3

Six o’clock and still no sign of her.

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d called her phone. Never anything. He’d phoned the Caledonia Dreaming office, no answer either on her direct line or at reception, but they were terrible at answering that thing. Then there was no point after 5 p.m. because they always closed on the dot.

He’d called the picture desk at theStandard, got another shutter-monkey to cover his shift. Fletcher didn’t like it, but Mark had got some decent shots of the whale pod after all, so he was cut a little slack. Last thing he needed was to lose the gig at the paper, it was just about the only steady money he had coming in these days.

He got sausages, chips and beans on the table for him and Nathan and kept Lauren’s warming in the oven. Your dinner is in the dog, and all that. She’d be in the door any minute. He would be cross at first that she hadn’t called, that she’d left him in the lurch, but that would quickly dissipate into the usual comfortable family routine.

But something clawed at him. He flicked up the scan picture on his phone. He couldn’t really make anything out, despite what the midwife and Lauren had said they could see. The baby supposedly had a spine and head already, fingers and toes, but all he could see was a swirl of white noise. It didn’t seem real to him yet.

He couldn’t help thinking about the last time. The depression after Nathan was born. The sense of alienation, something badly wrong. Then the disappearance. For ten days, right when he and Nathan had needed her most. The ten longest days in the history of the universe. Days spent at his wits’ end, struggling with nappies, sterilisers, crying, sleepless nights, all piled on top of panic and worry, stress upon stress upon stress.

Then she reappeared, Mark furious and confused, mixed with relief that he didn’t have to cope alone any more. Lauren was contrite but still desperate, almost suicidal at times, like a cornered beast. She never said where she’d been and Mark was too scared to ask. He didn’t leave her alone with Nathan for two months after that. Horrible thoughts crept into his mind. Lauren went to counselling, struggled for months to bond with Nathan. Struggled for longer to reconnect with Mark. She refused drugs, distraught at the thought of her personality being altered by chemistry. It had all been such a battle, a sense of being battered by a storm, but they’d clung on and after eighteen months things had returned to something like an even keel.

That was all six years ago. But she was pregnant again, with a little girl this time. Maybe it was all coming back.

He tried to calm his breathing as he looked at the kitchen clock. The creeping second hand mocked him.

He turned to Nathan, who was stacking chips on his fork. Not exactly a healthy one today, but sod it, he couldn’t think clearly enough to cook anything proper.

‘So how was school today?’

‘Fine.’

This conversation so familiar, like an anchor.

‘What