Valentina Read online

  He pushed his lips into my hair. “I do.”

  I knew, had known the moment he’d started talking, that it was the right thing to do. I wanted us to be independent, couldn’t stand the thought that his parents had bought the flat and certainly didn’t want any more of their help. The sooner we stood on our own two feet, the better.

  I turned to kiss him, briefly, on the lips. “Maybe I’ll see what they’ve got in Dolce & Gabbana.”

  Mikey accepted the job. From the off, he travelled up to Aberdeen a lot. There were training courses on helicopter emergency, first aid, health and safety. He had a lot to set up. And then, in the March I think it was, when Isla was five weeks old, the rotation began.

  I was used to him being away on business by then but a full two weeks was a long haul. I’d joined a mother and baby group to add to the NCT group I saw every week for coffee, met up regularly with Jeanie and the guys from work for lunch and a catch up on the craic. I was determined to enjoy my maternity leave, not let it be overshadowed by Mikey’s absences. And of course my mum came through three or four times that first trip and sat with me or walked with me or rocked the baby while I grabbed forty winks. She was delighted.

  “You know I’ll take her when you go back to work,” she said – not to me, by the way, oh no. She hadn’t talked to me directly for weeks. Instead, she’d developed this habit of saying everything she had to say through Isla, as if Isla were some kind of walkie-talkie.

  “Your mummy knows I’ll have you anytime,” she cooed into her face. “Yes I will, I’ll have you, yes I will, yes. Who’s a lovely babba for their granny?”

  She went to pieces all right, did my ma. So did I, I guess. I was skunk-drunk on a cocktail of hormones, sleeplessness and mad, blind, limitless love. Although I was looking forward to being in the office again, I began to wonder how I would ever leave Isla for one day, let alone five.

  So the hours were whiled, the days were killed. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t exciting, but it was good, better than a lot of people have, and I was happy. But Mikey returned from his first trip with another announcement, or whatever it’s called when your partner comes home, picks up your baby girl and says, “We should move to Aberdeen.”

  Actually, I’m not being fair here. I’d known a move north was on the cards when I moved in with him – before that, even. Aberdeen is the oil capital, so it wasn’t as big a shock as I’m making it out to be, especially in view of the offshore job. But I was shocked all the same.

  “Up North?” I said. “What do you want to live there for all of a sudden?”

  “I’ve been thinking. It’s where the heliport is, obviously. I’ll get more time at home. But mostly I thought we could get ourselves a nice little place in the countryside somewhere. It’s beautiful up there, you should see it.” He moved Isla to his shoulder. She curled into it, in her pink Babygro, like a brooch made of blancmange. “With what we could get for this place, we could buy a converted steading or an old church or a gamekeeper’s cottage, whatever, as long as it’s not too big. But something special, a dream place for a family. Think of all that fresh air.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.”

  “I have.” He knelt down on the floor in front of me. “I want this for us, Shone. It’ll be an adventure. We can buy a jeep, find somewhere incredible, a real fairy tale place in the woods.” He took my hand, eyes full of excitement, and kissed my knuckles.

  “There’s countryside outside Glasgow, you know.” But even as I said it, I knew it was a non-starter. Once he came off the rotation, and he would eventually, his job would always be Aberdeen-based. What would we do then? Not like he could commute from Ayrshire, was it? Fly from Loch Lomond, catch the red-eye from Bute or Argyll. No, I was the journalist, I was the one whose job was flexible. And the sooner we moved, the sooner I could take steps to set up something for myself, professionally and personally.

  “We can have big parties,” he said, squeezing my fingers till they hurt. “Hell, we’ll have ceilidhs! ‘Where?’ I hear you cry. ‘In the barn, silly. The barn next to the farmhouse.’”

  “Aye, right.” I giggled, caught up in his dream for us all.

  “It’ll be brilliant.” He kissed me hard on the mouth. “Swear to God. It’ll be amazing.”

