Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller (7 page)

“
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-sided 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 own 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?”

“
The nearest dwelling is away half a mile up the road,” the estate agent said, waving her hand over to where the lane continued into murky tree shadow. “There’s a new development being built a few miles south and there’s a chapel up over the other side of the fields.”

I thought about electricity, heating. I thought about plumbing, telephone lines. What did it all connect to? But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to appear stupid.

I’d seen the countryside before, of course I had, I’m not saying I hadn’t. I’d even asked for walking boots for my twenty-first birthday. OK, they were still in the box but I was always determined to embrace things that hadn’t necessarily been part of my own childhood: long walks, Sunday lunch out, country living. Not in a snobbish way, I’m proud of where I’m from. Just to be open, you know? Not let myself be limited. So no, the countryside wasn’t new to me, it was more that I hadn’t thought in any depth about the practicalities. But here it was, this house, standing there like it was already mine.