She floats paper in the loo to muffle the noise, sits forward, doesn’t flush. Washes her hands properly, Imperial Leather for a nostalgic holiday treat, always takes her back, used to seem so posh thirty years ago in Libby’s house where they also had branded biscuits and real Coke. You’re not supposed to put soap on your face at her age, dries the skin and gives you wrinkles, but she likes the tight clean feeling and she doesn’t have dry skin or wrinkles. She scoops water into her mouth, the taste different from at home, more like the smell of outside, growing plants and damp earth. Another handful, not that she’ll sweat much in the rain but it’s easier with more fluids on board.
She left her kit ready in here last night. Yesterday’s knickers, they’ll be in the wash as soon as she’s back; the moment of fear as she fights to get her elbows through her sports bra. One of these days, she thinks, one of these days a woman is going to die doing this, or at least dislocate her shoulder, and it’ll be worse getting it off all wet. She probably doesn’t need it anyway, the special tight bra, but they always say you must, however tiny your tits, or terrible things will happen. Running socks, Steve has no idea how expensive but they do make a difference and she’s just the one pair, cheap vest top made in Bangladesh doubtless by kids younger than hers but what can you do (not buy it, obviously). The thing about running in the rain is to wear as little as possible, your skin’s waterproof and it’s layers of wet fabric that make you cold, not to mention the chafing. Capri leggings, she’s not shaved her legs, no point in this weather, but any other loon out there in this rain will have better things to think about.
She looks in the mirror. So maybe she was wrong about the wrinkles. So what?
Both hands to ease the door handle, stop at the children’s door to unravel two sets of breathing, dither about whether to take the one key leaving them locked in and needing to go through the windows in a fire, the windows being low and easy to open and there being no plausible cause of fire just now, or leave the key meaning that she can’t lock the door and there are three beloved souls sleeping undefended in the woods, or at least two beloved souls and one mostly tolerated one. Fire, she thinks, is more likely than murderous nutters, you do hear of psychopaths hanging out in holiday parks but only in America and the good thing about being at the end of a ten-mile single-track road is that the getaway options are crap. Unless, of course, the nutter plans to hide in the woods until dark, but there’s not much dark this time of year and wouldn’t the police bring dogs? Or he could swim across the loch, at least if he’d thought to bring a wetsuit. Or she. Women can probably be serial killers too, wasn’t there one in Japan, though that was life-insurance fraud more than sadism, not that it makes much difference to the victims, though a fraudster probably kills you faster than a sadist so maybe it does. You’d need to get into the wetsuit before embarking on your murderous games, not something you want to be doing between committing a crime and leaving the scene, even worse than putting on a sports bra. Jesus, look at that rain. There’s almost no point putting clothes on for that, if she’d brought her swimming costume she’d wear it. One thing, it can’t keep up like that all day, there can’t be that much water up there. She sits on the veranda to fasten her shoes, to adjust her armband and choose her music. She should probably run mindfully here, listening to the wind in the trees and the lapping of the loch and any birds deranged enough to attempt flight in the deluge but fuck that, she needs music for her feet, music to connect her feet to the ground so she doesn’t have to think about it. It’s not, she sees, even half-five yet, she can have two hours if she wants them, get in a quick 20k, though if she does that she’ll be eating all day and the kids wanting a snack every time they see her but she knows she’s going to do it anyway. She’s got four peanut protein bars tucked into her packet of sanitary towels in the suitcase, the only place no one else is likely to look, and she’s not too proud to eat them in the bathroom if she has to.
And