  Mikey could probably sell soup to Baxter’s, ice cream to old Farmer Mackie, teacakes to Tunnock’s. And I guessed he was playing the big man, the big pater familias, and that the role was still new to him. I suppose, looking back, I was playing the little woman. If I’m guilty of something, maybe it’s that.

  FIVE

  If he’d told me before I got pregnant that we were moving away from my family, my job and all my friends, I’d have told him to get lost and I’d have used stronger language than that. I’d never have left Glasgow. No way. I’d heard Aberdonians turned off the grill while they flipped the bacon over, dried out their teabags on the washing line so they could use them again.

  But as pregnancy had changed Mikey, something had grown in me too, right there in the bump, alongside Isla. A new set of priorities had been incubated, all previous imperatives cut off and tossed away with the umbilical cord. I’d wanted him, us, home at night – every night – once the baby was born. But you can’t always have what you want, can you? And here he was, offering me something different, OK, but the best he had. Where we lived was, if not immaterial, then a hell of a lot less important than love. Mikey and Isla, they were my home now.

  “We won’t do this if you don’t want to, Shone,” he said, when we were clearing up the kitchen that evening. “The two on, two off, everything. I can go in there tomorrow and say no.”

  I flapped the dishcloth at him, put my face in his and treated him to my thickest Govan. “Dinna haver, Big Man,” I said. “Takes more than a move up the road to worry me, pal.”

  He laughed and kissed me on the nose.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, and I remembered he’d said that on our first proper date. I liked that he was worried for me. I’d interviewed enough people by then to know that there were some, many even, whose sense of entitlement flowed in their veins. Hard work and gratitude flowed in mine, I think. So you might think I fell without a fight but I was … being practical. It wasn’t a question of man vs. woman, more of an arrangement to suit the larger thing, the more important thing: the family. You had to be a team in marriage, my mum always said. You’ve got to jump in with both feet or not at all. If you both dig in, where does that get you? I don’t know, thinking about it, maybe I wanted in that moment to be always and at all times the girl he’d chosen, the one he thought was amazing.

  A few nights after the Aberdeen announcement, Mikey went out for a few beers with some of his colleagues. I was barely back to my bed from feeding Isla and still awake when he came staggering into the bedroom, fell to his knees and sank his face in the duvet.

  I turned on the bedside light. “Mikey?”

  The clock said 3am. He rolled his head to the side and said, “Does it bother you we’re not married?” His voice was slurred.

  “What? What are you asking me that for?” I stared at the back of his head, black against the white bedding. “Mikey, you’ve had too much to drink, that’s all. We can get married any old time. Hey. Mikey?” He didn’t move. “Come on, don’t be like that now, all floppy and maudlin. We’re going to make a life together, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” I tried singing to him – Joni Mitchell – all about not needing an official piece of paper to keep us together. But it didn’t work. He groaned.

  I budged across the bed to him and took his head in my hands. “Hey, stupid.” His lovely brown eyes were as sad as a street urchin’s. “You’re my old man, aren’t you?”

  I can’t say it worked.

  “You’re my kindred spirit, Shone,” he droned, tears filling his eyes. “My soulmate. You get it, you really get it, do you know what I mean? You get me.”

  Typical pished-up conversation, except it was one-sid
ed because all I’d had was one can of stout at teatime and a hot chocolate before bed to help with milk production. Sacred cow, me.

  It had rained while Valentina and I had been indoors. In the front garden, the grass shone, giving off that fresh, cleansed smell you get after a good downpour. We climbed back into the jeep.

  “So, how did you meet your fella?” I asked once we were on the road.

  “I met him in a club in London,” she said, drawing finger pictures in the steam on the car window.

  “London? How come you were there?”

  “I was travelling and one of my backpack buddies had this friend who was in a band. They were playing in some pub so I went along. Red was lead guitar and yes, I let him pluck my strings.”

  I smiled. “Red?”

  “Because of his red hair. I guess that’s one thing we have in common.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I met Mikey in a smelly pub in Glasgow. He was wearing old lady foundation and had a very dodgy beard.”

