Faith - Lesley Pearse [115]
Laura wanted to have a baby with Stuart, but certainly not while they lived in such a poky flat, and how could they get somewhere better unless she worked too?
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It was during the autumn of ’74 that things really began to turn sour. There had been many rows throughout the year, about the car which always seemed to need something repaired, about Stuart’s mother’s interference, or the cramped conditions in the flat. But mostly Stuart got shirty about her working so many evenings a week. Laura’s counter-argument was pointing out that she paid for repairs on the car, bought their fridge and a vacuum cleaner with her wages, and supported him during the times he was laid off.
It was an argument that couldn’t be resolved, for Stuart knew they did need the money she earned, and that she couldn’t get daytime work because of Barney. They always made their rows up passionately, but the bitter words they’d flung at each other at the height of the rows weren’t always forgotten, and resentment and anger simmered below the surface, ready to erupt again the next time.
Jackie was also a mild bone of contention with Stuart. He didn’t want to hear about the friend in London she had such an attachment to. Whenever Laura had a letter from her and she mentioned the latest property she’d renovated and sold on, he would look wounded, as if Laura was implying he didn’t do enough to improve their standard of living. He made up his mind even before he met her that she would look down on him.
In the last year Jackie had come up to Edinburgh several times to see Laura, and though Stuart was pleasantly surprised to find she wasn’t the snob he imagined, he was still wary of her because she came without her husband, stayed in a plush hotel, and splashed a great deal of money around.
He gradually grew to like her, mainly because she was so enthusiastic about the places in Scotland he took her to visit. Yet despite this, whenever he and Laura had a row he would still make caustic comments about her. He was clearly a little jealous of her affection for her friend.
Jackie grew to love Scotland so much she began looking for a cottage to buy along the Fife coast. Stuart huffed and puffed about this, for few Scots owned their own homes at that time. As he saw it, if wealthy English people came marauding over the border to buy property, the locals would soon have nowhere to live.
The pretty little two-up, two-down fisherman’s cottage Jackie eventually bought was in Cellardyke in Fife, right on the old harbour. She got local tradesmen in to renovate it, and in August, when it was finished, she asked Laura, Stuart and Barney to join her for a holiday there.
Stuart couldn’t take time off his work, but he was happy enough for Laura to go with Barney. Jackie drove up from London with a vanload of furniture, picking Laura and Barney up as she came through Edinburgh. Together the girls arranged it all in the cottage, hung curtains, pictures and equipped the kitchen.
It was the most fun Laura had had since Castle Douglas, for it was like their early flat-sharing days. Everything made them laugh, they chatted about old times eagerly, and filled each other in on all that had happened to them both in the past few years.
It was lovely warm weather and Barney could wander in and out, making friends with the neighbours’ children and watching the fishermen in their boats. The novelty of hanging out washing on lines right on the harbour, the clean salty air, and listening to the sea breaking on the shore at night, never ceased to delight Laura. She could understand completely why Jackie had fallen in love with the place.
In the afternoons they took long walks along the beach to Crail with Barney, swam and had picnics, then stayed up half the night drinking and giggling as they recalled old boyfriends, and discussed Roger and