Roses Are Red - Miranda Rijks Page 0,84

I start thinking about Patrick. I shouldn’t have doubted him. It’s obvious that he loves me. We have agreed to share everything for better or worse. I resolve that that’s exactly what I will do. What is mine is his.

26

I wish I had been able to take a sleeping pill, because I don’t sleep. I am on heightened alert all night, despite switching the burglar alarm on downstairs and triple-checking that all the doors and windows are locked. I still roam around the house by torchlight at 3 a.m. It takes me back to when the children were babies, and I awoke at the slightest creak or sniff.

I have to force myself to get up to take the children to school. My head feels as if it’s going to split in two and my limbs are leaden. There’s too much going on in my life to be ill right now, so whilst the children are eating breakfast, I make myself a doctor’s appointment. The receptionist must take pity on me, with my barely-there voice, because she gives me an appointment for 10.30 this morning.

I put the pepper spray into the pocket of my anorak. I am glad that Cassie gave it to me, and even though I hope I’ll never have to use it, it’s like a comfort blanket. I ease the Bentley out of the garage very carefully. I hate driving this car. It’s too big and ridiculously expensive. The merest touch of the accelerator, it feels as if the car is going to take off. Mia also hates the Bentley. I have to park a street away from school so no one sees her and Oliver getting out of the car. I resolve to sell it. I’ll buy Patrick a better car and put the leftover sum towards our new house purchase.

The doctor’s practice is in a new purpose-built block in Horsham, housing three surgeries and a large chemist. I have never seen the same doctor twice and have no idea who my assigned GP might be. I take the lift to the second floor and put in my date of birth on the screen. I hate how I have to touch the same screen as all the other sick people who have been in before me, so I surreptitiously lather my hands with the antibacterial spray that I keep in my handbag. The waiting room is full, and I resign myself to a long wait. There are copies of women’s magazines in a rack and today’s edition of the Daily Mail on a small table. I help myself to it and take the last remaining chair near the back of the room. The man in a suit sitting to my left edges slightly further away. I suppose I look as ill as I feel, with a scarlet-tipped nose and dark rings in my pasty face.

My head pounds too much to read the newspaper properly, so I skip from headline to headline until I see the title Stepmother in Feud To Take All. The article describes the fight that is taking place between three adult children and their stepmother. Their mother had died when the children were young, and their father remarried. He then died without writing a new will, and all of his estate passed to his new wife, with nothing going to his children. The three children have taken their stepmother to court to force her to hand over three-quarters of their father’s estate, which they say he would have wanted them to have. Apparently, under inheritance laws in England and Wales, if a married partner dies without leaving a will, all of their estate passes to their remaining spouse, not their children.

‘Shit,’ I mutter under my breath. The besuited man edges even further away. I realise that as it currently stands, if I should die, Patrick would get everything, and Mia and Oliver nothing. Whilst I doubt this dose of flu is going to kill me, it’s imperative that I get my will sorted out. The thought of Adam thinking that all of his earthly goods would be given to Patrick makes me snort, a snort that turns into a rasping cough.

‘Lydia Grant to room two, please.’

I fold the newspaper back together and drop it onto the table as I pass, walking through a set of double doors and following the signs to room two. I knock on the door and walk in.

Dr Stone is an attractive woman, probably mid-thirties, with apple cheekbones and tortoiseshell