Page 6 of The Cottage in the Highlands

I thought that, at last, I had got my life into some semblance of order. I had a job I loved and I was pushing forwards after the break-up with Miles.

Outside, the gulls were cackling and hovering and the waters of Silver Ness shimmered, oblivious to the turmoil taking place just yards away.

I felt as though I had taken several positive steps towards the future, only to be turned around and ordered back to the starting line.

Goodness knows how I was going to struggle through the rest of the day.

There was an odd, resentful heaviness in the air for the remainder of the afternoon.

Frances slung on her suit jacket and went out to cover a council planning meeting, while I bashed out an advertising feature for a local bathroom company.

Frances was wearing her guilt like a chain around her neck. She persisted in giving me charged looks whilst still in the office and then couldn’t escape to that council meeting fast enough.

Doug, meanwhile, was like a pale, sour imitation of his former self. No dry wit about the day’s news headlines or crisp observations about our politicians. He just stalked about like a preoccupied Scottish Jack Nicholson, lost in his own world.

My emotions were skittering from one extreme, fired-up sensation to the next. Fury and anger zoomed towards cold, hard reality. Doug had taken on the arduous task of trying to save the paper, failed, and the weight of not succeeding was pressing down on him.

It wasn’t his fault. He had tried his best to salvage the paper’s future – and ours. I just wish he had told Frances and me from the start. Perhaps we could have helped. But from what Doug had said, the decisions over our futures had been made months ago, while the three of us continued to provide a much-needed service to our local community in ignorant, innocent bliss.

I stopped typing, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

My stomach rushed to the floor with the finality of it all. I looked from my PC to Doug’s paper-stacked desk. Oh God. I was going to be unemployed.

I couldn’t wait to finish work for the day.

Five o’clock hauled itself around.

Doug had told Frances not to bother returning to the office after the council meeting.

I slid into my quilted coat and scooped up my bag. Doug was staring into the middle-distance, struggling to come back from wherever he was. “You coming?”

He fired out his legs. “Not yet. I want to get the editing finished on that pottery man piece Frances wrote for next week’s edition.”

He looked shattered; defeated even. His shoulders slumped under his shirt.

I opened my mouth to persuade him to drop what he was doing and call it a night, but Doug swivelled his attention back to his glowing PC screen. The light emphasised the stubborn smudges under his eyes. “Night, Leonie. See you tomorrow.”

I drove the short journey to my parents’, inwardly cursing the weather. It had been awful first thing, the rain splattering down my bedroom window. Now, the October evening was splashed with smudges of pale-lemon sun.

I would have much preferred to have walked to Mum and Dad’s. They lived ten minutes away from the seafront and just another fifteen minutes from my little cottage. I would have valued the time to breathe in the sea air and attempt to untangle the merry-go-round whirring in my head. To try and reconcile what I was going to do next. How I was going to come to terms with being out of a job. A job that I loved and didn’t dread waking up to five days a week.

I negotiated the cobbled streets, fringed with the assorted bed and breakfast cottages and hanging baskets, and drove past the shops, their decorated doorways festooned with everything from postcards to beachballs.

I left behind the swell of the harbour in the rear-view mirror and reached Mum and Dad’s on autopilot. I eased into the kerb and sat for a few moments outside their 70s-style detached house. I would now have to tell my parents.

Dread pooled inside my stomach. They would worry, especially Mum. She would deny it of course, but she would be wringing her hands and fretting to Dad when I wasn’t within earshot.

My hands gripped the steering wheel. Get on with it, Leonie. Rip the plaster away from the wound.

I could imagine my Mum’s panic-stricken gaze as she bundled me into her arms. Dad would deliver a torrent of positive, comforting words, assuring me I would find something else in no time.

As I clambered out of my car, it felt as if I were wading through treacle. Putting one foot in front of the other was demanding every ounce of effort I had. The prospect of telling them was making me feel queasy.

With no time to dwell any longer on their reaction, their front door burst open and Harley, my ten-month-old rescue cockapoo puppy, came barrelling down the path towards me.

I swept her plump wriggling mass of toffee-coloured curls up and cradled her in my arms. She lashed my face with her baby-pink tongue. The unconditional love she was demonstrating made me struggle to compose myself. I just wanted to bury my face in her and forget what an utterly shit day it had been. Wipe today from my memory.

A massive bomb had been lobbed into my life, just as I felt like I was getting myself together after Miles. I bit my lip as pictures of him flitted in front of my eyes. I blinked them away.