Love...Under Different Skies Read Free Page A

I’m pleased to report.
    On shaky legs I open the front door, walk into the house and straight through to the living room. Laura looks up at me and sees the expression on my face.
    “What have you done now?” she says. I can almost feel the needles in her voice.
    Placing the dining room table between me and my concerned wife, I begin to weave my ugly tale.
     
     
     
     
     

LAURA’S DIARY
    Thursday, October 29
    Dear Mum,
    First of all, let me offer you a couple of much-needed apologies.
    I haven’t left a diary entry for over three weeks now, and for that I am sorry. A combination of unholy rage and sheer exhaustion has put me in the kind of mood that’s not conducive to creative writing. Which leads me to my second apology—for the foul language you were subjected to in that last entry.
    I used words and phrases no person should ever have to listen to, even if they aren’t alive anymore. I’m frankly surprised you didn’t come back as a ghost to smack my bottom until it was red raw as punishment for the use of such obscenities.
    I reread the entry just before writing this one, and even I am amazed that I could spout such evil filth over the course of two whole pages. I can never let Jamie read it. He’d be taking out five restraining orders on me before the sun went down.
    I do feel my reaction was understandable given my idiot husband’s nearly successful attempt to ruin our lives completely by getting fired from his job. We’ve never had an argument that lasted eight days before. I’m thinking of ringing the Guinness Book of Records .
    Thankfully, something has transpired in the intervening fortnight that has made my disposition a lot sunnier. I’m also absolutely terrified, but in a good way.
    Allow me to explain:
     
    A week ago it felt like my life was more or less over. I had a husband with no work and a new propensity for walking round the entire day in his dressing gown. Meanwhile, I still went to a job that I can’t stand at the best of times, but where I now find myself begging for more hours to make up for Jamie’s little outburst at the paper.
    I was trying very hard not to feel towering resentment towards my husband, but given that he’d forced me to work more and see even less of my rapidly developing daughter, I could have cheerfully extracted his eyeballs with an ice cream scoop.
    It was in this frame of mind that I started my working day at the Morton & Slacks pit of misery, vaguely hoping that at some point there’d be an earthquake and I’d be crushed to death by a pile of Luxury Selection boxes.
    What made this particular day even worse was that one of my staff—a timid thing of sallow complexion called Amy—had taken the day off thanks to a twinge in her back. I hardly feel that a slight pain above the pelvis constitutes an excuse not to come into work, but employment law unfortunately disagrees with me, so I was forced to run the shop with just Jonathan in tow. Jonathan, as you may remember, could spend three solid years studying human anatomy and still not be able to tell an arse from an elbow at the end of it.
    Still, it was a Wednesday—customarily a quiet day in the shopping centre—so I was looking forward to some idle staring out of the window while Jonathan tripped over things in the storeroom.
    And for a majority of the day, this is exactly what happened.
    We had a grand total of eight customers before lunch—two couples, one businessman who’d obviously forgotten an important anniversary, two single men who probably hadn’t, and Larry the local homeless bloke who I had to shoo out of the shop before he sucked the alcohol out of all the chocolate liqueurs.
    I ate a Sainsbury wrap for lunch that I barely tasted and settled back in behind the counter for an afternoon of much the same thing.
    Seven more customers came in and bought a variety of tasty treats before five fifteen rolled around, and I began to think about closing up. Then Maisie entered my life. I didn’t