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‘To work, not to play.’ He grinned at her, but there was no responsive smile.
She didn’t answer for a while. ‘Everyone thought I was crazy when I moved to Hopeford—even though I bought my five-bedroom cottage for the same price as my two-bedroom flat,’ she said eventually. ‘People in their twenties come to London, they don’t leave it—they only move out when they have children, or if they want to totally reinvent themselves.’
‘People come to London for the same reason,’ he said, but so quietly he wasn’t sure whether or not she heard him.
‘I went to Hopeford on a whim,’ she said. She still wasn’t looking at him, almost talking to herself. ‘It was Sunday. I was working as usual. I lived around here, in a beautiful flat, walking distance to Rafferty’s. I worked all the time.’
‘You still do.’ Not that he could talk. But at least he had his training to break up the days, refresh his brain. Polly lived with her laptop switched on.
‘That Sunday I was in by six a.m. I couldn’t sleep. And by eleven I was done. No emails to send, no reports to read or write, no plans to check. And I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had all this time and no way to fill it. It was terrifying.
‘So I went for a walk. I was heading towards Regent’s Park, I think, planning to go to the zoo. It’s what we did as kids for a treat. Raff was already gone. Maybe I was missing him. Anyway I ended up at Marylebone. There was a train to Hopeford and I liked the name—hope. So I jumped on.’ She shook her head. ‘It felt so daring, just travelling to a strange place on a whim. And then I got there and it was like another world.’
‘It’s very pretty.’
‘And very quiet. I couldn’t believe it. No shops were open, nobody was working, people were just walking, or gardening or cooking. When you live and work in London you forget that people live like that. We sell the tools, you know, the sheets and the candles and the saucepans and the garden furniture but it feels a little like make-believe. I didn’t want it to be make-believe any more. I wanted it to be real.
‘So you moved?’
She laughed. ‘No one could believe it; I didn’t really believe it. It was the most impulsive thing I ever did. Well, until a few weeks ago anyway.’
‘Are you happy there?’
There was a long pause. Nimbly she skirted a large group of tourists taking photos of a mime artist and the window shoppers milling outside the many boutiques.
‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘I am.’
‘Not everything needs to be planned out,’ he said softly. ‘Sometimes just going with your instinct is the right path.’
She stopped and stared at him. ‘Are we still talking about Hopeford?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Just making conversation.’
‘Well, don’t.’ She gestured at a glass door, sober and discreet in a Georgian building. ‘We’re here. Meet me afterwards? We still have to talk about work, remember?’
‘I’ll come in with you.’ The words were out before he had a chance to think them through. ‘There’s always a lot of hanging around at these places. We can talk inside.’
* * *
Polly knew she should be attending to everything that Dr Vishal was saying but it was so alien she couldn’t get a grip on it.
Was this really her body? Her future? Now the nausea was dying down she looked and felt the same as always. Maybe she had made a really embarrassing mistake and it had been a bug after all?
‘You’re fine, but I want you to make sure you do everything I am recommending.’ The doctor broke into Polly’s thoughts. ‘Vitamins and rest and midwife appointments. Careful blood-pressure monitoring, some light exercise and proper food,’ she said, frowning at Polly. ‘You’re too thin, Polly. If you can’t or won’t cook then there are some good meal-delivery services. Lots of protein and vegetables.’
‘I’ll arrange it,’ Polly promised. It was almost a shame Gabe was moving out; he took food seriously enough.
‘Are you ready?’
‘For what?’
‘To see your baby of course. If you go with Sasha she’ll get you ready for your scan. We do them in house now although once your hospital referral goes through they’ll want to scan again and sort out any extra blood tests.’
Polly followed Sasha, her brain whirling. A scan. Her hand fluttered to her stomach again. This was going to make the whole thing horribly real—unless it was a phantom-bug-baby after all.
Gabe was sitting on a chair in the corridor, his long legs sprawled out before him, frowning at the phone in his hand as he briskly typed out a message, but as Polly came close he shoved the phone into his pocket and got to his feet.
