Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller (6 page)

“
Sorry I’m so late.” He leant against the countertop, crossed his feet and held out one of the beer bottles to me.

“
No thanks,” I said, unable to keep my face straight.

“
Why are you smiling like that?”

I turned down the gas and faced him full on. “You know how you said you wanted to have kids?”

“
One day, yeah.” He tipped the bottle to his lips.

“
One day in about, oh, I don’t know, six months?”

He took the bottle away so fast it foamed at the neck. His eyes widened. Face the colour of stone, he stepped backwards. “What?”

“
I’m pregnant.”

He backed into the kitchen table, hard, as if I’d punched him in the stomach. Felt around the edge as if he were needing to grip onto something to steady himself. The beer froth slid like saliva down the length of the green bottle.

“
Are you no’ pleased?” I helped him into the chair.

He began to pant, low and shallow. I took the bottle from his hand, helped him put his head between his knees.

“
Mikey?” I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Mikey, darlin’, are you all right?”

“
I’m fine, I’m ...” His voice was thin, as if he were talking through a long tube.

“
Are you no’ pleased? Mikey? Talk to me.”

He reached up, took my hand and squeezed it. “It’s just. It’s just a shock, that’s all.”

“
Wait there,” I said. “I’ll get you a wee nip.”

I ran over to the shelf where we kept the only spirits we had: a bottle of Glenmorangie Mikey’s dad had brought us as a flat-warming present and one of Smirnoff. I poured a big dram of the whisky and took it to him. He’d managed to sit upright again, his brow damp, his face still greyish. He took the glass from me and knocked back the whisky.

“
Are you OK?” I asked him.

“
Yeah.” He gave me a half-smile. “I’ll have to get a proper job now, won’t I?”

I threw my arms around him and sobbed into his neck. You might think that sounds daft, or soppy, but I was so relieved. I’d thought for a minute he’d ... well, never mind what I thought. What I thought barely matters, not any more.

The next day Mikey came home with a beautiful gift: a stork made from driftwood.

“
To say sorry for needing a whisky,” he said, holding my hand on the kitchen table, stroking my knuckles with his thumb. “To say I’m happy. To say, bring it on.”

We kissed. What do you want me to say about that? It was lovely.

It was love.

He began to look for serious work. All the oil jobs were in Aberdeen, but he knew someone who worked for a consultancy here in Glasgow and said he could pick up some work there. It was contract work and meant him being away quite a bit
–
sometimes three days out of a week. I missed him, obviously, but at the end of a long day in the office nibbling on ginger snaps to stave off morning sickness, trying not to puke over my keyboard or worse, over someone I was interviewing, I didn’t mind too much that he wasn’t at home some nights to keep me up late talking
–
or the other. I was happy to crash out.

The only time I got really lonely was towards the end when I got signed off work with oedema. A risk of pre-eclampsia, the midwife said, so I had to stay at home all day with my feet in the air. That was when I realised that the main thing I liked about my job was the simple fact of going in, having a laugh and a blether, a coffee break, sometimes a cheeky cigarette out on Renfield Street. At
The Tribune
, everyone was so clever and funny, the craic was brilliant, how could I not miss it? They were more than colleagues; they were friends.

So while Mikey was away I spent most of the time on the phone to Jeanie at work, catching up on stories they were chasing, getting the gossip, or watching television with the sound on high: late morning panel shows, old movies, the lunchtime news. And it turned out I’d have to get used to Mikey being away because after Isla was born, that’s when he came home with the big announcement.

“
I’ve been offered a job,” he said. “A permanent one. Drilling Supervisor. On a platform, you know.” Coat still on, briefcase still in his hand, standing there like a tax inspector in the middle of the lounge. He wasn’t smiling, even though he’d got a proper job, which had been his aim.

“
I’d be at home less,” he went on, dropping his bag on the floor, pulling off his coat. “But it’d be good, you know, from a career perspective.”

Isla started crying. I picked her up, shushed her, put her to my breast. “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.” I couldn’t look at him, made out like Isla was having a job latching on. “What do you mean, less time at home?”

“
It’s two on, two off.”

“
What’s that?” I knew fine what it was.

“
On the platform, you know, two weeks at sea, two weeks at home.”

“
I thought you wanted to hang onto your youth,” I said. “Now you want to jump onto a floating prison once a month?”

“
But that was before the baby, Shone. Things have changed.”

“
I know they’ve changed. No one knows that more than me but that’s awful drastic, isn’t it? Offshore? I thought you wanted a work-life balance.”

“
I’ll be working towards that
–
for our future. I might have to put the hours in, you know, get something going before I ease up a bit. I don’t know why you’re being so hard on me.”

I huffed, shook my head. “I thought you said anyone who let their job take over their life lacked imagination. Your words, darlin’, not mine.”

“
Shona, come on. You don’t need to be like that. Let’s talk about it like grownups.”

“
Two weeks in four is half your life.”

“
That’s a very emotional way to put it.”

“
I am emotional, Mikey. I’ve just had a baby.”

“
OK, look.” He raised the flat of his palms to me. “Let’s stop this. I won’t take it if you don’t want me to. It’s a great opportunity, that’s all.” I was still looking at Isla, her wee head, her perfect sucking lips: kiss kiss kiss. When I eventually looked up, his eyebrows were up in his forehead somewhere, his Scouse grin showing all his teeth. I wouldn’t call him classically good-looking, more charismatic, with large features, a nineteen-fifties black and white movie face. So I always thought anyway.

“
Come on, Shone,” he said. “This is for all of us, you know it is. We’ll have more money. Well, eventually.”

“
I don’t care about money. Not like I shop in Dolce & Gabbana, is it?”

“
I know but it’s not about buying stuff, is it? It means choice.”

I remembered when Isla was born, how he had sworn all sorts of tearful allegiances to her and to me, moved to near madness by it all. These pledges included a desire to provide for us and I did see that. But I was stuck against the wall of my own stubbornness and I hadn’t figured how to get back into the room.

“
Choice for you,” I muttered, half-hearted, embarrassed.

“
Come on.” He sat down, put his arm around me, kissed my head. “I meant for you too. It’d be nice to have choices, wouldn’t it, not have to scrape a living?”

“
My parents didn’t scrape.”

“
I wasn’t talking about your parents. Christ, you’re so bloody chippy. Stop reacting and think for a second. We could be ... comfortable. Not have to worry all the time. We could make a family. We could have three kids, four, as many as you like.”

“
OK, OK.” I was smiling by now despite myself. I’d had no sleep for a month, I was daft as a brush with no sleep.

“
What do you think, Shone?”

“
It won’t stop me going back to
The Tribune
will it?”

“
Of course not. We’ll organise childcare when the time comes. And you’ve got your mum and dad to help out.”

“
It’s only for a year or two, I suppose.”

“
That’s right.”

“
I guess you’ve got to start your career sometime.”

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.