Beyond All Reason

She decided that she didn’t care one way or another, and concentrated on working as quickly and efficiently as she could.

As soon as the batch of letters were in their envelopes, she grabbed her coat and headed for the lift. She had taken a taxi to the office because she had been in a hurry to get there, but she caught her usual bus back to her flat and arrived exhausted forty-five minutes later. The traffic had been slow to stop much of the way, and the weather outside was becoming colder if anything. People flew over the pavements, clutching their coats to stop them from billowing in the wind, their faces, illuminated by the street-lights, pinched and tight lipped.

The first person she called, as soon as she got into the apartment and had divested herself of her coat, was Emily, who happily agreed to lend her the cottage, giving her careful instructions as to where to find the key, which was under a mat in the log shed at the back, and which had always been kept there because of unexpected visitors. In return, she indulged in fifteen minutes of gleeful curiosity, only cutting it short when two of the three children became too unruly to be ignored.

‘Are you sure that married life with children is as tempting as you’ve always led me to believe?’ Abigail teased. ‘It just sounds very noisy to me.’

‘Give it time,’ Emily promised darkly. ‘You too will join the ranks of the blissful when you finally tie the knot.’ As yet she didn’t know that Martin was no longer in the picture, and Abigail omitted to mention it because she knew that that would have led to at least another twenty minutes of remonstration and sympathy, genuine enough, never mind the decibels of the screaming children.

The second call she made was to Martin. She didn’t know why but it was almost as though she needed to hear his unthreatening voice to shift her thoughts back into focus. Besides, she had promised to phone him on her return; he had reminded her that they were, after all, still friends.

When he finally answered the telephone he sounded cheery and vaguely guilty, and it was only when she questioned him that he let slip, bit by gradual bit, that actually he had been seeing something of Alice in her absence.

Well, he protested when she greeted this piece of reluctantly volunteered information with surprise, she had been the one to break off their engagement, hadn’t she? And Alice had been very sympathetic. And she had more or less made it perfectly clear to him that there was no point in pursuing their relationship. Her attitude had been, as far as he could read it, that he suddenly wasn’t quite good enough for her.

He hadn’t given her a chance to dispute any of these points, which he enumerated as though he had rehearsed them in advance. By the end of his monologue, the sheepishness had more or less vanished, replaced by accusation. I’m seeing Alice, his tone implied, and basically this is all your fault.

You’re a free man, she told him, you can do as you please, and there’s no need to find excuses, but by the end of the conversation she was feeling foolishly upset.

They said that women were unpredictable, but men were not nearly the straightforward creatures that women were led to assume. Martin had found solace with someone else with a rapidity that left her breathless, and Alice, in all honesty, was far more his cup of tea than she, Abigail, was. But he could hardly have been deeply in love with her if he had replaced her in a matter of days, could he?

She had to remind herself that he was a free man and if he had found comfort with Alice, then why should she begrudge him that? She had to tell herself that it was better for him to move on than to stand still, hoping for their relationship to get back off the ground. Nevertheless, she doubted that she would ever see Alice in the same uncomplicated light.

She slept heavily that night, and awoke early the following morning to a sky that was leaden grey. Overnight the temperature had dropped still further, but she didn’t care very much. She would be safely cocooned in a train, then in a rented car which she had arranged to meet her at the station, so she would not be obliged to face the fierce cold for any length of time.

She was about to leave when the telephone rang. It was Ross. She heard the deep timbre of his voice with muted panic.

‘You can’t go to the Lakes,’ he told her, without bothering to go through the preliminaries of Hello, or How are you? or even Thanks for the letters.

‘The train leaves in thirty minutes,’ she informed him by way of answer, ‘I was just on my way out.’

‘They expect severe snow there by tomorrow evening. You’ll be snowed in.’

And unable to return to work, she thought with cynicism. Was that the reason behind the warning? That she might find herself trapped for a few days and go over her allotted leave? There was a high-powered meeting scheduled for the day after she was due to arrive back in London. He would be furious if she was unable to attend. He had become accustomed to the way she worked, and because of that they functioned well together. He depended on her being able to make notes of the important issues, ignoring the dross which clung to most business meetings like useless seaweed. There was, she reflected, a ruthless streak in Ross that would have stunned her if she hadn’t become so accustomed to it over the months that she had worked for him.

‘I’ll make sure that the cottage is well stocked,’ she said. She had packed a few things, and would have time, just, to make it to the corner shop for a few more.

‘This isn’t a laughing matter,’ Ross said grimly down the line. ‘If the snow is anywhere as bad as they predict, then you could find yourself stuck up there for more than a few days.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ Abigail said, ‘but I really must be on my way now or I’ll miss the train. I’ll see you when I get back, Mr Anderson.’ She replaced the receiver and felt a vicarious thrill at having been the first to end a conversation between them. She could imagine him cursing softly under his breath, and half pitied the next human being to walk through the office door.

She wasn’t unduly worried by the prospect of snow. In fact, she rather liked the thought of it. It would be comforting to be cocooned in a cosy little cottage while the weather outside ranted and raged. Emily had told her that the place was always well supplied with food, because it was heavily used, and the log shed would be stocked to the ceiling with logs. She doubted that there was any basis for Ross’s fears that she would be snowed in indefinitely. She had never actually been to the Lake District, but this was England, after all, not Iceland, and snowstorms tended to be short lived.

The train left exactly on time and she spent the journey staring out of the window at the passing scenery and reading her book. It was relaxing. All her worries seemed to diminish in direct proportion to the amount of distance between herself and London. She wondered idly whether she would forget them completely if she vanished out of England altogether and found a job in some remote part of the world. Doing something wildly different like teaching English to the Eskimos. Or was English their native tongue? The question amused her until she felt herself getting tired, and the next time she opened her eyes was when the train jerked to a stop at her station.

Train, she mused, on time, car, she found, awaiting her at the station, as duly promised by the rental company, sky, she noticed, not looking ominous. Life, she decided, definitely taking a turn for the better. She hadn’t thought of Martin once, and Ross—well, she had managed to keep his image resolutely to the background and every time it had threatened to intrude on her well-being she diverted her thoughts to something else.

The cottage, admittedly, took some time getting to and she was exhausted by the time she finally arrived, driving very slowly because it was pitch black. Also, she didn’t like night driving. She was unaccustomed to driving at all, because she had no car in London, where it would have been more of a liability than an asset, and when she did borrow her mother’s car, most of her driving was done during the day.

For the first time she wondered what she would do if it started to snow, and the prospect of that, miles away from civilisation, didn’t seem quite so adventurous as it had done several hours earlier in the busy warmth of the train.

The cottage, she found, was small, but exceedingly comfortable, with the sort of homely atmosphere of a second home that was very well used and maintained.

Emily had told her that it was on regular loan to any number of friends who fancied a weekend away, and during the summer months it was as busy as any hotel.

‘All spongers,’ she had laughed, ‘ought to be charged rent, but most of them have been taking advantage for so long that they would collapse on the spot if money was suggested.’

They all, she had said, paid by way of leaving some present behind, and, as Abigail browsed through, it wasn’t difficult to find the presents. Several boxes of biscuits and chocolates, an extremely well stocked supply of drink and lots of little ornaments which differed wildly in taste.

Ranged along the fireplace were dainty porcelain figurines which nudged alongside garish, souvenir ceramic ornaments, and an assortment of umbrellas stood in a massive colourful pot, clearly forgotten by their owners.

The furniture, a three-piece suite, was worn but pleasant and the faded floral pattern was just right for the place. It lent it a warm glow.