Moving On

by Emma Lee-Potter

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Kate and Laura Hollingberry are sisters. But whilst they have a close relationship, they couldn''t be more different. While Laura is happy to get an undemanding little job to pass the time until she finds Mr. Right, Kate wants more out of list than a suitable husband.

Determined to make her own way in life and not rely on her tycoon father's money or influence, Kate's taken a position at a local newspaper far away from home. But it's her first job, her first bid for independence, and anything can happen...

Release date: February 7, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 416

Sample

Dodo Hollingberry wrestled with her conscience. A terrible sleeper, she’d only just fallen into a fitful slumber when a child’s pitiful cry had immediately woken her again. She dozed for a few seconds longer in the hope that the wailing might stop. When it didn’t, she wearily levered her middle-aged body out of her narrow single bed and headed up the steep wooden stairs.

By the time she’d reached the second floor, however, the sobs had begun to subside. As usual, the door had been left slightly ajar – the girls couldn’t bear it shut tight – and there was a light glowing on the landing. Dodo peered short-sightedly into the cavernous room and nearly jumped back with fright. Apart from a battered-looking teddy lying on the pillow, one bed was completely empty. The old-fashioned blankets and rose-sprigged eiderdown were slung in a tangled heap on the floor, leaving just a crumpled sheet on the bed. Her heart beating wildly by now, Dodo glanced at the other divan, just two feet away from its twin, and sighed with relief. How could she have been so stupid? She should have known that Laura and Kate would be huddled up together, two small sad girls in need of consolation.

‘It’s all right, Katey-Kate,’ soothed Laura’s soft voice through the stillness. ‘I’m here now. I’ll never leave you. I promise.’

Dodo felt a lump form in her throat. Laura was only eight, and petrified of the dark. The little girl would have had to screw up all her courage to get out of her own bed and comfort her six-year-old sister. And she wouldn’t have crossed the bedroom floor in the middle of the night for anyone else. Not in a million years.

Dodo cursed herself for not picking up on her nieces’ mood earlier on. Admittedly it had been Sarah, their new Australian nanny, the latest in a long line, who had fed and bathed them. But Dodo had read them their bedtime stories as usual and tucked them up in bed for the night. Perhaps she was the least perceptive woman on earth but there had been no outward sign that anything was amiss.

The girls had been so brave over the past few months, thought Dodo, so valiant. It was almost impossible to believe that it was only a year since their mother had vanished into the wide blue yonder without a word of explanation to either of them.

‘Do you think Mummy will come back soon, Laura?’ whispered Kate’s small voice through the darkness. ‘I never thought she would be away this long.’

It was a few seconds before Laura answered.

‘I … I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘I wish she hadn’t gone,’ said Kate.

‘Me too,’ said Laura.

‘Where do you think she is?’ murmured Kate sleepily.

‘I don’t know. Every time I ask Daddy he goes all peculiar and cross, so I’ve stopped asking him now.’

‘What do you remember about her best?’ asked Kate.

‘Her smell and her soft skin,’ said Laura. ‘And the way her eyes sparkle, even when she’s a bit cross.’

‘But she doesn’t get cross very much, does she?’

‘No. Hardly ever.’

‘But Daddy gets cross with her sometimes, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, and that makes Mummy cry …’

Laura’s voice faltered and she fell silent again, clearly unable to be brave about it all any more.

A tear trickled down Dodo’s cheek and she dashed it away angrily with the back of her hand. Damn Hubert. His daughters shouldn’t have to cope with all this. No matter what their mother had done, they shouldn’t have to cope without her. No child should, she thought fiercely.

It was November 1978. Almost a year to the day that Clare Hollingberry had stumbled down the front steps of her husband’s elegant Chelsea townhouse for the very last time. Dodo would never forget the look on Clare’s face as she’d lurched onto the pavement, her face white with grief, her usually immaculate short blonde hair all askew, her long, coltish legs almost buckling beneath her. The temperature had dropped dramatically over the few days before but she was only wearing a short navy pinafore with a stripy T-shirt underneath. No jacket or coat. She didn’t have any luggage with her either, just a small leather purse slung over her shoulder and one of the girls’ colourful paintings, wrenched hurriedly off the kitchen wall. Clare had glanced forlornly up to the top window one last time and disappeared from all their lives.

