The Storm Before The Calm Read online

  Chapter 2

  Meredith woke up when Jenny started crying. She listened for the sound of Sam’s footsteps coming up the stairs. When it became obvious that Sam wasn’t on his way she pulled herself out of bed and headed for Jenny’s room, thinking that Sam had probably fallen asleep on the sofa. Picking up her sobbing daughter, she hummed softly as she carried her downstairs in search of Sam.

  There was no sign of Sam in the lounge or the kitchen. Meredith went to the bottom of the stairs and called out his name thinking he’d maybe just gone to the bathroom but she was met with silence. Jenny had quietened down but was now wide awake and making gurgling noises. Putting Jenny on the floor in the lounge and fetching her mobile phone from her bag in the hall, she called Sam and listened as the phone rang out then went to voice mail. Leaving an irritated message to let him know Jenny was wide awake and that she assumed he’d gone to the pub after all, she ended the call with an annoyed stab of her finger.

  “Well, that will be that then. I guess I’m going to have to do bedtime after all,” she muttered to herself as she vowed to have serious words with Sam tomorrow about him shirking his duties.

  For the next half hour Meredith played with Jenny until the baby finally began to yawn and rub her eyes with chubby fists. Jenny hungrily gulped down a half bottle of milk and Meredith spent another ten minutes or so singing to Jenny until she relaxed fully and closed her eyes. Taking the sleeping baby to her room, she laid her gently in the cot, careful not to wake her for fear of having to stay up another hour playing baby games.

  When Meredith finally climbed back into bed she felt wide awake. Picking up her laptop, she checked her face book and twitter accounts and ended up wishing she hadn’t bothered. There were a few not very pleasant comments about her appearance from some of her followers. One said her hair was always untidy, another commented that her clothes always looked a size too small and yet another mentioned that her tummy wasn’t as flat as it used to be. Worst of all was the one who said she looked as though someone had just dragged her into the broom cupboard for a quickie before she went on air.

  She closed the laptop with a sigh. Her tummy was a little more pronounced than it had been before having Jenny but she knew she wasn’t any heavier. As for her hair, it was so thick that it was very difficult to manage. Using massive amounts of hair gel to flatten it down simply meant it moved in clumps rather than strands. She was also very careful about the clothes she wore, making sure she was always smart, or so she’d thought. Clearly her dress sense left little to be desired according to at least one person.

  Meredith turned onto her side, closed her eyes and hoped sleep would banish all thoughts of the negative comments from her mind, but it wasn’t to be. She tossed and turned for another hour or so with thoughts of how she would approach the topic of Sam’s absence, whether she had any larger sized clothes and if there was a way to tame her unruly hair all running through her mind in a jumble. Eventually she fell asleep sometime after eleven when exhaustion took over.

  The insistent beeping of the alarm annoyed Meredith awake at three thirty in the morning. Reaching out, she hit the snooze button and rolled over. Sam was lying beside her on his back, snoring gently. She caught a waft of stale beer and toothpaste. Quickly turning away from the assault on her senses, she closed her eyes for what seemed like a second but when the alarm broke through her consciousness again it was four o’clock.

  Knowing she would have to rush and that she would feel out of sorts for the rest of the day she groaned as she pulled herself out of bed and headed for the en-suite. All I need is to be late less than a fortnight after being back at work, she moaned. Deciding not to wash her hair to save time, she was showered and dressed by four-fifteen, choosing a black skirt that had always felt a bit loose on her and a black and white vertically striped blouse which she hoped would have a slimming effect. Spending several minutes in the bathroom overdoing the hair gel and brushing her hair furiously in an effort to tame it, she finally checked her overall look in the mirrored wardrobe door. Satisfied that her hair was flat and didn’t look untidy, she quietly left the room and headed downstairs. If I leave now instead of making coffee, she thought, I should make it to work in plenty of time to go to the canteen; maybe even have time for a spot of breakfast. Decision made, she headed out to her car a little more relaxed, knowing that she wasn’t going to be late after all.

