The White House - Book 6, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Four

James left early the next morning, unaware that Elise stood at her bedroom window and watched him roar away on that bloody machine. Motorbikes inspired such fear in her and James knew that. She hated him for ignoring her angst about the whole thing, as if she had no right to feel terrified at the thought of him speeding down narrow country lanes. Agitated she busied herself shifting furniture around in the lounge and rearranging the kitchen cupboards to her satisfaction, trying to take her mind off him out on his sodding bike.

Every now and then she glanced out the windows, frowning at the black storm clouds that were gathering above the ocean and she wished he would swallow his pride and come home. She knew he would stay out though, simply to spite her. The words they had exchanged last night had been the opening shots in what might turn out to be their final battle. She knew from experience that the hostilities were not over and that this was merely a ceasefire whilst they rearmed and prepared for the next skirmish.

Perhaps he had been right, last night, when he said they’d been broken for a long time before Noah. Had she been an idiot to think that the only thing wrong with them was her inability to carry his baby past the nine week mark? Had she honestly believed it was a rough patch they would get over if they were blessed with a child? When she’d fallen pregnant with Noah she had thought the problems between them would sort themselves out and maybe it would have done...

Elise had never even contemplated the idea of a future with no child in their life. She had always believed that one day they would have a baby, despite all the years James had said he wasn’t ready yet; telling her that maybe next year would be the right time. She had kept it fixed firmly in her mind, never even imagining that when the time was finally right for James it might be too late for them.

Since Noah had died she had felt adrift and lost in surroundings she didn’t recognise. She couldn’t tell James that the thought of a life with no child to bind them horrified her. The idea of another forty years, staring at each other across the table, trying to make conversation when nothing tied them together was terrifying.

She was hanging the new curtains she’d bought for her bedroom when she saw the little girl in the garden across the road. The child was waving and it took Elise a second or two to process the fact the girl was staring up at her house. Uncertainly, she lifted her hand and waved back. The girl smiled and shook with a giggle that Elise couldn’t hear before waving again. Elise returned the gesture, sighed and resumed attaching hooks to the curtain rail. The child was still out there, looking up at the house and grinning when Elise climbed down from the stepladder. She gave a final wave to the girl before she left the room, but the girl didn’t respond to her.

The phone rang shrilly throughout the ground floor of the house as she walked down the stairs and Elise let out a little yelp and clapped her hand to her chest. She really was a silly goose; she chided herself as she rushed down to pick up the phone.

“Mrs Morgan, this is Maggie Moore; you talked to Mr Henson yesterday,” the woman said, stiffly. “He spoke to me about your request, however your husband signed the contract that states quite clearly the rocking horse has to stay in the house, so I’m afraid we won’t be able to arrange storage somewhere else for it.”

Elise sighed, impatiently. “Fine, I don’t like it, but I can live with the bloody rocking horse if I have to. What about the crib and the rocking chair, can you store them somewhere else?”

“Mrs Morgan,” she said, quietly and with more than a hint of puzzlement in her voice. “There is no other furniture stored in the attic. There’s no crib anywhere in the house, nor is there a cot bed and rocking chair up there. The room is empty, bar the horse.”

“I was in there yesterday and I can assure you there is a crib, a bed and a rocking chair in that room, Ms Moore,” Elise said, through gritted teeth.