Time frame.
That was an easy one. Now.
Then she clicked the ‘Find Your Match’ button.
The system thought about it. And thought some more.
Clearly there wasn’t a match, or perhaps the system was down. Georgie was about to give up and close the page when the screen changed.
One match found.
She clicked on her result. Edinburgh? She’d never been to Edinburgh.
All she really knew about the place was that it was the capital of Scotland and it had a castle, a very famous comedy festival and an amazing Hogmanay party.
One match. Meaning that this was fate giving her a little nudge to keep trying.
She clicked ‘connect’ and wrote a short email, doing her best to sell her job in London. And everything she wrote was true: the Royal Hampstead Free Hospital was a great place to work, her colleagues in the paediatric department were utterly lovely, and her comfortable flat in Canary Wharf with its balcony and fold-back doors overlooking the Thames was only a short walk from the Tube station.
Put like that, it would make anyone wonder why she wanted to leave. What wasn’t she telling? What was the catch in what looked like a perfect life?
The whole truth wasn’t something she wanted to tell anyone, let alone a complete stranger. ‘Personal reasons’ was too vague and likely to net her a rejection. So, instead, she stuck to a simplified version of the truth.
I was widowed almost a year ago and I feel I need a fresh start, away from the pity.
Pity that would be so much worse if people knew the truth. Charlie had been cheating on her with Trisha for months; his mistress, who had been killed in the landslide with him, had been pregnant at the time.
In Georgie’s view, nobody, but nobody, needed to know about Trisha and the baby.
She stared at the words for a while. And then she took a deep breath and pressed ‘send’.
It didn’t mean she was definitely going to leave. The other paediatric registrar might not want to live in this part of London, or might change his or her mind about doing the job swap. But she’d made the first move. If this didn’t work out, her next attempt would be easier. And then, for the first time since she’d learned the truth about her husband, Georgie could stop feeling as if she was weighed down by the whole world.
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks later
GEORGIE COULD STILL hardly believe it had all happened so quickly. Clara Connolly had been happy to swap her job in the paediatric department of St Christopher’s Hospital in Edinburgh for Georgie’s job at the Royal Hampstead Free in London, and she too wanted to start the swap as soon as possible.
Perfect.
Telling Joshua had been the hardest part. Her brother had been so upset. He’d accused her of bailing on them when he and Hannah really needed her. In the end, Georgie had been forced to tell him why she needed to get out of London, and the truth about how Charlie had cheated on her and lied both to her and to his mistress. Joshua had been horrified that she’d kept it to herself for so long, then guilty because he felt he hadn’t supported her well enough for her to tell him the truth earlier. But they’d pretty much worked it through, he’d promised to keep it to himself, and she was going north with his blessing.
Though her brother’s insistence that she should send him a text every time she stopped for a break was driving her crackers. Why did he have to fuss so much? OK, so she hadn’t driven that much for a while—in London, she didn’t really need a car—but she was perfectly capable of driving the seven or so hours from London to Edinburgh on her own. Actually, she was enjoying it hugely. She’d hired a bright orange convertible Mini for a fortnight, to give her enough time to work out whether to buy a car for the rest of the job swap or extend her lease; driving on the motorway on the bright autumn day, with the roof down and the stereo turned up loud with a playlist of happy, bouncy music, was the most fun she’d had in months. And she stopped every two hours at a service station to stretch her legs, grab a coffee and text Joshua that she was absolutely fine.
The navigation system was working well; not that she really needed it on the motorway, because it was pretty obvious she was just heading north up the M1 to Scotland. Apparently Clara’s cottage was at the edge of a village outside Edinburgh, about thirty minutes away from the hospital; although Georgie was pretty sure she’d be able to pick up supplies in the village, she decided to get some bread, milk and instant coffee on her last stop, just to tide her over in the first minutes when she arrived.
Edinburgh.
Her new life.
Freedom.
She’d still be doing a job she loved and trying to make a difference to the world, but she would no longer have to pretend all the time. And, just in case Charlie’s ghost was listening, she instructed the car’s sound system to play The Proclaimers’ ‘I’m On My Way’ and sang along with it at the top of her voice. She was definitely driving away from the misery she’d felt in London, and nothing was going to stop her enjoying her new life in Edinburgh. Being happy.
An hour later, she revised that.
The persistent rain had made her put the hard top on the car. It was already dark—a good hour before it got dark in London—but there were no street lights in sight so she had to rely on her headlights, and the narrowness of the road and the multiple bends meant she was driving at practically a crawl. The satnav didn’t seem to have a clue
