Page 36 of The Cottage in the Highlands

As I made dinner and occupied Harley with her squeaky shoe toy, I browsed through a few pages before stopping dead as the salmon sizzled in the pan behind me.

Miles’s triumphant golden smile beamed out at me in full colour.

TV News editor Miles Andrews and his fiancée, TV journalist Carmel Jennings, are collaborating on a biography of the late newspaper mogul Sir Russell Stepney. Andrews, who works for the Central ITV regional station…

My attention lunged at the first couple of sentences. Fiancée? Miles was engaged? Already? We only split up ten months ago!

I examined the picture of them cosied up together. Carmel was gorgeous. She reminded me of Thandiwe Newton.

I didn’t want to read on. I slapped the magazine shut and shoved it to the other end of the kitchen table. Miles hadn’t been prepared to settle down with me. He had been happy enough at the time for me to stay over the odd night at his Glasgow flat, but as for taking things any further, that had been a non-starter. Whenever we passed by a jeweller and my eyes turned misty at the engagement rings, Miles would bundle me away and assure me we would “look to the future at some point, once we knew where life was taking us.” Little did I know that Miles had already decided his life wouldn’t include me.

I propped my chin on my hand and observed Harley scoffing down her chicken and kibble as I pushed and poked my dinner around my plate.

I hadn’t been enough. What Miles and I had shared hadn’t been enough.

When Harley had finished, I jumped up from my kitchen chair. I had to get out of here. The walls were tumbling down, bringing my mood with them. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go for a lovely walk.”

I drove on autopilot, away from my house, past the blue ribbon of the sea and out along the thread of fiery-coloured country lanes, where the last remnants of leaves were hanging by a thread to branches. The ones that had already succumbed to the November chill tumbled and pirouetted in front of the car. We pressed on towards Drummond.

Harley sat secured in her dog seat in the back, like a little China ornament.

I slowed down as I glimpsed the couple of wooden picnic tables and found myself parking up. Once I made sure Harley was secured in her pink harness and lead, I locked up the car and we set off through the field.

It had been an odd, discomfiting week and the news about Miles being engaged had bruised and battered my ego. It had only been January when we split up and already he was engaged to someone else for goodness’ sake! And he was enjoying a successful career in TV news too.

His life was progressing, moving onwards and upwards and taking a different path, whereas mine was stuck in a quagmire. I was writing about colonic irrigation treatments and teeth whitening, in a job that had been offered to me and which I had accepted out of desperation.

I strode on with Harley, deciding not to allow her to roam free for now. The hedgerows were bustling and I didn’t fancy chasing after her again.

I squinted ahead. The milky evening light was surrendering to splashes of sleepy evening sun and darkness was not far away.

I thought again about Athena’s demands and her expectations of me. Every suggestion I was making for the Avanti feature was being met with derision and dismissal. It was a bloody mess. I should have listened to my inner voice. I should have declined the offer of the beauty writer job and taken my chances.

I buried myself deeper into my long-knitted scarf and thick winter jacket as my boots trampled through the bursts of grass taking me deeper into the thick haze of woodland. Merry Wood rose up ahead of us, its naked trees and cracked pots of heather waggling in the breeze.

Harley pulled on her lead. She gazed up at me, popping her dark eyes. “Oh, go on then,” I sighed, unclipping her lead. “But no taking off again after Freddie Fox, ok?”

Harley gave a swift waggle of her plume of a tail and made the most of her sudden freedom, gambolling ahead like a baby lamb towards Merry Wood. She reached the towering old fence that concealed the back garden and began to scrabble at a loose plank.

“Harley!” I hissed, glancing around for Lily Cruickshank. “You’ll get me into trouble. Stop that!”

We had only just arrived here and already she was desecrating the bloody place!

But she ignored me and continued to paddle her paws at the loose wood and the section of grass underneath it. Brown earth spluttered up behind her. I lunged forward with her lead. “Harley! If the Wicked Witch catches us, we’ll both be in big trouble!”

This didn’t deter her. She continued to dig, until the fragile section of wood made a cracking groan of surrender and flew off into the earth.

“Oh no! No, Harley!”

I yanked Harley away and made a feeble attempt to prop the broken-off section of wood back into place. I crouched down while Harley reared up on her back legs beside me. “Look at this! Look what you’ve done!”

I lowered my head and wedged the loose plank back in. Even if I could manage a temporary patch-up, hopefully Lily wouldn’t notice it. Maybe if I asked Dad to take a look at the fence for me…

Oh wow.

My jaw grew slack at the sight greeting me through the slender gap in the fence.

The grass was overgrown of course, poking up in long, brave swathes of acid green. But surrounding the lawns was a series of beautiful ivory statues. They depicted young, pensive women in flowing robes and streaming hair gazing at flowers cupped in their hands.