Free Still Thinking of You by Adele Parks Page B

warming, already hatching a plot. Ted understood it immediately, but was unsure as to whether he thought it was a good one. Was Jason a suitable beau for his little sister? Jason was a bit of a scoundrel, which made for very entertaining anecdotes but his sister…
    ‘I’ll call Natasha and see if I can clear it. Jayne’s met Mia and all the boys quite a few times, hasn’t she? She works in the same company as Rich, doesn’t she?’
    ‘Yes. But it’s a big place. I don’t think they’ve actually come across one another at work. Neither of them has ever said so.’
    ‘My point is she has things in common. She’ll fit in.’
    ‘Do you think it will be OK?’ Ted tried to put thoughts of Jason out of his head; surely Jayne wouldn’t look at him anyway. She did sound very upset; he wouldn’t be comfortable leaving her at home. Oh shit. This was the last thing he needed. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about.
    ‘I’ll call Natasha right now,’ Kate said, with more enthusiasm than she felt. She didn’t really want Jayne on the trip, but as Jayne always got what she wanted Kate might as well bend to the inevitability of the situation now. If she and Ted argued, they’d be late.
    Besides, it wasn’t just Jayne who needed a holiday; Ted definitely needed a holiday, too. He had been acting oddly recently. No ‘oddly’ was too strong a word – differently was probably a fairer description. It was nothing Kate could put her finger on. He was as kind and generous as ever. Perhaps not quite so attentive, just a tiny bit distracted. It wasn’t that he was working harder than usual. In fact, he really seemed to be making an effort to get home at a reasonable hour of late.
    There had been a time before Aurora was conceived when Kate had resented the ridiculous hours he worked. He was a trader, for God’s sake. Didn’t the markets ever close? Apparently, yes, but when they did Ted had to schmooze clients at fancy restaurants and casinos until the early hours. She’d done it herself once upon a time, which probably made standing on the sidelines harder to stomach. When he’d suggested they went in for a third child she’d, rather unusually, let out a yell. ‘What’s the point when you don’t see the two you have?’
    She’d cried and shouted and reasoned that the children missed him, that she missed him, that bringing them up on her own was overwhelming, and it did feel as though she was bringing them up on her own. In those days she was lucky if he made it home before ten. Even then he’d sometimes come home, eat his supper (without looking up from his plate), then retire to his study to ‘finish off some paperwork’. Things had been much better since Aurora was born. Kate was sorry she’d had to make a fuss, put her foot down, but she was glad she had. Recently Ted had made it home by six or six-thirty. He’d found balance. He’d reprioritized. He’d had a word with his boss, and his boss had been very gracious about the situation and agreed that work wasn’t everything.
    So he couldn’t be stressed at work.
    Kate felt a slight pang of guilt and apprehension that she didn’t know what was worrying her husband. She didn’t have time to think about this now. They really were going to be late. Perhaps miss the plane if a decision wasn’t made.
    ‘She skis, doesn’t she?’ asked Kate.
    ‘Snowboards, actually,’ confirmed Ted.
    Naturally, thought Kate. No doubt Jayne thought skiing was passeé in comparison to the far edgier sport of snowboarding. Kate walked back on to the landing. She picked up the phone and started to punch the buttons of Natasha’s number. Kate sighed, and wished she’d been born the type of woman other people took care of. Rather than the more prosaic role in which she’d been cast, the one who looked after the admin.

12. Departures
    The departure lounge at Heathrow Terminal 1 was a representative snapshot of Britain at that moment, in so much as it was full of