Seven
One evening in early January, there is a sharp knock at the door – so much louder than Thomas' or Miles' quiet entrances. Kitty ignores it, but then there is another knock, and another, a torrent of knocks falling through the air, so she gets up and trudges down the hallway to open the door. It's Grace Singh.
"Hello," she says. "Can I come in?"
Kitty stares at her for a second, and Grace uses this as consent, stepping over the threshold and shutting the door behind her. Her eyes linger on Kitty's cast for a second, before Kitty turns and leads her silently into the kitchen. She's learnt from experience that Grace is as stubborn as a locomotive engine – there's no use trying to make her leave.
"Where's Sylvie this evening?"
The words cut deep into Kitty's chest, and she stares at the older woman for a second, before turning away. "She's gone to stay with her father."
"Will she be back in time for the start of term?"
The words twist through Kitty's ears, and then she's crying again, hunched over and trying to hide it behind her loose hair, but she can't, and then Grace's arm is wrapped around her shoulders. "What's the matter?"
Kitty draws in a shaky breath. "Nothing."
"Kitty, this is not nothing. What's wrong?"
There is something gentle in Grace's grey eyes, something that she never really expected to see from Sylvie's best friend's mother, who has been polite, and quite friendly, but never kind, not in the way someone like Flora Marshall who throws sweetness about a room like a cloud throws snow down upon the earth.
"My husband…he's…he's taken Sylvie away, and he's not allowing me to see her…"
"Your husband?" A bewildered expression flits across Grace's face before she conceals it, taking Kitty's free hand.
"Would you know if I said that up until late September, I answered to Katherine Vincent?"
"Your husband is Elliott Vincent?"
Kitty nods, biting down on her lip to keep her feelings from spilling out. "I suppose everyone in Britain has heard of him."
"Well, I have to admit that I only know of him because my nurses make it a habit to know all the celebrity gossip there is to know."
Kitty pushes her hair behind her ears and wipes the tears from her face with her sleeve. "I…I ran away, with Sylvie. We couldn't stay there because, well, because…"
Grace looks down at her broken wrist, and then up, answers forming in the greyness of her eyes. "I think I can guess why."
The words spill over her lips like sunset, tinged with desperation.
"I just…I don't know what to do! Miles and Tom have been so wonderful in supporting me since he took her, and I know I'll never repay them, but I just don't know what to do! What do I do?"
"File for a divorce," Grace says firmly. "Fight for custody of your daughter. If, God forbid, Amar and I ever ended up in a similar situation, I would be fighting tooth and nail to keep Julia and Raj. I wouldn't be sitting here looking like a wet weekend." She squeezes Kitty's shoulders gently. "Okay?"
Kitty gives her a watery smile. "Okay."
"Look who it is, our famous research surgeon! Had enough of experimenting yet?"
Thomas forces himself not to react as Yelland's noxious voice drifts across the meeting-room. Calm. Calm.
"You know nothing will come of it. Just think of all that NHS funding wasting because some idiotic boy from the council estates couldn't stay where he belongs."
There are several half-hearted titters at this, and Yelland looks smug. Thomas dumps his file on the table, clenching his fists so tightly that his nails make painful little crescent-moon indents in his palms. As much as he'd like to punch Yelland's teeth out, he can't risk getting sacked. It's not worth it, no matter how many reasons he comes up with to the contrary, so he lets the anger bubble away like a lava-pit in his stomach as Dr Purbright enters and settles himself at the head of the table.
Someday the volcano's going to erupt from inside of him, and no-one will be able to do a damned thing to stop it.
The station is almost empty at this time of day – gone are the floods of rush-hour commuters, serious men in serious suits heading out from their jobs in the city centre to their neat, sweeping homes in the countryside that falls away from Glasgow like a dream. There are no buffeting people as she and Charlie idly make their way to the platform, she begging her way past the people on the ticket barriers with a smile, hands entwined.
It's all gone so quickly, his leave, but at least he's not back out again for a while. He's only training, but that's in the south, in Dorset, a world away from snow-frosted Scotland.
"I'll try and come back up before the next tour," he says, brushing a thumb across her cheek. She manages a smile, straightening his beret.
"Okay. Write to me."
"I always do."
"Love you."
"Love you too."
There's an announcement blaring over the speaker, and he leans down to kiss her, winding his fingers through her auburn-brown hair, soft and gentle, and no, she doesn't want him to leave, not again, not this time…
He pulls reluctantly away, hefts his huge khaki rucksack up from the platform, and gets onto the train that idles, doors open, on the rails. He stands in the doorway until the very last minute, and she waves with tears trickling down her face because she wants him to stay with her forever and ever, for them not to be so separated like this…
The train draws out of the station, and she waits until it's completely out of sight, before turning and trudging back along the frosty streets. Another two months, another tour. Then he's promised he'll try and get out of active service, and perhaps she'll move down south with him, so they can be together. It's a thought.
When he gets home, there's a light shining under Kitty's door and a note on his kitchen table from Miles – something about a meeting with an old friend for dinner – so he dumps his briefcase in the chair and heads next door, knocking quietly and letting himself in with the spare key.
He finds Kitty sitting on the floor in her co-op uniform, surrounded by mountains of what look to be magazine cuttings and neat, glossy photos, her hair pinned up for the first time in three weeks. She looks up as she hears his footsteps on the carpet.
"Oh, hello," she says, and something starts to unfold in his chest because it is the first time she's greeted him on her own, no prompting needed.
"What's all this?"
"I'm exorcising memories." She pats the space beside her and he sits, awkwardly folding his legs beneath him. "I don't quite know why I brought them with me."
He plucks one from the top of the nearest pile, staring at it before realisation jolts through him. It's Kitty. So undoubtedly her, dark eyes glaring sullenly out of the flatness of the page, wearing a dress that looks to be made out of moss coloured butterflies…
"It's hideous, isn't it?" she says, leaning over his shoulder. "I can't believe that anyone designed some of these things with beauty in mind."
He can feel her warm breath on his cheek, her perfume, light and unobtrusive, winding around him, close, so close. "You were a model?" he asks, the first words he can think of. She sits back, the usual guardedness nowhere in sight.
"Among other things." Her voice is spiked with venom and she looks away, towards the window where a few, forlorn stars peer dismally through the clouds. "I hated it."
He stays silent, and she glances back towards him again. "I just always felt so exposed when I was modelling. I was trapped between the camera and the backdrop, and to top it all off they rarely let me wear nice things." She picks up another photo. "What do you call that?"
"Disgusting," he says without even thinking, and then they're both laughing and Kitty is pulling more and more pictures of her in horrendous outfits from the piles – personally, he still thinks that she's as radiant as the sun, even in a bizarrely asymmetrical combination of different animal skins – but he'd never say that, not when the first gate has opened and she's slowly letting him behind her defences.
Eventually, when they've exhausted the bad ones, Kitty sits back against the sofa, closing her eyes for a second. "Grace came to see me today."
"Grace Singh?"
"Yes." Kitty takes a deep breath. "She says I should file for a divorce."
She's looking at him again, cutting away his breath until he feels like some sort of whale floundering in too-shallow water. He forces himself to speak.
"So are you going to?"
She nods, a metal-tipped smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "What kind of mother would I be if I didn't fight for my daughter when I had the chance?"
A/N Thank you to Guest for reviewing! Here's the next one - it's really cloudy where I am at the moment, so click that little button - it will quite literally make the sun come out!