white landscape, but there was nothing to see except the odd tree stuck up out of the snow, white on one side, black on the other. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been a trap, she thought, and wondered how they’d come to this, that being cut off with her beloved husband could feel like a trap.

  She turned away. ‘There’s nothing there. I expect it’s just a nearby farmer—the sound must travel
on the wind. Come on, I’m cold. I’ll see if the collie wants anything to eat.’

  ‘Give her some warm milk and bread,’ he suggested, and she looked at him as if he was mad.

  ‘We’ve hardly got any for us.’

  ‘We can manage without.’

  ‘But you hate black tea and coffee—’

  ‘I’ll cope. She needs it,’ he pointed out, and she remembered what it was about him that she’d fallen in love with, and regret filled her all over again.

  She found a bowl, went back into the sitting room and silently crumbled a slice of bread into it, poured in some of their precious milk and added hot water to warm it.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ she crooned, pushing it under the dog’s nose and tempting her with it. She lapped it weakly, then more eagerly, and when she’d finished she looked up at Laurie with gentle golden eyes and she was lost.

  ‘Oh, lord, it’s like Oliver Twist,’ she said, choked. ‘She’s really hungry, Rob.’

  ‘I know. Don’t overdo it, though. A little at a time.’

  Laurie stroked her head and felt the bones of her skull right under the skin. Poor, thin little dog. Thank God they’d found her.

  Midas was standing beside her, his tail wafting gently, and she patted his great solid head and praised him for rescuing her. He licked her hand and jumped up on the chair beside his new friend, and she shifted to make room for him as he lay down.

  Love at first sight, she thought, and remembered her and Rob. It had felt like that, at least for her, and when he’d taken her on to work alongside him she felt as if he’d turned a light on inside her and brought her to life.

  She remembered the first time he’d made love to her—he’d laughingly conceded a point in an argument, but only if he could take her out to dinner. She couldn’t remember where they’d gone or what they’d eaten, only that it had been wonderful, and afterwards he’d taken her back to his penthouse and stood with her in the dark looking out over the lights of London, and somehow with only the dim glow from outside to light them, the careful distance they’d maintained had melted away and they’d reached out for each other and found a happiness so exquisite she thought she’d die of it.

  She’d realised then that she loved him, and she still loved him now, but things seemed to have got in the way and their happiness had faded to a distant memory.

  ‘Touching, isn’t it?’

  His voice was deep and close behind her, and sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘It didn’t occur to me he was lonely,’ she said, only too glad to change the subject that was filling her head and her heart to the exclusion of common sense.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t realise that he was,’ Rob said softly. ‘Maybe none of us realise what we’re missing until we’ve had it—or lost it.’

  Her heart pounded. Was he telling her he was lonely? That he missed her? Very likely—but would knowing that make a difference to him? Would it be enough to make him change his working habits? Probably not.

  Midas lifted his head again and made a soft sound in his throat, half-way between a growl and a whine.

  ‘I can hear the tractor again—it sounds closer,’ Rob said, and she felt him move away from behind her. Her shoulders dropped with relief—or was it regret?—and she turned and followed him back to the kitchen. The tractor was nearly at the gate, pushing and heaping the snow out of the way, and as it came to rest at the gate the cab door opened and a man huddled up in thick outdoor clothes jumped down and came towards them slowly through the drifts, pushing a stick in ahead of him to feel the way.

  ‘I’ll let him in,’ Rob said, but she fixed him with a look.

  ‘No, I’ll let him in, it’s my house.’

  He arched an expressive brow but she ignored it and went to the front door, opening it and leaning out to wave.

  ‘Morning!’

  ‘I saw the smoke—didn’t know there was anybody here. Thought I’d come by and make sure you were all right.’

  Come by? Just like that, with six-foot drifts across the track? Laurie stifled the urge to laugh. ‘How kind of you, thank you. Mind the cars. They’re there somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. You go along in, don’t let the heat out.’

  Heat? He must be kidding. Still, she closed the front door until she could hear him approaching, and then opened it again. ‘Come in. I didn’t expect any visitors today,’ she said with a welcoming smile. She held out her hand.

  He didn’t smile. His face was craggy and lined, weathered with years of being out in just these conditions, and he tugged off a glove and stuck a calloused, icy fist into her hand. ‘Iain McGregor,’ he said bluntly, and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m Laurie Taylor,’ she told him, and followed his gaze. ‘This is Rob Ferguson. He’s from London. He popped in yesterday and got stuck.’

  ‘Aye.’ He nodded at Rob, took his hand and looked around. Midas was barking on the other side of the door, and Laurie let him out.

