Chapter 6
The next day, Skye curled up on the snuggler armchair with a book from Paolo’s amply stocked shelves. After a walk, and exchanging texts with Houda, she had returned to his flat via the café where she picked up two doughnuts and a coffee. Once back, she had emailed Tanya, explained she had been sick, which was true, and was still feeling slightly unwell — which was also kind of true — and thought it prudent to stay out of the office for forty-eight hours, and said that she would be back on Thursday. Tanya had delegated her request to nice Norah, who had sent a standard response, adding that she hoped Skye felt better soon.
Skye envisioned her orderly desk, the day’s paperwork piled high in the in-tray, pens and pencils and notepad lined up, her litre bottle of water and a bag of almonds in case she was snacky. At the thought, it felt like she had swallowed a stone.
How was she going to be able to show her face there again? Not only would she be known as the girl who flunked her test, but Will would be there too, a constant reminder of the hubris she had shown in thinking she had that area of life worked out. Perhaps they would hand her a cardboard box and demand she clear out her belongings.
For a brief moment that wasn’t a wholly unpleasant image, but Skye hastily brushed it aside. She had worked hard to get to where she was. There was no space for self-doubt. And even if she did occasionally ponder her suitability for her future role in the corporate department, she would be an idiot not to take it up. Despite working on weekends and holidays all through uni, taking back-to-back shifts in a bar to try to cover the costs of her course, accommodation and living expenses, she had still accrued significant debts she had to pay off. And then there were the other benefits at the firm, which she was fortunate to have, the private healthcare cover, the pension. It was a secure role, with prospects, and besides, it taxed her intellectually, fulfilling her love of research and fine detail. She would be mad to throw it away.
An hour later, with Paolo’s cat, Ginger, on her lap, she had shaken off these thoughts and was engrossed in Pride and Prejudice . She hadn’t read for ages. Or at all.
When it had been assigned to read in school she had dossed around in lessons and never really finished it. Thank heavens for the CliffsNotes. A mine of useful information and a decent shortcut if you hadn’t done the work. When she got top grades in her Highers, it also gave her a chance to laugh internally at her father, Robert, who at several points during study leave would recite that part of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven, about taking the easy route and being damned.
Once a Religious Education teacher, a role to which he had brought fervent enthusiasm, he had become a headmaster when Skye was ten.
It wasn’t only prayers before bedtime with him, or grace at mealtimes, or church on Sunday — most of which Skye recused herself from as she got older — God’s will had to be done and his influence permeated her father’s every pore. Skye had often wondered if he’d ever had an original thought in his life.
What would her parents make of yesterday’s disaster? She still hadn’t replied to that text, and the guilt turned her mouth dry.
Not least because her mum, Liz, would be sympathetic. They were close, and her mum’s years as a school nurse meant she possessed an unflappability that most people could only dream of. Pupils could be rioting, burning down the school — not Skye in this instance, she was relieved to reflect — and Mum would still address them with the low, calm voice she summoned when someone was having a migraine.
Part of Skye wanted to call her mum and tell her about yesterday. Tell her about Will, and her worries about work, but — even though her mum was never ruffled — Skye didn’t want to offload problems on her. Not before she had tried to work through them herself.
Robert Edmonds, though? He would be thoroughly disappointed. Their relationship was so much more stable now, but even after all this time, now as she hurtled towards her thirties, she knew he would react to this in the same way he reacted to the most minor infractions she made as a child: with accusations, recriminations and then blistering silence. Frustration started to course through her body.
She wondered if her mum was right and that the root of their conflict was simply that they were both quite similar. They were both a bit stubborn, intent on ensuring their point of view won out, even though it didn’t have to be a competition . . .
She had tried for so long to move onwards and upwards, but the idea that Skye and her father would never quite see eye to eye always hung at the back of her mind, along with the knowledge that she had been far from the perfect teen. And she had reverted to being far from perfect. Perhaps her father was right. Perhaps that was just her.
Once she had rediscovered education — with that initial helping hand from those Highers shortcuts — and found her metier, Skye was unstoppable. She practically lived in the library at uni. She loved diving into her essay topics, often writing double the word count required. Novels, however, she had not quite found her way back to. Today, though, she was taking a step to change that.
She had just turned the page, when the door opened. Skye looked up, and gave Ginger a stroke, before he leapt down from her knees and went to wind himself around Paolo’s ankle.
‘Hi, Paolo.’ She smiled. ‘I got you a doughnut. It’s in the bag on the side.’
‘Ta!’ Paolo hung up his satchel and reached down to give Ginger a quick stroke. ‘What are you reading?’
He grabbed a plate and the doughnut from the kitchen and sat on the sofa opposite. The cat followed him, curling up into a soft ball of fluff atop a cushion. Skye held the book up in front of her. ‘This wondrous classic.’
‘Have you read it before?’
‘Yes. No. Not really. I mean, I studied it for English, but I skimmed it and mainly watched the films and crammed.’
Paolo gawped at her. ‘But it’s one of the best books ever written in the English language. How on earth could you have skimmed it?’
Skye felt a funny twist in her gut. Every so often, especially when she was in a low mood, a twinge of guilt ran through her, about how she had wasted so much time acting up, pretending she didn’t want to study — or worse, actually not studying — and defying her parents at every opportunity.
She gave Paolo a little shrug. ‘My friends and I . . . I guess for a while there reading wasn’t the done thing.’
‘What? Reading ?’ Paolo was aghast.
‘Cooperating. Behaving. Learning.’ She said it jokingly but felt another ripple of shame.
