Faith - Lesley Pearse [119]
She rushed off soon after that, and drove home berating herself for allowing Robbie to get close enough to suggest such things, and that she’d stayed to listen to them.
But in the days that followed she found herself constantly thinking about what he’d said. Throughout the whole first year she was with Stuart, he’d given her the kind of inner happiness that wiped out any yearnings for wealth and luxury. She would look back on her life with Greg and feel ashamed that she’d once been so shallow that she imagined a man out of the top drawer and a house in Chelsea would compensate for real love.
She did love Stuart still, but she also wanted the things Robbie had offered. Stuart would never want her to run her own business; if she suggested foreign travel to him he’d think of doing it in a camper van. Whenever she pointed out expensive shoes or fabulous dresses in the posh shops in Princes Street, he just laughed as if such things were just for show, not bought by real women.
It wasn’t that Stuart was mean, she knew he’d spend his last pound on her. It was just that he hadn’t got a materialistic bone in his body, and he’d never been around rich people to learn to want what they had. But she had, and it was like a hunger inside her.
In the weeks that followed Robbie’s proposal, conflict raged inside her. The evening walk down the gloomy stair, out into the cold dark street, then arriving at the Maybury with its warmth, sophistication and bright lights, seemed symbolic. She would leave Stuart dressed in tattered jeans and a scruffy sweater, and find Robbie at the other end, immaculate in evening dress.
The Maybury was where she shone; her elegance, intelligence and wit were admired. Back at home in Caledonian Crescent she was the person who cooked sausage and mash, made the beds, washed and ironed. Barney and Stuart liked her best when she was wearing jeans and a jumper, for that meant she was in for the evening, and she wished with all her heart that she could be satisfied with just that. But she couldn’t.
She snapped at them, criticized them for leaving clothes on the floor or bringing mud in on their shoes. And Stuart often bit back, asking why she had to be such a cow when she only had two or three nights at home with them each week.
There was one evening when she was manicuring her nails, and Stuart offered to paint her toe nails for her. She let him purely because it was something he’d often done when they were in Castle Douglas and she hoped it might bring back the same intimacy.
His long hair fell over his face as he bent over her foot balanced on his thigh. She could just see his tongue peeping out of his mouth as he concentrated on applying the varnish, and he looked so boyish that tears came to her eyes.
She so much wanted to tell him what was on her mind. Not that Robbie had suggested she became his mistress – that would have made Stuart explode with rage – but how confused and dissatisfied she felt.
But she couldn’t. However she put it, he would take it as a reproach that he had failed her. She couldn’t let him think that, for it was she who hadn’t managed to hold on to the belief of ‘All You Need Is Love.’
It was right at the end of December, two days before New Year, when Laura agreed to meet Robbie for lunch at the Caledonian, the smartest hotel in Edinburgh. The drinks after work had become more frequent, twice in December he’d met her during the day for a coffee, and he’d bought her a silver cocktail watch for Christmas.
There were two separate tags with it. The one intended for Stuart’s eyes said, ‘A token of our appreciation from the directors of Maybury Casino.’ The second one, ‘To beautiful Laura, with hopes you’ll be mine in the New Year. Love Robbie’.
The tags were evidence Robbie was a practised deceiver, and wished to make her one too. Yet all the same it sent delicious shivers down her spine.
She told