Faith - Lesley Pearse [241]
It had been a very strange day. So much waiting around, first for the flight, then at the court for the hearing, and all the time her stomach in knots with nerves. Right up till the judge said she was free to go, she’d half expected something terrible would happen and she’d end up being taken down to the cells under the court to await the prison van.
Yet tucked away beneath the fear and trepidation there had been bubblings of excitement, and they were about Stuart, and what was going to happen next. Maybe if Meggie hadn’t drip-fed the idea that he still had feelings for her, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to slip into little rosy daydreams about him. She really ought to have known better: what man would want to try to relight a fire with someone who had not only hurt him badly once, but was also likely to be something of a liability?
He’d been there for her when she most needed someone, and maybe that had clouded her judgement about her feelings for him too. She would just have to keep on reminding herself how fortunate she was: she wasn’t destitute, she had two loving sisters, she even had the legacy from Jackie coming to her. That was enough for anyone.
The day after the appeal hearing Angie asked Laura to go with her to a lawyer to sign a legal document transferring all the rights of the shop to her, and she paid Laura £4,000 for the lease and the fixtures and fittings. Laura felt awkward about taking the money, but both the lawyer and Angie insisted she was entitled to it, and it would also prevent her having any claim on the shop at a later date.
The money couldn’t have come at a better time as Laura had only a couple of hundred pounds left in her bank account, and although Meggie had offered to lend her some more so she could buy a decent car, she’d been reluctant to do that. But now, instead of getting an old banger, she was able to buy a three-year-old red Ford Fiesta which would be far more reliable.
Once she’d got her car she went to collect her belongings from Angie’s mother’s house. Yet on sorting through the many stored boxes, she found that most of the pictures, china, ornaments and lamps reminded her of times and a person she’d rather forget, so she donated them to a charity shop.
All she kept was albums of photographs, most of them of Barney, books she’d loved, some bedding, a small case which she’d filled ten years ago with things of Barney’s – a sweater, a pair of pyjamas, his old teddy bear and paintings he’d done at school – and a beautiful cream leather jewellery box Jackie had given her on her thirtieth birthday. It was much the same with her clothes, shoes and handbags. Most were unfashionable now, and the little reminders that came with them had nothing to do with her future. She kept the cashmere camel winter coat, boots, sweaters and trousers, and some of the best underwear. But the rest she bagged up for Angela’s mother to give to a jumble sale.
Everything she wanted to keep fitted into one suitcase and two cardboard boxes. She put them in the boot of the car and drove back to the shop to say goodbye to Angie.
‘You’re not going already?’ Angie exclaimed. ‘I thought you’d at least stay till the weekend.’
Laura didn’t want to admit that she felt a little uncomfortable hanging around a shop that had once been hers, and constantly running into women she knew from the past. Her face had been on the front page of all the newspapers, and though she knew that by next week those same newspapers would be wrapped round fish and chips and her story would be forgotten, she still felt exposed and vulnerable.
‘I want to go out to Crail and visit Barney’s grave,’ she said. ‘I’m less likely to run into anyone I know there during the week than at