  “Oh, don’t be fooled,” she replied, still drawing on the car window. “I thought he was so cool. It was only after he’d knocked me up and put a ring on my finger that I found out his real name was Graham.”

  “Would you still have married him if you’d known?” I joked.

  “Never.” Her laugh, when it came, was hollow.

  I didn’t say any more but after a moment she stopped with the window art and went on. “I thought he was so genuine, you know?” Her voice had become louder, too loud for the car, the anger in it palpable. “I thought he was this free spirit, but he’s not free, he’s lazy. Smokes his dope, talks about ... oh, he talks and talks and smokes and smokes and talks about all the things he’s going to do. All of it future tense. He’s a man with plans.” She turned to me and rolled her eyes.

  “Does he work?”

  “I suppose you could call it that. In a vintage record store, you know, while he waits for a record deal to drop out of the sky?”

  “I love music,” I said, trying to sound positive. “I’ll have to check out his store. Whereabouts is it? What’s it called?”

  But she’d gone back to her finger painting, as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “Michael has a proper job,” she said after a moment. “He has a career.”

  “Mikey, you mean? Aye. But the whole offshore thing is far from ideal, especially with a little one.”

  “I know what you mean.” She turned to me, her face soft with sympathy.

  I felt a stab of irritation. No, not a stab, that’s too strong, a needle. I wanted to ask her what the hell she thought she knew about living half your life without your other half – which, thinking about it, would’ve been a bit of a mouthful.

  “I get lonely,” I said instead. “Especially out at the cottage. I’m used to noise. That’s why I booked Isla into the nursery. I’m going to get some work once she’s settled.”

  “Absolutely. Never give up your independence, Shona. Any woman who gives up work is an idiot.”

  I gave her a sideways glance, saw her mouth drop open.

  “I didn’t mean you! You’ve had the move and everything. I just mean you can’t put your feet up and rely on it all working out, that’s all. That’s a fool’s paradise.”

  “I wouldn’t call it paradise and I hardly ever put my feet up,” I said, with more irritation that I would’ve liked. “And I would’ve said all those things before I had Isla. I would’ve said them right up until the moment Mikey said he was going offshore. And I tell you what, I’m much more tired after a day with Isla than I ever was after a day at the paper.” I could feel my belly heating with anger. “And I’ll tell you something else, Mikey’s as dependent on me as I am on him. There’s no way he could do what he does and still have everything he has if it wasn’t for me.”

  “Truth, Sister. But no one pays you, do they?”

  “I know and that’s not ideal, but we need to respect each other’s choices, don’t we? Women, I mean? The world would be a much better place if we did.” I was on my soapbox now, right enough. “No one criticises a man for staying at home. No one criticises a man for having a demanding career. They get lauded, whatever they do. Whichever choice they make is a noble act. When it’s a man.”

  I wanted to add, well, so much more, but she was looking at me with the kind of concerned expression you give someone who’s about to jump off a bridge, so I simply said, “I reckon, if you’re going to be with someone, at some point you’ve got to trust each other, haven’t you? Trust. That’s really what it’s about.”

  We made our way down to the main road, past the horse in the field, grazing away. My lonely little houyhnhnm.

  “So, talking of work,” I said. “What do you do?”

  She knitted her hands, pushed them out in front of her then raised them up in a stretch.

  “I’m a yoga teacher,” she said, “and a trainee reflexologist. Do you know every part of the sole of your foot corresponds to a part of your body?”

  I nodded. I thought everyone knew that, but I let her tell me all about it anyway. She was thinking about learning crystals too, she told me. I tried not to snigger. Things like that crack me up.

  “I’ll do your feet next time,” she said as we neared town.

  “You’re on. Get my chakras in order, they’re a bloody mess.”

  But again, she didn’t seem to be listening. She twisted in her seat and looked through the back window of the car, as if we were being chased by the police or something.

