Mike snorted softly and stared down into his coffee-cup, swirling the dark brew while he tried to work out how to reply. Honestly, he decided, and put the cup down.
‘Not really. We haven’t been since the miscarriage. Fran’s preoccupied, her temper’s short, she’s lost all her sparkle—I don’t know, she doesn’t have anything to say to me any more, and I think it’s pretty mutual. Frankly, Nick, I’m beginning to wonder if the strain of all this isn’t going to be too much for our marriage.’
‘Do you still love her?’
He hesitated, his eyes locked with Nick’s, and then he looked away, scrubbing his hand through his hair and letting his breath out on a harsh sigh. ‘Yes. Yes, I still love her. I just don’t know if she still loves me.’
He swallowed hard, emotion suddenly choking him, and Nick tutted softly and put his cup down as well. ‘Time for a stroll?’
‘Yeah. You going to Tregorran now?’ Mike asked.
‘I am.’
‘I’ll come with you. If you give me a lift there, I’ve got some stock to check and I’ll walk back. It only takes five minutes across the fields.’
They pulled up on the drive at Tregorran House, and while Mike stood waiting by the car, Nick handed over the bag of shopping to Ben. ‘There’s some strawberry ice cream in there that needs to go in the freezer,’ he said. ‘Back in a minute. Mike’s just going to show me something.’
A likely story, Mike thought with a mental snort, but he raised his hand and dredged up a smile for Ben. He liked his neighbours, and he was delighted they’d bought Nick’s old family home, but it would have been easier if Ben hadn’t come to the door with baby Annabel gurgling on his hip and rubbing salt into the wound.
‘Mike, I’m glad I’ve seen you,’ Ben said now, coming out onto the drive. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. Any chance we could have a chat some time?’
He nodded. ‘Sure. Give me a call when you’re not busy, or drop round. I’m usually about.’ Mike gave him his mobile number and Ben keyed it into his own phone, then slipped it back into his pocket and smiled.
‘Cheers. I’ll call you.’
Ben waved, lifting the baby’s chubby little hand as Mike himself had done with Sophie so many times, and Mike waved back to them both, his breath jamming in his throat as Annabel’s face split into a cherubic smile, and he turned away.
Nick fell in beside him, and they went down the track at the side of the house and to the field at the side. It wasn’t right on the cliff top, because that field had a footpath through it, part of the Cornish Coastal Path, and he didn’t want his dry cows disturbed in their last few weeks of pregnancy by all the walkers.
‘Here we are—my ladies-in-waiting,’ he said to Nick, his eyes scanning the field to check that the six cows in there were all looking well. Amber came over to him, her gorgeous coat, fox-red splashed with white, gleaming with health in the summer sun, and he rubbed her poll and spoke softly to her for a moment.
‘You love your farm, don’t you?’ Nick murmured, and Mike nodded.
‘Can’t imagine doing anything else, but it’s a constant reminder of our own failure. With a dairy herd, all you do all the time is monitor their pregnancies and deliver their calves and manage their lactation. And it’s impossible not to draw parallels.’ He smiled, but he could feel it was off kilter. ‘If we were livestock, Fran and I would be shot. It seems we’re useless together. Giant pandas have more success.’
‘That’s not true. Fran’s been pregnant before, and you achieved a pregnancy on your first cycle of IVF.’
‘Yeah—which we also lost. We can’t afford another cycle at the moment, and we’ve run out of NHS funding, so where do we go from here? It wouldn’t be so damned frustrating if they could find anything wrong with us! But they can’t, Nick. We’re both well, there are no physical problems, we just can’t seem to get it right. And right now I’m not sure I even want to, the way we are. Well, the way Fran is, anyway. I just can’t get through to her at all.’
‘But that’s probably just a reaction to the miscarriage. Perhaps she needs to talk it through. Will she come to see me?’
Mike snorted again and shook his head. ‘Not a chance. She might talk to Kate—woman to woman and all that.’
Nick’s mouth tightened, and then he nodded. ‘That could work. She knows Kate. It’s an idea.’
One that was growing on Mike by the second. Kate was working as a midwife again now, and Fran had known her for years because of her son, Jem, who was at the school. Maybe she’d be able to get through to her. ‘She could catch her at school,’ he suggested, but Nick shook his head.
‘Not really the place. But she could call in—maybe one day after school? On her way to see Ben and Lucy? Kate does drop by from time to time to cuddle the baby. I could make sure she doesn’t have Jeremiah with her, and maybe you could make yourself unavailable?’
He laughed shortly. ‘That won’t be hard. I don’t have a lot of time to hang around. By the time Fran’s home, I’m usually milking so Kate should be able to talk to her undisturbed between four-thirty and six, and if I know she’s going to be here, I can always drag it out.’
‘Sure. Give me your mobile number. I’ll let you know what she’s planning so you’re forewarned.’
He pulled out his phone and they swapped numbers, and then Mike turned his back on the cattle and stared out over the sea, which was flat and smooth and sparkling, the lazy swell scarcely visible. The surfers wouldn’t be happy today, but the families with little children would be having a great time, just as they themselves had had with Sophie last weekend—just as they might one day be doing with another child of their own. His chest tightened with longing and he hauled in a breath and turned back to the GP.
‘Thanks, Nick,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but thanks for trying.’
‘You’re welcome. And you can call me whenever you want a chat, you know. Any time.’
Mike nodded, and they strolled back to the house in thoughtful silence. Nick went in, lifting his hand in farewell, and Mike nodded and set off back across the fields to the farm.
Fran would kill him for interfering, but he couldn’t watch her falling apart any longer. He just hoped that Kate was able to reach her, because frankly he was at a loss, and if something didn’t happen soon, the remains of their marriage would be unsalvageable.
He tried a little salvage that night.
They’d had supper, and for once they were sitting down together in front of the television. There was nothing on that either of them really seemed to want to watch, though, so he turned it off, found an easy-listening CD, soft and lazy and romantic, and instead of going back to his chair he went over to the sofa and sat down beside her, giving her shoulder an affectionate little rub.
‘You OK, my love?’
She nodded, but she didn’t meet his eyes and there wasn’t a trace of a smile. ‘Just tired. I’ll be glad when the holidays come.’
‘So will I. You can give me a hand—we’ll try that new fresh curd cheese you’ve been talking about.’
Beneath his hand her shoulder drooped a little, then she straightened up. ‘Yes, we can do that. I might give Sarah a hand with the ice cream as well. See if we can get the raspberry one smoother. It’s a bit too juicy and it tends to get ice crystals.’
‘It’s