Dodo had seen it coming, of course. She’d seen that Hubert and Clare were set on a collision course. Hubert was absolutely impossible to live with, for a start. He always had been. Even as a small boy he’d refused point-blank to do anything he was told, whether it was washing his hands before meals or eating up his loathsome spinach or learning his twelve times table. Their own mother had pretty much given up trying the day he took the family Bentley for a spin down the King’s Road at the age of fourteen. Dodo could still hear the poor woman plaintively shouting ‘Hubert, Hubert …’ from the corner of the street. And then the almighty crash as their father’s pride and joy had smashed slap-bang into a lamppost.

After Clare’s abrupt departure Dodo had moved into her brother’s house, ostensibly to care for Laura and Kate, but, as things had turned out, to look after Hubert too. Dodo was three years older than her brother but he had been the boss for as far back as she could remember. He had always had the uncanny knack of getting everybody around him, Dodo included, to do exactly as he wanted. That was probably why he had been so successful in business, building up the modest family firm into the highly profitable regional newspaper group it was today. So Dodo had obediently let out her tiny mansion flat near Albert Bridge, put her most precious possessions into storage and decamped over the river to Chelsea.

It had been weeks before she’d got any sense out of Laura and Kate. Hubert had declined to discuss anything with any of them and the two little girls were so stunned by their mother’s disappearance that for days they barely uttered a word. They were perfectly acquiescent, quietly doing precisely as their father and aunt instructed, but neither of them volunteered any information as to what was going on inside their heads. A year later, they still weren’t exactly forthcoming, but at least they seemed reasonably settled. Now and again, when she was in a particularly sunny mood, Kate would even climb onto Dodo’s knee for a cuddle. Laura, however, completely eschewed any physical contact, wriggling away whenever Dodo came near.

In private, Hubert claimed the girls had forgotten their mother but Dodo knew he was kidding himself. It was clear that they were both grieving for Clare. Dodo had often heard the murmur of childish voices late at night and realised that they confided in each other about Clare far more than Hubert imagined. But she’d certainly never found them like this before.

Now Dodo tiptoed across to Kate’s bed, her old-fashioned nightgown swishing along the wooden floor. She switched the bedside light on and knelt quietly beside them.

Startled by their aunt’s sudden appearance from nowhere, the two girls huddled even closer together. Kate’s face was red and blotchy from crying but Laura looked curiously impassive. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. Laura never gave anything away if she could possibly help it.

Dodo touched Kate’s cheek. It felt soft and downy, just like a baby’s. She was only a baby really, thought Dodo, and her heart turned over with love.

‘What’s the matter, darling? I could hear you crying from downstairs.’

‘I wasn’t crying,’ said Kate, sticking her bottom lip out in a gesture of defiance. Laura’s arms tightened protectively around her shoulders.

‘Darling, I heard you,’ said Dodo, her voice gentle. ‘What on earth’s the matter? Do you want Daddy to come up and see you? I think he’s home now.’

‘Yes,’ whispered Kate.

‘No,’ countered Laura quickly. ‘You don’t, do you?’

‘No,’ said Kate obediently. ‘Not really.’

Dodo shrugged her shoulders. The pair of them were such a tightly-knit unit that it was difficult, almost impossible, to gauge what they were really thinking. Faced with Kate on her own, she was pretty sure she could have got to the bottom of all this. But Laura was a much tougher nut to crack. Dodo had no idea how to get through to her. She was a funny little thing really, painfully shy most of the time, but always fiercely loyal to her younger sister.

‘Is it Mummy?’ Dodo asked gently. She wasn’t certain whether she should mention Clare or not.

Kate’s face lit up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I miss her so much. Can you make her come back, Dodo?’

Dodo wrapped the little girl lovingly in her arms. If only things were that simple.

‘Darling, I’m sorry. That’s the one thing I can’t do.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because … because … I don’t know where she is.’

Kate’s face instantly crumpled. Dodo could have kicked herself for admitting she had no idea what had become of Clare. She should have deflected the question. Or gone in search of Hubert. This was all his fault anyway. He should be the one dashing upstairs to comfort his daughters, not her. But Dodo was pretty sure that Hubert would be sleeping peacefully in his large Louis XIV bed downstairs, completely oblivious to the commotion going on above him. The only thing that ever gave him sleepless nights was a tricky newspaper deal.