‘Wow. I didn’t expect that. Not from someone who’s training to be a lawyer.’
Skye managed a half-smile. ‘I was a bit of a wild teenager. My final term of school, in which I did said cramming, was a turning point . . .’ After The Event to End All Events . . . Skye swallowed hard. ‘Luckily, my Highers results were significantly better than anyone expected and so, after a couple of gap years, I got into uni. Got a second chance and took it seriously.’
‘So you were quite a nightmare?’
‘By most people’s standards, yeah. A real rebel without a cause — although occasionally I did have a cause. I wanted to stick two fingers up to all the injustice of the world. Like poverty, and war and climate change, or anything to do with animal rights. But I also wasted a lot of time, you know, like, smoking, skiving, partying. Well, some of it was a bit fun,’ she said, with a small smile.
‘Well, you turned it around, didn’t you.’
Skye sighed. ‘Really? I’ve run away from work at a critical juncture. I’m no more together now than I was a decade ago. I’ve gone back to being impulsive and a little directionless. And . . . well, that’s it really.’
She wanted to mention Will, come clean about him too, but the thought of saying his name brought back that flinch in her stomach.
‘Being impulsive isn’t a bad thing,’ Paolo suggested. ‘Gut instincts and all that.’
‘Yes, but not when it lands you in hot water,’ Skye scoffed quietly.
Paolo came over to the snuggler, picked up the Jane Austen and wedged himself next to her. ‘I hate the term “snuggler” but this thing is perfect when you need a hug. And you look like you need a hug?’
Skye rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Yup. Thanks, Paolo. And thanks for taking me in. I’m taking your kindness as a sign I am supposed to be in Eastercraig.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ he said.
Skye let out a laugh. ‘You know, when I was younger, I used to talk about signs all the time, to wind up my father. The universe would show me the way. I probably put too much emphasis on them, used them to deny my own responsibility, but maybe it doesn’t matter. What I’d love right now is a sign telling me what to do about work.’
‘Have you called your office yet?’ he asked.
Skye made a face. ‘I can’t even think which greeting to use when picking up the phone. I sent a cowardly email instead.’
‘Don’t worry, it’ll come.’ Paolo tactfully changed the subject, ‘Did you go for your walk earlier?’
Skye felt herself brighten at this. ‘Yes. It was great, but no further encounter with Angry-handsome Man.’
The previous night, after unpacking, she had told Paolo about her trip to the rock, and the man she had seen there. Then, that morning, she had hiked back up, and lain on the rock for an hour, listening to the gulls screeching and enjoying the tickle of the breeze on her skin.
As she had powered purposefully along the coast path, she told herself she was returning there because it was her rock, that she would find some answers there. A puckish voice in her ear, however, told her she also wanted to see if the stranger with the captivating eyes was there again.
A glint appeared in Paolo’s eye. ‘You realize that he might be exactly the kind of distraction you need.’
Skye grimaced internally. Judging from her most recent interaction with the opposite sex, she might benefit from some time off men, as well as work.
‘I don’t know his name. Anyway, cheap burger. Initially enticing but left a nasty aftertaste.’
Paolo laughed. ‘That doesn’t matter with distractions. They’re to keep you occupied until you get back to your usual day-to-day.’
Skye pushed the focus back on to Paolo, keen not to slip to the subject of Will. ‘Do you have a day-to-day?’
Paolo heaved a sigh. ‘Nope. You?’
She shook her head. She saw Will again pressed against an auburn-haired beauty, half sprawled across the desk, perhaps in a rehearsal for his evening performance.
All those times he had cancelled last minute, leaving Skye alone at dinner, or wondering whether she still ought to go to the hotel they’d booked. Had those been part of the deception?
Another work crisis , Will would say, full of regret. Or: There’s a client in London, I’ve said I’ll go, seeing as it might be big money. Or once: I’ve been drafted to a meeting at the New York office. It’s a couple of days, but I might stay the weekend and catch up with an old friend.
Skye flared with humiliation once more. Houda had sent Skye a link earlier, accompanied by a content warning, and Skye had opened it, heart hammering. There, looking as glamorous as she did in real life, was The Woman.
Skye scanned her credentials and decided she deserved the capitalization. The Woman was incredible. Head of family law at a firm in London, some noteworthy cases, a top-class show jumper and skier in her teens and early twenties. It made Skye feel sick all over again. All the time Skye thought she was in a committed relationship, Will was having it off with someone whose CV sounded like a work of fiction. Or worse, having it off with her.
Either way, none of Will’s sweet nothings held water when he’d probably been whispering the same ones to someone else. It was somehow worse that he was whispering them to a woman Skye could never compete with. When she confessed this to Houda, Houda had replied that Skye had everything going for her apart from dubious taste in men and the tendency to trash talk herself.
‘No day-to-day here,’ said Skye, finally. ‘Shall I go out and get some things and make supper? I can make a decent carbonara.’
Paolo gritted his teeth. ‘Alas, no. First, we are going to the pub and we’ll grab some supper there. Sun is out and so are we. Second, I’m afraid decent carbonara doesn’t cut it. As an Italian, I only eat amazing pasta. Besides, you’re my guest and I’m going to look after you.’
‘But you barely know me — and I’ve been an abysmal guest. I basically passed out last night after one glass of wine and an episode of Eastenders .’
‘Yes. But I now know you were a juvenile delinquent, and you can fill me in with the rest of your life story over a bevvie. Besides, we hugged.’
Skye smiled. ‘Reckon I could manage a gin.’