  ‘Shh. Good boy,’ she said, and he sniffed and went back to guarding his girlfriend. She led Iain McGregor into the sitting room with Rob bringing up the rear, and offered him a cup of tea.

  ‘I could manage a wee dram,’ he said, deadpan, and Laurie’s heart sank. The woman in the shop had suggested a bottle of whisky, but she’d declined and earned herself a disapproving look. Perhaps she should have succumbed. Maybe if she got out the wine—

  Rob just smiled. ‘I’ve got just the thing,’ he said, and went out into the hall again. He shut the door, and a moment later she heard the front door close behind him. In the awkward silence that followed, she looked helplessly around and rubbed her hands together with false enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, I must say it’s a rare welcome to Scotland,’ she said with a smile, and he grunted.

  ‘The drifting’s the worst thing. We need a warm day to melt the top, then it might get a wee crust. That’ll help.’ He looked past her and nodded his head at the dogs.

  ‘I see the wee collie’s found a bed.’

  She looked at the skinny black and white dog snuggled up to Midas, and nodded. ‘He found her under the snow this morning. She was nearly dead.’

  ‘She’s a stray. She used to come by ours and steal food, and m’wife used to put down the odd bit for her, but I got a new bitch a few months back and she hates her—chases her off. I wondered where she’d gone.’

  ‘Does she have a name?’ Laurie asked, and he looked at her in astonishment.

  ‘Lord, no. I have enough trouble finding a name for ma ain dogs, no mind the strays! But she looks like she’s found a home.’

  Laurie nodded slowly. ‘I think so. Midas seems to have adopted her.’

  ‘You’ll have pups.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. He’s been done—he was a rescued dog. It’s one of the rules.’ She heard the front door go again, and looked up to see Rob, the arms of his dark blue coat white to the elbows with snow, coming into the room with a grin and a bottle of malt whisky.

  ‘Duty free,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Laurie, where are the glasses?’

  They drank half of it between them, the farmer putting away a good bit all by himself, and under its influence he mellowed a little and settled back into the settee and told them about the area and a little of its chequered and violent history, including some of the local place names and their meanings.

  ‘So what does Little Gluich mean?’ Laurie asked, still curious about the name, and he chuckled.

  ‘Ah, well, now,’ he said slowly. ‘Either a small, sticky place, and when the snow thaws you’ll understand that one, or a wailing of women. In the uprising there was a lot of raping and pillaging went on. M’wife reckons they were wailing because the cottage was too far out of the way and they got missed out. Mysel’, I’d go for the small, sticky place. I’ve had the tractor stuck a time or two down by here.’

  Laurie chuckled. ‘I’ll hold fire on my judgement until I know it better,’ she said.

  He nodded, and looked regretfull
y at his empty glass.

  ‘More?’ Rob offered, but he shook his head.

  ‘I must away home. M’wife will be fretting—dinner’ll be on the table. Are you all right for fuel?’

  ‘Not really,’ Laurie confessed. ‘If the power stays off so we can’t use the central heating, I’ve only got the coal in that bag.’

  ‘What about the wood pile?’

  ‘Wood pile?’ she said blankly.

  ‘Aye—by the end of the croft. Just round the back there.’

  He pointed through the wall, and she shook her head. ‘No wood pile. At least, I didn’t see one. That’s where the bag of coal was.’

  ‘They might’ve run out afore they went. I’ll bring you some logs. The power could be off for days.’

  Oh, great, she thought, and had a sudden vision of herself down here in the chair with the dogs on top of her while Rob stretched out full length on the settee.

  Or not. She gave the dogs a disgusted look. They could probably manage to lie by the fire for the night, she thought drily.

  Iain McGregor went, trudging his way back through the path he’d forced through the snow earlier, swaying slightly under the influence of rather too many wee drams, and she evicted the dogs from the chair and made them go outside to relieve themselves.

  Midas went more or less willingly, but the little collie looked scared to death, as if she was going to be kicked out into the snow and left to die again.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Laurie said softly. ‘Don’t be afraid. Come on back in and have something to eat.’

  She fed her again while Midas sniffed around the spot where he’d found her, and she swallowed down another bowl of bread and milk with some of his dry food mixed into it.

  ‘What are you going to call her?’ Rob asked, coming back in with Midas from seeing McGregor off.

  ‘I don’t know. Something soft—quiet. Bella? Saffron?’

  ‘Saffron’s yellow. She’s black and white.’

  ‘Minstrel?’

  ‘Minstrel. What do you think of that, little one?’ Rob crouched down and stroked her, and her tail waved gently, but she was shaking. They were too close—too much too soon for the little stray.