‘Why did she go?’ persisted Kate tearfully.

This time Dodo paused before answering. She had her own private suspicions but she could hardly discuss them with a six-year-old and an eight-year-old.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ she said.

‘I do,’ said Laura suddenly.

Dodo glanced again at Laura’s cool, imperturbable face. It was hard to tell whether she really knew anything or not.

‘Why then?’ asked Kate insistently.

‘Because Daddy made her,’ said Laura. ‘I heard them shouting at each other just before she went. Daddy was yelling “Get out of this house and don’t come back.” And don’t tell me he didn’t, Dodo, because he did. I heard him.’

‘Darling,’ said Dodo, stroking Laura’s fine blonde fringe from out of her eyes. ‘I know it’s hard to understand but grown-ups often say horrible things to each other when they’re cross and upset. Daddy didn’t mean it, I’m sure.’

Laura gazed at Dodo, the misery in her face quite clear.

‘But he did mean it, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘He did mean it, because Mummy hasn’t come back, has she? And do you know what I think?’

The little girl paused dramatically before continuing.

‘What d’you think, Laura?’ pleaded Kate. ‘Tell us. Please tell us. Please.’

‘I don’t think she ever will come back,’ said Laura and promptly burst into floods of tears.

Sitting bolt upright in the corner of the busy morning train out of London, Kate pinched herself hard. A livid red mark instantly appeared on her forearm and she rubbed it absent-mindedly. She still couldn’t quite believe that she’d actually done it at last. Actually told her father to stop interfering in her life for once and for all and fuck off.

It was a row that had been simmering for months. Probably even longer than that, come to think of it. But inevitably, when it had finally erupted, it had been sparked off by something completely trivial. Like a bowl of lentil soup.

Kate had been in the kitchen at home in Chelsea, cooking dinner and giggling with Laura about Dodo’s fruitless attempts to persuade one of them to accompany her to a Wagner recital at the Royal Albert Hall. Dodo was only fifty-eight but she had grown increasingly eccentric over the years. Her mind was still as sharp as ever but it had become stuffed to overflowing with trivia. She fussed about everything, from the remote possibility that she might get her car clamped to the amount of council tax that she would have to pay in twelve months’ time.

The bond between Kate and Laura was as strong as ever but, for some reason, as the sisters had grown into adulthood, their interests had diverged sharply. Kate had matured into a bright, sparky twenty-two-year-old, filled with ambition and dreams of making a career as a newspaper reporter. She was small and blonde, with bright blue eyes that sparkled with mischief and a zany dress sense that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. But as fast as Kate had blossomed, Laura seemed to have wilted. Perhaps the years of taking responsibility for Kate after their mother vanished had finally taken their toll, perhaps it was the constant sense of bereavement that, no matter how hard she tried, she could never quite shake off. Whatever it was, Laura seemed to live in a perpetual state of anxiety. When Kate suffered setbacks in her life, she put them down to experience and succeeded, on the whole, in laughing them off. Laura simply couldn’t manage it. Her hair was white-blonde, much fairer than her sister’s, and while Kate had a curvy, athletic figure, Laura was more delicate. Her sadness seemed to hang like a millstone around her neck, giving her, at the tender age of twenty-four, a troubled, careworn look.

At school Laura had excelled at art and design and both Dodo and Kate had tried their hardest to persuade her to go on to art college. But Laura had refused, protesting that her drawing wasn’t nearly good enough and anyway, what would she do with an art degree? Instead she had gone straight to secretarial college before progressing to a dull PA job in the City. Kate, on the other hand, had recently graduated with a good English degree from the University of Manchester and, unbeknownst to her father, had written well over a hundred letters before landing her first job, sight unseen, on a weekly newspaper in Lancashire.

‘Now if Dodo had got tickets for a Jarvis Cocker concert, I might have been tempted,’ Kate had laughed as she stirred the lentil soup she was cooking.

Laura peered at the thick brown sludge in the saucepan and made a face. A pernickety eater, to put it mildly, she didn’t share Kate’s new-found enthusiasm for wholefood cooking at all.

‘Ugh. That looks absolutely revolting,’ she said. ‘You could at least follow a recipe instead of making it up as you go along. Surely you’re not going to eat it, are you?’

