‘Ah, theythinkthey do, but, speaking from personal experience, that’s only the half of it. Something about Port Willow draws people whoneedthis place. It’s a runaway’s paradise. I came here to escape and… other people have too. Mutt’s no different. He’s here licking his wounds. He might seem all rough and tough—’
‘And sarcastic,’ Nina put in, struggling with her room key before getting her door open.
‘Well yes, but there’s so much more to him. He’s a puppy dog really.’
Nina had listened and nodded, not really knowing what Beatrice wanted her to say, and so she’d thanked her for dinner, feeling herself suddenly wanting to kiss her on the cheek like family would. She said goodnight and let Beatrice close the door on her.
That night Nina barely slept and when she did she dreamed she was by the roadside in a great white fog and instead of a big ginger Highland cow bowling her over, it was Bear, Mutt’s tumbling grey-black puppy, and she’d fallen and fallen, never actually hitting the hard tarmac, and all the time hearing a man’s pleading voice saying over and over again, ‘Stay with me, Nina. No sleeping now. We’re almost there.’
Chapter Twenty-four
The Absent Husband
The thing about not having sex with your husband when you’ve been married going on twenty-five years is it’s all too easy to forget about having sex altogether, and nobody really notices because there’s always something far more pressing to be doing like the weeding, or buying yet another birthday present for a family member, or there’s the supermarket shop, or one of you slept all evening on the sofa and then didn’t come to bed until three and by then you were fast asleep.
The thing about being thrown together overnight with your spouse of twenty-five years is the not-having-sex aspect of your relationship is all you can think about. Especially when you’re in a suggestively flouncy honeymoon suite where generations of young bucks have without doubt done the deed and probably really rather enjoyed it.
It had been a long night for entirely the wrong reasons. For a start neither of them could get to sleep, then Ruth remembered she hadn’t applied her HRT cream and had to climb down the ladder to get it, and then Mark had needed to go to the bathroom again, and then both of them were thirsty and had really fancied a cup of tea after all that champagne earlier but by then they were both pretending to be asleep with their backs turned on one another so they’d both gone thirsty until breakfast time. And in all the slow, wincing, awkward, strained seconds that passed neither Mark nor Ruth could bring themselves to wriggle a little closer under the covers and just get on with it.
Ruth had tried to fathom it. How are you supposed to skip straight to whispering sweet nothings with someone you’ve barely spoken to all month and even that was about your brother-in-law’s septic tank problems?
How are you supposed to get naked with a person who hasn’t so much as held your hand in, oh, at least five years?
Years ago, she would joke with her girlfriends – thank goodness for girlfriends – about the need for regular marriage maintenance sex. Maintenance sex was a bit like sending your car for a service to keep it roadworthy – but, these days, Ruth wasn’t quite so mouthy about the topic over the Pinot on Sunday afternoons while the men were at the golf club. None of her friends were, she’d noticed, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask if they were all in the same boat.
If Ruth’s sex lifewasa car, its road tax had well and truly expired and it was up on bricks in the driveway.
She’d been relieved when her alarm sounded that morning and she could get up and dress for breakfast, though she was well aware it was only another eleven hours until they’d be back up that ladder again.
Tonight, she knew, wouldn’t be as bad. They’d endured the first night and dodged the bullet, tonight they’d probably sleep easier. Only Ruth wasn’t really relieved. Far from it. She was woefully unhappy. This relationship needed jump starting, and she knew that’s just what Beatrice had, in her naivety, tried to encourage yesterday with her champagne and truffles and the sudden room upgrade.
Beatrice, still in the first flush of love with Atholl, couldn’t know how difficult these things were, how stultifying it was to lie there habitually untouched in your M&S nighty, listening to your husband snoring night after night. Ruth had seen Beatrice and Atholl glancing at each other with fire in their eyes. Everybody had seen it. She hoped that lovely young woman would never know what it was like to be lonely in a relationship.
Little did Ruth know that Beatrice understood what it was like only too well, and her memories of being affection-starved and careering towards divorce were the very reason she was meddling now, and for the same reasons Beatrice was excitedly clutching her notebook to her chest when Ruth had made her way into the kitchens at ten o’clock that morning, ready for her cooking lesson with Gene, instantly igniting Ruth’s suspicions that Beatrice wasn’t done playing Cupid yet.
‘Sleep well?’ Beatrice enquired, all innocence.
‘Like a log, thank you.’
‘Oh, right. Good stuff.’
She looked thoroughly put out, Ruth thought.
‘I was just saying to Gene I’d appreciate some avo toast before your lesson gets started for the day. Hope you don’t mind?’
Gene was bustling by the stoves, whistling a jaunty tune. Ever since he’d found out about the baby – after he’d stopped dabbing at his happy tears over the scan photo, loudly blowing his nose and hugging his younger brother over and over – he’d taken a very particular interest in feeding the baby nice things. It was his avuncular way of showing his love, and now he understood why Beatrice had been complaining for weeks that she found almost all drinks nauseating and she’d been craving strawberries and watermelon, difficult things to acquire over Christmas in the remote Highlands. He’d determined to find her things to eat that she’d enjoy.
His first successes had been wonderful concoctions of superfoods; blueberry smoothies, salads with seeds and raw greens, strips of seared steak with broccoli and noodles, salmon in ginger and chilli sauce; all the good stuff.
Beatrice had eaten all of it, loving every bite, and felt the queasiness that never quite seemed to go away lessening because her stomach was full.
She hadn’tdesperatelywanted Gene’s avo toast that morning, but she’d needed an excuse to catch Ruth alone.
‘Where’s Mark off to today?’ Beatrice asked, pulling up a stool by the kitchen service hatch and the little domed bell.
Ruth was tying her apron around her waist. ‘I expect he’s got phone calls to make and he’s off signal hunting.’
‘Hmm,’ Beatrice was cautious, recalling Atholl’s suspicions about Mark and all the while remembering his warning about meddling in their marriage, but it was too late now. Her dating board had been a total failure, she’d entirely given up on that as a means of making people happy, but here were two lost souls in need of some romance. It would be wrong not to help them, she reasoned. ‘Have you heard about the Burns Supper at the castle?’ The words spilled out. ‘I picked up a load of tickets from the laird’s office. I told them I’d see if anyone from the inn was interested. It’s a dressy kind of thing. Black tie.’
