1986
She sometimes felt as if her writhing thoughts were a nest of snakes inside her head. From time to time one would raise its ugly head and hiss and spit venom.
That was happening now, with the poison of rage flooding her veins and making a mockery of all the anger management classes she’d been forced to undergo. She’d had enough of being told what to do, more than enough, enough to the point where she felt she might explode.
She daren’t, though. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands so hard that later she would find neat, bloody crescents right across them.
He’d said no, the bastard. Just flatly, no, this young man with his earnest gaze, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the chair in her living room. It wasn’t the way he usually talked. They were trained to be professionally sympathetic.
Feeble, she called it. She despised him and she certainly wasn’t going to take this from him. She gave him a sideways look, the one she had perfected long ago, the ‘drop dead’ look.
It flustered him. ‘Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way. But really, you mustn’t. It’s just that for your own sake you can’t do it. It would be crazy.’
‘So I’m crazy.’ Her voice was flat.
He was starting to sound desperate. ‘Look, I can’t understand why you would want to do it. You’d be signing your own death warrant.’
She shrugged. ‘You can’t stop me, can you? The condition is that I report, right?’ She wasn’t as certain as she sounded.
‘Well, I suppose that’s true, there are no actual injunctions, but—’
She got up. ‘That’s it, then. I’m going.’
That forced him to get up too. ‘I’ll have to take this up with my line manager,’ he was bleating as she showed him the door.
She shut it behind him. She’d be long gone by the time he came back and without direct legal authority they wouldn’t risk removing her against her will. She’d only have to threaten to scream the place down and they’d back off.
She went to the phone. Her daughter was watching some sort of dumb kids’ programme in the corner and she said, ‘Switch that thing off!’
The girl eyed her thoughtfully, looking for storm signals. Apparently finding them, she stopped. The expression on her face was too old for her years as she watched her mother pick up the phone.
He’d been waiting for the call; he sounded impatient too.
‘Well?’
‘I told him.’
‘What did he say?’
‘No. But I told him he couldn’t actually stop me and he admitted it. So that’s it.’
His voice warmed. ‘Well done, girl. Start packing.’
She felt the warm glow of his approval, but as she put down the phone, another snake stirred.
She didn’t really want to go back to Scotland – certainly not back to Galloway. She was tired of moving around and yes, she was scared. But he wanted her to move back. He needed her. He’d never said that before.
He was her centre, the core of her being. Girlfriends could be counted on the thumb of one hand; motherhood was just something that happened to you. But him …
He’d lied to her, cheated on her, abandoned her. And worse, much worse. Without him, her life would have been – well, she’d long ago decided not to go there. She’d vowed before that she was finished with him, but this time he’d promised it would be different and she almost believed him – almost.
The nasty thought, that it was hardly the first time he’d said that, popped into her mind and she had to force it back into the snake pit. It was different. He was different. He needed her, wanted her to be with him. It made her feel as if someone had wrapped a warm, fluffy blanket round her thin shoulders.
She went to her bedroom and dragged the suitcases down off the top of the wardrobe.