‘Of course I am,’ smiled Kate, licking the end of the wooden spoon. ‘Mmmm, delicious. You can really taste the soy sauce. Here, try some.’

Kate ladled a spoonful of the soup into a spongeware bowl and picked it up to pass it to her sister. The bowl was boiling hot and she dropped it instantly with a yelp of pain. Tiny shards of smashed china flew across the room and the brown sludge she’d been cooking slid forlornly down the front of the immaculate cream Aga and onto the black and white tiled floor.

‘Shit,’ said Kate, before adding, ‘oh well, I never really liked that bowl anyway.’

The girls burst out laughing together, but their merriment trailed away when they looked up and realised that a tall, thickset man with a ruddy complexion and a shock of white hair was watching them from the doorway. Hubert Hollingberry, his face racked with exhaustion, didn’t seem to appreciate the joke at all. He needed peace and solitude when he got home, not two daughters behaving like hysterical teenagers. They were old enough to know better.

Over the past sixteen years Hubert’s group of regional newspapers had expanded steadily and was now the largest company of its type in the country. But HH, as he was known to almost everyone, Flatly refused to ease up. Where most bosses would have delegated the more tedious tasks to their minions, then sat back and enjoyed the advantages of life at the top, HH simply couldn’t. He was fifty-five now, but, thanks to his horrendous hours and unhealthy lifestyle, looked a good ten years older.

‘What the hell do you two think you’re playing at?’ growled HH.

‘We’re chucking soup around the kitchen for fun, of course,’ said Kate lightly. ‘What does it look like?’

HH’s face flushed crimson. He wasn’t in the mood for smart-arse cracks from his younger daughter.

‘Well, clear it up then. NOW.’

Laura stood rooted to the spot with fear. Kate, however, wasn’t in the least in awe of her father. She simply shrugged her shoulders and began searching under the sink for a dustpan and brush. When she sensed that he was still watching her like a hawk, she stopped what she was doing and stood up again.

‘Look, Daddy, what’s your problem?’ she said, glaring at him. ‘We all know you’ve had a hard day but there’s no need to take it out on me and Laura. You’re behaving like a bear with a sore head. For goodness sake, go and put your feet up in your study and I’ll bring you a gin and tonic.’

HH glowered at his younger daughter. It was an appealing idea but he certainly wasn’t going to be told what to do by a young slip of a girl.

‘I’ll have it here,’ he snapped. ‘There’s something I want to have a serious talk with you both about.’

Laura shot a warning glance at Kate. As a rule HH never had serious talks with his daughters. Deep down he adored them both and was intensely proud of them – though he found this hard to articulate – but he was usually far too busy to spend any time with them.

For one hopeful, fleeting moment it crossed Laura’s mind that he might have come to his senses and decided to tell them the truth about their mother at last. Clare’s name had barely been mentioned since the day she disappeared but Laura was convinced that HH’s secrecy would have to come to an end eventually. They were both adults now; surely they had a right to know the truth.

Her hopes were soon dashed. As it turned out, HH only wanted to talk to them about their plans for the future.

‘I know you’re all sorted out, Laura,’ he boomed, ‘and about time too. I’m glad that you gave up all that art nonsense and settled down into a proper job. But now it’s Kate’s turn. Look, darling, I know you hate the thought of me pulling strings on your behalf, but I’ve been having a little chat with Gordon Osprey. I told him you’re interested in the newspaper business and he’s come up with something pretty good. He’s looking for a new secretary and he said he would be more than happy to offer you the post. You’ll have to polish up your typing and shorthand of course, but you’ll really be in the thick of things. He wants you to start a week on Monday. It’s exactly the chance you’ve been looking for, isn’t it, darling?’

Kate rolled her eyes. She’d been waiting for the right moment to tell him her own news and now bloody Gordon Osprey, her father’s creepy deputy, had gone and pre-empted her. She cleared her throat, unsure quite how or where to begin.

‘That’s terribly kind of him, Daddy—’ she knew from past experience that there was no point in going in with all guns blazing – ‘but he needn’t have bothered. You see, I’ve managed to sort myself out with something.’

HH’s eyes bored into hers. His nostrils were starting to flare, like a bull that had spotted a red handkerchief fluttering in the distance.

