So yes, he had looked in the bathroom bin when he was cleaning his teeth while getting ready for bed.But only because he wanted to confirm what he thought he already knew.
At around three in the morning, he had woken to find Martha crying. She had claimed it was because she was suffering with the pain of her period, and maybe she was, but he suspected the tears were for another reason. He’d offered to fill a hot water bottle for her and while he was downstairs waiting for the kettle to boil, he had studied the calendar on the wall.
Now as he drove through the early morning traffic, Tom felt a wave of guilty shame, remembering the reason why he had looked at the calendar.
He had been counting up the days until Martha would be ovulating next.
Counting the days when he would be off duty.
Counting the days until it would start all over again and once more the pressure would be on.
Chapter Five
The 7.57 a.m. train from Cobham & Stoke D’Abernon station to London Waterloo was crowded and running thirteen minutes late. It was not an uncommon occurrence, but all the same, it annoyed Martha; she hated to arrive anywhere late.
The large man sitting next to her was taking up so much room he was spilling over into her seat. The intrusion into her personal space made her almost nostalgic for the socially-distanced days of the coronavirus. With no room to use her laptop, she took out her mobile to check her emails. Scrolling through them, she flagged up the ones she would deal with later and deleted anything of no interest. She was ruthless when it came to decluttering her devices. She was the Marie Kondo of screen technology!
Actually, she was quite a fan of the KonMari concept and when it first became popular, she had put it to good use at home with Tom. They were both naturally tidy people, another reason why they were so compatible, and had once spent a wet Bank Holiday weekend together systematically emptying all their cupboards, even the attic. They’d jettisoned anything they agreed was superfluous to their lives. Clothes they hadn’t worn in ages, books they would never reread, cheap badminton rackets they would never use again, boxes of, well, just stuff that wasn’t relevant to who they were now as people;it was all put into bin bags and either taken to the tip or put ready for their local charity shop. Neither she nor Tom had a sentimental nature, so the task wasn’t difficult for them. By the time they’d finished, she had been filled with an extraordinary sense of empowered wellbeing. She’d felt thoroughly cleansed and more in control.
When the train finally pulled into Waterloo and she was hurrying along the crowded platform towards the underground, and remembering how upset she’d been the other night in bed – how pathetically useless she’d felt – she wondered if she needed to repeat the KonMari process. Would it make her feel more in control again? Because as things were, her inability to get pregnant made her feel powerless. She hated the growing sensation that she was up against some unknown force that was preventing her from having the child she so badly wanted.
She bought her usual latte from the coffee shop in the foyer of the building where Brand New Designs had their offices, and took the lift up to the tenth floor.
Settled at her desk, her computer switched on, she was ready for the day. Here at least she could throw her energy into thinking of something other than not being pregnant.
But it was not to be. At eleven forty-five she was asked to join the team in the main meeting room to discuss pitching for a new client who was in need of rebranding. Nobody knew who the client might be, not until Jason Dawson, the company CEO, clicked the top of his pen – always three times – and began.
‘Topolino,’ he said, ‘originally a predominantly online company specialising in high-end baby and maternity products, but also sold through a number of exclusive outlets such as Harrods and Harvey Nichols. They became more widely known after Meghan and Harry’s first child,Archie, was photographed wearing one of their blue-and-white-striped knitted jackets with the distinctive mouse logo on the collar. Topolino meaning “little mouse” in Italian, in case you didn’t know.’
On the screen behind Jason, a photograph of baby Archie in said jacket appeared.
Murmurs of acknowledgement went around the table.
‘As a result of the patronage, sales for their baby clothes, maternity clothes and accessories skyrocketed,’ continued Jason, ‘and they’ve since opened a number of stores in London, Bath and Cambridge. But here’s the kicker, they recently made the mistake of—’
Staring up at the photograph of the adorable little Archie, Martha knew exactly what the kicker was and couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, ‘They’ve been accused of unethical manufacturing practices.’
Jason turned to stare at her and clicked his pen the statuary three times. ‘Go on,’ he said, his laser-beam attention on her.
Martha knew that Jason liked to have spontaneous input, but she was irritated with herself for displaying that she knew anything about babies when she didn’t have one herself. Not a word had she said to any of her colleagues about wanting a child. Had she done so she was sure she wouldn’t have had the promotion she’d recently been given. The others round the table were either never going to have families, or had their children years ago and were well past the baby and toddler stage.
‘It was alleged they had used child labour in Bangladesh for a new line in maternity wear they were selling,’ Martha said. ‘As soon as the allegations came to light, they stopped using the factory and switched all production to the UK and to an existing factory in the Midlands where they had better controls in place.’
‘Exactly so,’ said Jason with a smile.
‘Presumably by using the factory in Bangladesh production was cheaper for them?’ said Steve, their creative director.
‘And they’ve paid the price since,’ said Jason. ‘So now they feel the need for a rebrand.’
‘Have they actually experienced a loss in popularity and sales?’ asked James, their design consultant. ‘Because often what shoppers say they’ll do while professing outrage is not what they actually do in practice.’
‘A valid point,’ said Jason with three clicks of his pen, ‘and while the drop in sales is minimal, image, or the perception of it, is all. Which means our job is to convince the client that we can put some shine back on what they fear is a tarnished crown.’
For the next forty-five minutes they tossed ideas back and forth until Jason called an end to the meeting.
You were very well informed about Topolino,’ he said when he followed Martha out of the room. ‘Been researching baby stuff, have you?’
‘I was buying a present for a friend’s newborn,’ she lied, her game face on. If this was Jason’s not-so-subtle way of asking her if she was pregnant, or planning to be, a question by law he was not allowed to ask, he was crossing a line. But men like Jason were adept at crossing lines and could somehow always get away with it. Clever, dynamic and strikingly good-looking, and with an uncanny knack for seemingly knowing what she was thinking, he might have been a temptation for Martha in another life. But not now. Now she could see through the smokescreen of his super-strength charm.
