What had that done to him?
At first, Nick had acted like he was amused by Lulu’s attempts to ‘psychoanalyse’ him, as he put it. Now, he just shut her down.
When they eventually moved apart, he lifted a hand to her face and smiled at her and said, ‘I’m sorry, Lu. I didn’t mean to add to your stress.’
‘You haven’t. You could never do that. When I’m with you, all the stress goes away.’
‘I just want you to be safe.’
She nodded, she smiled, she stroked the thick, soft hair at his temples. ‘I know. Oh, Nick, I know. But I am safe.’ She pulled him back into a fierce hug. ‘You’re not going to lose me.’ Like you lost them remained unspoken in the cool, river-smelling air that eddied around them. ‘I am safe.’
2
Maggie - August 1997
As Duncan turned into the drive and smiled at her and said, ‘Welcome home,’ Maggie managed to smile back, but God, it took all she had. Ten minutes ago, about a mile out of Langholm, she’d been forced to ask him to stop the car so she could get out and piss at the side of the road. She’d blamed the baby squashing her bladder, but it had been pure nerves. There she’d squatted, bare arse glowing like a beacon in the evening sunshine, as a couple of cars had passed by. One had slowed right down. She was hoping it might just have been a pervert, but knowing her luck it would turn out to be one of Duncan’s neighbours.
Oh, ugh – no, children, don’t look.
That’s not the common little thing Duncan Clyde’s got himself married to, is it?
It is!
Oh dear God.
And now she’d better subtly check that the folds of her maternity dress hadn’t got trapped in her pants, like had happened on the cruise. She smoothed the cheap floral polyester under her legs. Naw, she was fine. Well, not fine. She looked terrible. It was like this dress and Duncan’s crisp white shirt and navy chinos shouldn’t exist in the same universe, let alone the same couple.
The honeymoon had really brought home how far out of her league Duncan was. Maggie had expected the cruise to be all about stuffing your face and lounging in the sun and being deafened by the cabaret, but it hadn’t been that kind of ship. It had been a ‘boutique’ cruise with less than a hundred passengers, ninety per cent snobby bastards. The food was magic, aye, but there was no cabaret, just lectures on the botany and archaeology of the places they stopped off at. And none of the other women were wearing polyester maternity dresses from a dodgy market or leggings from Topshop, and Maggie had had to keep washing out her new East sundress and hanging it up to drip-dry in the lav so she could wear it again. Duncan said he didn’t care what she wore, but how could that be true?
Any minute now, he was going to do a double take and realise this wasn’t his classy wife Kathleen sitting next him, this was some wee minger from Paisley that had got herself up the duff to worm her way in and needed kicking into touch pronto.
Maggie wished she could stop thinking about Kathleen, but she’d only died eighteen months ago and they’d been together forever, so how could he be over her? And what would Kathleen be thinking if she could see Duncan now, married to wee Maggie McPhee and all excited to be bringing her here, to Sunnyside, to the home Kathleen had lovingly created with her blood, sweat and tears?
Maggie felt bad for the woman, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t secretly going Yes! inside as the Range Rover purred round the side of the massive, massive house and there was the lawn stretching down to the shrubbery and the bonnie fields and woods, like something out of Midsomer Murders if you didn’t look too closely at the big bleak hilltop at the back of the view. Maggie didn’t like that hill, with the rocks and heather at the top. It always made her think of Billy McLetchie that used to live in the flat above Ma’s, and the bloody scabs sticking out his greasy hair.
But the house was amazing. The summer evening sun was hitting the stonework, making it glow pink like a Disney palace.
She rested her hand on her belly.
This wee one was going to have it all, growing up here in the lap of luxury. He or she would have a ma and da and big brother that loved them, and bought them more toys than they could ever play with, and let them choose whatever sweets they liked in the shops. They weren’t going to be stunted because they were malnourished. They were never going to have to pick manky cold chips and chicken wings up off the pavement that folk had dropped the night before and eat them because their ma was lying in the flat in her own piss, out her face on drugs.