‘What do you mean you’ve sorted something out?’ he asked. ‘What have you managed to sort out? Some poxy job on a listings magazine that’ll pay you seven grand a year? Most girls your age would jump at a chance like this. Gordon is trying to do you a favour, Kate.’

‘No, Daddy,’ said Kate, steadily meeting his gaze. ‘Gordon is trying to do you a favour. In fact, he wouldn’t dare not to do you a favour, would he?’

Laura shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. She hated confrontation of any kind. Not that there was much of it in her life. She avoided it like the plague.

‘I’ve just got a phone call to make,’ she said, getting up from her seat. ‘I’ll leave you two to …’

‘Sit down, Laura,’ barked HH. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Stop skulking around like a frightened rabbit and sit down.’

Laura immediately did as she was told. Then HH turned to face Kate again.

‘Right, Kate. I’ll ask you a second time,’ he said menacingly. ‘What exactly have you managed to sort out?’

Kate took a deep breath and plunged in. She could hear her heart pounding as she spoke.

‘You know I’ve always wanted to be a reporter, Daddy?’

HH seemed to be ignoring the question so Kate hurriedly continued.

‘Well, I have. So I’ve been writing letters to newspapers for months. I’ve written loads and loads and not got anywhere at all. I mean I haven’t got anywhere until now.’

‘And where have you got now?’ asked HH.

‘I’ve been offered a job on a newspaper in Lancashire. As a trainee reporter.’

She didn’t let on that they’d offered her a job without even interviewing her – and at half the going rate too. She had a niggling fear that they probably hadn’t been able to get anyone else. But then again, she was probably just as desperate as they were.

‘One of ours, is it?’ said HH. His newspaper group owned so many papers now that he frequently lost track of his smaller titles. ‘It’ll be pretty obvious why you got the job then, won’t it?’

‘It’s not one of yours, no,’ snapped Kate. ‘It’s the Bowland Bugle. And if you’re assuming that I only got the job because I’m your daughter, then you’re wrong. I used Mummy’s surname. Not yours. So they know me as Kate Grant. Not Kate Hollingberry.’

Laura closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe that Kate was talking to HH like this. Kate knew he couldn’t stand even the merest mention of their mother’s name. Dodo had warned them so often not to talk about Clare in front of him, and now here was Kate cheerily telling him that she’d decided to use Clare’s name rather than his.

Kate stared defiantly at her father, almost willing him to fly into a rage. If he did that, she told herself, she’d walk out right here and now.

But HH hadn’t got as far as he had in business by losing his rag at inopportune moments. He was a man who relished a fight but he also knew his younger daughter. Of the two girls, she was easily the more like him. If he pushed her too far now, he wouldn’t see her for dust. Perhaps it was time to try a more conciliatory approach, calm her down, make her see he was talking sense.

‘Darling, I only discussed this with Gordon because I care. You know how much you used to enjoy working for us in your summer holidays and this would be the ideal way to learn more about the business. You’d be bored out of your skull up there. It’s in the middle of bloody nowhere, for a start. And do you really know what junior reporters spend all their time doing?’

‘What?’ said Kate sulkily.

‘They trail around to parish council meetings, flower shows, village fêtes. If they’re very lucky, they might even get to go to a funeral once in a while. If they happen to get as much as a sniff of a real story they’re edged aside by some cynical old hack who’s full of resentment towards anyone under the age of twenty-five.’

‘Really?’ said Kate. It was perfectly clear what her father was up to. If he made the job sound boring enough, he reckoned she would knuckle down and agree to work for Grisly Gordon.

‘Yes, really,’ said HH, warming to his theme. ‘So you can see you’d be much better off in the thick of things, can’t you? And that’s where you’d be with Gordon.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Kate.

‘Good,’ said HH, satisfied that she was coming round to his own way of thinking, as usual. ‘Now, what was that you said about mixing your old dad a gin and tonic?’

It was after this episode that Kate had realised it was time she got her act together. She had to get out of London. And fast.

Now she looked at her watch and grimaced. She was itching to get to Lancashire but it was at least two hours before the train arrived at Preston and then a half-hour taxi ride after that to reach Bowland. To help pass the journey, she made her way down to the buffet car. The train was bumping all over the place by this time and twice Kate had to stop herself from falling sideways into passengers’ laps. It was twenty minutes before she finally got to the front of the queue, paid for a carton of steaming hot coffee and turned to make her way back to her carriage. Just as she did so, the train shuddered abruptly to a halt. Kate tried frantically to keep her balance and, at the same time, to hold onto her coffee. For a moment she thought she had managed it and tentatively began walking. Then, almost as suddenly as the train had stopped, it lurched forward again. This time Kate collapsed heavily against a man in the buffet queue, sending her coffee flying in the process.