  She turned back, looked intently ahead. “We should go faster,” she said, patting the dashboard with both hands.

  “Ach, I think the limit’s forty along here.”

  Her green eyes flashed, wild gems in glancing torchlight. “No one’s looking. Go on, Shona. Put your frickin’ foot down, girl. It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m fine like this, to be honest. The road’s bendy and we’re almost in town.”

  “I know but we could go a little bit faster, don’t you think? Come on. Let’s be crazy. We’ll be mums again in five minutes.”

  I put my foot down, took the car up to forty-five, forty-seven, forty-nine.

  “Faster,” she said, laughing.

  My chest tightened. I didn’t want to let her down. I was too lonely, too glad of her friendship. But I’m not a total idiot.

  “No,” I said, slowing into the last bend. “It’s not safe.”

  “Suit yourself.” She pushed out her bottom lip, like a child. But she wasn’t a child.

  Moving up this way took longer to organise than we’d originally thought, on account of Mikey being away so much and of course having the baby. He was constantly online looking at properties, even going up to Aberdeen at weekends to look at anything promising. He took on that responsibility because I was still breastfeeding Isla, still dozy with the sleepless nights. But all throughout that time, we plotted constantly together: what we would do, where we would live. Cuddled up in front of the fake coal fire at the flat, we decided to stick to that pie in the sky idea of buying something in the country. We made our life the thing of fairy stories.

  “Two city slickers heading straight for the wilds of Aberdeenshire,” Mikey said.

  “We must be mad.”

  We laughed at ourselves, threw a belated welcome to the world party for Isla and told our pals the news. You’ll never hack it, they said. You two, up there? Are you for real? I’ll gie yer one hard winter – you’ll be running back here, begging them to let you back in. Mikey took it on the chin – that kind of banter is in his blood too – it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just the way we talk. But they were right enough about the countryside – it was a screwball idea. I don’t know what possessed us.

  I blame the house.

  If I hadn’t seen the cottage, we’d probably have moved into a nice enough flat in town, one of those sturdy granite places that glittered in the sunshine. I would never’ve had to dig through half a mile of snow in a morning to reach the post box at the end of my o
wn drive. But I can remember so clearly when Mikey told me he’d found this great place. He’d been up in Aberdeen for three days, frantically trying to find something, and he called me in the morning to tell me to get myself and Isla on a train as soon as I could. He met us at the station, practically bursting with excitement, drove us through town and out into the countryside. What I remember most about the drive was the slow birthing of the car from the granite body of the city, out into a world of limitless green. Land as far as the eye could see, the sweep of fields to the left, short, thick boundary posts making my eyes flick flick flick as we passed; to the right, the river, wide and muscular, flashing from between clumps of woodland. I remember that, and how hyper Mikey was.

  “This is an unbelievable stroke of luck,” he said. “The buyers have pulled out and it goes back on the market tomorrow. Right place right time, Shone. I told the estate agent four o’clock. Wait till you see it.” We twisted and turned and eventually came up this potholed track. “Mum and Dad’ll tide us over until we sell the Glasgow place so if you like it we can move fast.”

  I was about to argue that I didn’t think we should accept any more money from his parents when I saw it. It kind of peeped out from beneath the boughs as if it’d been expecting us and, actually, we were a wee bit late. When we got to the clearing my first thought was: this is it, this is my home. My second thought was: where are all the neighbours? My third: what’s the catch?

  We got out of the car. The estate agent was standing outside waiting, dressed in a red skirt suit and looking more than a bit like an air hostess.

  “Good afternoon.” She glanced at her notes. “Mr. and Mrs. Quinn, was it?”

  We nodded and said hello – no point correcting her.

  “And this is your second viewing?”

  Mikey grinned at me, made a silly face, then looked back to her. “My second. Shona’s first.”

  The woman checked her clipboard, a crimson circle appearing on each of her cheeks.

  “Where is everybody anyway?” Mikey was looking all around him, hands on his hips. “I meant to ask last time – where exactly is the nearest house?”