Right!
She opens Excel on her computer, and various boxes flash up at her, asking to be updated. She cancels them all. Maybe Jonny was right; she should have gone to meet the ‘Pick Your Own’ farmer to talk about taking on their waste raspberries instead of Jonny. He’d probably build them a financial template in half an hour. But she’d felt fractious and cold this morning, the change from summer to autumn in her bones, and she wanted to cave it up. Staying in Jonny’s warm cottage with Dennis snoring in his basket was much more appealing than going out in the rain to look at soggy raspberries.
She must be hormonal. She makes a cup of tea. Jonny always has camomile, her favourite. She flicks the radio on.
The free-template table options on the screen in front of her blur. Maybe she’s going about this wrong. She should first organise all the scraps of paper and then try and figure out how to record them on the computer. She closes her laptop and moves it to the end of the table. Jack would take the piss if he saw her faffing like this.
Over the last month, his weekdays have become a complete mystery to her. He usually leaves before Cassie’s awake. A damp towel from his shower and already-hot water in the kettle from his first coffee is the only proof he was home at all. He spends his days in site meetings, talking about things like steel reinforcements and sewage connections, and speeding up to London to meet potential new clients. Everyone wants to do building work in summer so it’s always the busiest time for him. He usually doesn’t come home until after 9 p.m. She’s quiet in the evenings, especially after an event, pretending to be more sober than she feels. Charlotte thinks it’s good they’re both busy. She hugged Cassie for a long time when they told her; Charlotte said miscarriage is sometimes sadly part of having a baby.
They just need to keep trying she said.
Cassie’s organised the papers into a pile and taps the bottom edge against the table, a pretence at order.
Her feet feel chilled on the stone floor. She lifts them to her chair, rubs them, but it doesn’t make any difference.
Dennis raises his head from the basket as the stairs creak under Cassie as she makes her way up to Jonny’s bedroom in search of socks. She’s worn some alpaca ones of his before, a gift from Lorna a few years ago, when they were still in love. She opens a drawer and sits on the unmade bed to roll them on.
Dennis is waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She picks up the pile of papers again.
Right. Now she’ll divide it into income and outgoings.
But she remembers she hasn’t replied to a text from Nicky that came through earlier that morning. Can’t wait to see you, what time will you be home? xxx, her friend had written.
She was coming down from London tonight for the weekend, a long overdue catch-up. Cassie thought about calling her a few times since the miscarriage, but Nicky was in New York for a whole month over the summer, partly for her new job as Executive Assistant to a self-made web entrepreneur and partly for a holiday. It didn’t seem right crying over the phone when Nicky was finally on the up and, besides, Jonny had been there for Cassie.
She types, Me too! It’s been forever, home about 6ish. What time does your train get in? Text Jack, he said he’d pick you up after work xxx The message makes a whoosh sound as it sends.
Laying the two piles of paperwork in front of her, she opens her computer again and chooses a template, one that separates the rows into dates, starting from today and counting back.
God, is it really the middle of October already? She scrolls down the document, counts eleven weeks since the miscarriage. She hasn’t told Jack that she’s spoken to Marcus on the phone a couple of times. Neither of them mentioned the argument. He sounded better on the phone, but she still should find a time to go and visit him. Even bringing up Marcus’s name still makes Jack thunderous; she knows Jack blames Marcus for the miscarriage. She can’t be arsed having that argument again, trying to defend Marcus to Jack. He just needs time. Nothing bad has happened to him since he was fourteen, it’s understandable the miscarriage shook him up. Staring at all those neatly rowed days and weeks since her miscarriage, Cassie realises her last period was an unfeasibly long time ago. Cassie looks at the calendar on her phone. The hair on her body rises and her skin prickles as she realises she’s completely neglected to keep track.
Oh my god!
She has to get home, get home before Nicky arrives so she can do a pregnancy test, find out for certain one way or the other. She doesn’t know whether she’s thrilled or terrified, or both? She pulls on her walking boots she left on the back doorstep.
‘Sorry, Dennis, you’re staying here.’ His tail drops as she holds him back and closes the door in front of his nose. She puts the spare key back in its place under the mat; she’ll message Jonny later to explain that she had to dash off.
She pulls her hood up, the rain patters loudly against the thin shell of her bright-red waterproof. She decides to go along the lane; it’s the quickest way, the stream bubbling like a cauldron by her side. She keeps going over the dates again and again in her head. Each time she’s at least three weeks late.
How had she not noticed?
Cassie knows there are a couple of tests left over from last time in their en-suite. It’s only 4.30 p.m., far too early for Jack to be home. He hasn’t been back before 7 p.m. for weeks so she’ll run straight upstairs, do the test and know either way before he collects Nicky from the station. Perfect.
The rain is getting into its pace, flowing freely, hitting the earth rhythmic as a metronome. She steps over a couple of newly made puddles as she turns into their driveway, breaking into a little jog at the end of the drive. There’s a light on in the sitting room. Strange; she’s usually good at turning everything off. As she gets closer, she sees a figure move like a ghost downstairs. The windowpanes have tiny vertical rivers of rain running down them; the person’s image is distorted and stretched by the water. As she gets closer, she recognises Jack’s broad outline.
He must be ill; there’s no way he’d be home otherwise.