‘Fucking hell,’ yelled the man as the scalding hot liquid soaked through his once pristine white shirt. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ apologised Kate swiftly, scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Are you all right? I really didn’t mean to …’

‘I’m sure you didn’t fucking mean to,’ retaliated the man. ‘But you did, didn’t you?’

This last remark was too much for an elderly woman in the queue. She stepped forward and wagged her finger in front of the man, protesting at his language.

‘I can pick my own nose, thank you,’ said the man nastily.

‘Take no notice, love,’ the woman instructed Kate. ‘Some men just don’t have any manners these days.’

At the old lady’s intervention, however, the man suddenly seemed to pull himself together. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, grabbing hold of Kate’s arm. ‘I’ve had a lousy few days and now the office has sent me on a job I don’t want to do. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’ll buy you another coffee to keep the peace.’

Kate shook his arm off hers. Now he had calmed down a little, she took a proper look at him. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had dark curly hair and startlingly blue eyes. He was formally dressed, in a navy suit and a bright blue tie covered in sunflowers, and he looked as though he’d recently been on holiday somewhere hot. Only the coffee-stained shirt ruined the image, thought Kate. She grinned. It served him bloody well right too.

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ she responded sharply. ‘I’m pretty choosy about who I take coffees off.’

The corners of the man’s mouth twitched with irritation. He clearly wasn’t used to getting the brush-off. Especially not from women.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to look as if he wasn’t bothered one way or the other. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said and turned away.

Kate was relieved to escape when the train finally drew into Preston station. The rest of the journey had passed uneventfully, thank goodness, and luckily she hadn’t set eyes on the man in the sunflower tie again. But she was still fuming at the arrogant manner in which he’d treated her.

After toying with the idea of trying to find a room to rent before she did anything else, she changed her mind and asked the taxi driver to take her straight to the Bowland Bugle office. She was desperate to get started before her nerve failed and, anyway, someone there might offer her a bed for the night.

Kate sat back to enjoy the ride. Once they’d crossed over the M6, the ugly outskirts of Preston gave way to the most breathtaking countryside she had ever seen. She’d once read that given the opportunity the Queen would have liked to retire to the Forest of Bowland – and now Kate could quite see why.

She was more used to the southern countryside, green and pretty and tame. This landscape was savage and raw and unforgiving. As the taxi turned off the main Preston to Skipton road and up into the hills, Kate caught her breath. Ahead of them lay a long lonely road heading up towards the moors, and, beyond that, to Bowland. There were no other cars on the road, just a couple of wild-eyed sheep who must have strayed out of their fields and over the cattle grid that was supposed to keep them confined to the moor. And suddenly, Kate wasn’t at all sure why, she felt as if she’d arrived home.

Laura hugged her knees to her chin and watched Robert getting dressed. He had his back to her now and was pulling his clothes on with almost indecent haste.

It was as if he couldn’t get away fast enough. When he finally turned to look at her, she noticed that he’d done all his shirt buttons up wrongly. If she’d felt more sure of herself Laura would have pointed this out and they could have laughed about it; but she wasn’t and they didn’t.

‘I’ve got to go. I’m sorry,’ muttered Robert awkwardly as he flung a shabby old donkey jacket around his broad shoulders.

‘I’m not,’ thought Laura, only once again a sense of shyness stopped her from saying the words out loud.

For a couple of seconds, she clung to the forlorn hope that he might at least cross the room and say goodbye properly. But instead he lingered awkwardly by the doorway, clearly uncertain what to say or do, then blew her a kiss and dashed away. A shiver of pain ran through Laura as she heard the front door slam. She had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t be seeing him again in a hurry.

She turned and buried her face in the sheets. They felt warm and threadbare and well-used. Laura was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have been changed for weeks. Alexa was such a slut, come to think of it, that they probably hadn’t been changed for far longer than that.

Half an hour later, she’d showered and dressed and remade Alexa’s bed as neatly