“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Having cleared up the mess and heated some more milk, Laura sat at the table cradling her warm mug. She could feel the clouds gathering about her and the ground slipping beneath her feet. There was a storm coming, of that she was certain. It wasn’t just the neighbors who were troubling her, it was Anthony too. Over the past weeks something had changed. His physical decline was gradual, inevitable with age, but there was something else. An indefinable shift. She felt as though he was pulling away from her like a disenchanted lover secretly packing a suitcase, preparing to leave. If she lost Anthony, then she would lose Padua too, and together they offered her asylum from the madness that was the real world.
Since her divorce from Vince, the precious few bearings that had set her course through life had drifted away. Having given up university and the chance of a writing career to marry Vince, she had hoped for children and all that motherhood would bring, and later, perhaps, an Open University degree. But none of these had happened. She had fallen pregnant just once. The prospect of a child had temporarily shored up their already crumbling marriage. Vince had spared no expense and completed the nursery in a single weekend. The following week Laura had miscarried. The next few years were spent doggedly trying to replace the child that was never born. The sex became grim and dutiful. They subjected themselves to all the necessary invasive and undignified medical interventions to determine where the problem lay, but the results were all normal. Vince became angry more than sad that he couldn’t have what he thought he wanted. Eventually, and by then to Laura’s relief, the sex stopped altogether.
It was then that she began to plan her escape. When she had married Vince, he insisted that she had no need to work, and by the time it became clear that she was not going to be a mother, Laura’s lack of experience and qualifications were a significant problem when she began looking for a job. And she had needed a job, because she needed money. She needed money to leave Vince. Laura just wanted enough to get a flat and be able to keep herself; to slip away one day when Vince was at work and then divorce him from a safe distance. But the only job she could get was part-time and low paid. It wasn’t enough and so she started writing, dreaming of a best seller. She worked on her novel every day for hours, always hiding any evidence from Vince. In six months it was complete, and with high hopes Laura began submitting it to agents. Six months later, the pile of rejection letters and e-mails was almost as thick as the novel itself. They were depressingly consistent. Laura’s writing had more style than substance. She wrote “beautifully” but her plot was too “quiet.” In desperation, she answered an advertisement in a women’s magazine. It guaranteed an income for writers who could produce short stories to a specific format for a niche publication which was enjoying a rapidly expanding readership. The deposit for Laura’s flat was eventually paid for by an embarrassing and extensive catalog of cloying erotica written for Feathers, Lace and Fantasy Fiction—“a magazine for hot women, with burning desires.”
When she began working at Padua, Laura stopped writing. The short stories were, thankfully, no longer necessary to provide an income and her novel ended up in the recycling bin. She had lost all confidence to begin another. In her darkest moments, Laura wondered to what extent she had engineered her own failures. Had she become an habitual coward, afraid to climb in case she fell? At Padua with Anthony she didn’t have to think about it. The house was her emotional and physical fortress, and Anthony her shining knight.
She poked with her fingertip at the skin forming on the surface of her hot chocolate as it cooled. Without Anthony and Padua she would be lost.
CHAPTER 5