  It was raining quite heavily as she stepped outside. Jogging the few metres to the car, she quickly clambered in, started up the engine and put the windscreen wipers on full speed. The drive to work was uneventful as usual with hardly any traffic on the roads due to the early hour of the day. Arriving at work with twenty minutes to spare she reached into her glove compartment to retrieve the spare umbrella only to find it wasn’t there. Thinking back to the last time she’d used it, she remembered it was to go from the car to the house.

  “Duh,” she said as she hit herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand when she realised she’d forgotten to put it back in the car. She stepped out of the car, hurriedly slammed the door shut behind her and locking it. Running across the car park, she tried to shield her head with her handbag. Once inside the building she shook droplets of rain from her clothes and headed for the canteen, grateful to be somewhere dry and warm. The weather was cold for July and the high winds that had been around the last few days made it feel even colder.

  The canteen was quiet at that time of the morning. After buying a cup of strong black coffee, she opted for a seat near the door hoping it would give her an extra minute or two to gather her wits. Taking a sip of coffee and then another, she willed it to make her feel human again but all she felt was tired and washed out. Her thoughts turned to Sam ducking out last night. She felt her annoyance with him rise again, but she also felt fear. If Sam continued to shirk his responsibilities on a regular basis she wasn’t sure how she would cope – or stop him. Checking her wrist-watch she realised she had only five minutes left.

  Picking up her bag, she gulping down the last of her coffee and headed to her office to pick up her charts and maps before going to her dressing room. Anna, the stylist, would be along shortly to do her hair and make-up. Anna was a likeable woman, older (Meredith guessed her age at late fifties) and with a soft, gentle voice that always soothed Meredith in the morning as she told tales about the latest exploits of her grandchildren.

  At five-fifteen Anna arrived and began the arduous task of sorting out Meredith’s hair. As she lifted the first strand to clamp between the straighteners she hurriedly dropped it again, shook her hand in the air and then rubbed her fingers on the apron she always wore.

  “What have you put in your hair this morning?” she exclaimed, screwing up her face to show her displeasure. Meredith using copious amounts of hair gel was nothing unusual. Anna had tried to dissuade her from doing so on many occasions but today was just too much.

  “I overslept this morning so didn’t have time to wash it. I just had to gel it down. You know what it’s like,” Meredith explained.

  “I’ll have to scrape it off the straighteners by the time I’m finished. No time for washing and drying it now. We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Anna said with a sigh as she picked up a clump of hair and began the morning ritual of teasing it into submission.

  By the time Anna had finished Meredith still had fifteen minutes before she needed to be on set. It meant she had time to run over the weather forecast once more, but first she went to survey her appearance in the full length mirror, checking that she was at least ‘tidy’. She twisted at her skirt and pulled at her blouse. It didn’t make any difference. She still felt dumpy; her clothes had failed to have had the desired effect.

  Going back to the small desk, she sat down, picked up her papers, sighed and began to read but the words blurred. Her brain was having difficulty taking anything in. She felt frazzled, as though she had been on the go for t
wenty-four hours straight. Sam’s disappearing act last night hadn’t helped. His reneging on their agreement really had her rattled. If Sam was determined to start behaving like a single man again there wasn’t a lot Meredith would be able to do about it. She could hardly lock him in the house.

  There had been more arguments between Meredith and Sam since Jenny came along, particularly when she’d given them a few sleepless nights but they both knew the problem and had talked it through. Sam had been attentive at first and wanted to do as much as he could for both Meredith and Jenny, which Meredith had been very grateful for, but it seemed the novelty of it all was wearing thin for him now.

  Taking a deep breath in before exhaling sharply, she pushed thoughts of Sam from her mind. She needed to focus all her attention on work right now. There were a couple of million viewers depending on her to make a good job of explaining the weather patterns for the next few days and she would be on air in five minutes.

  Just before she headed to the set she had a final check in the mirror. As usual Anna had excelled in making Meredith’s unruly hair look sleek and shiny, just as she always did, but Meredith still pulled at it a few times trying to make it sit perfectly. After a few seconds of hair tweaking she began pulling at her skirt and blouse again in an effort to hide the curves she’d gained since having Jenny. Normally she wore skirts with no waistbands to hide her slightly protruding tummy but the skirt she’d chosen this morning had a high waist band and, if anything, accentuated the small bulge instead of hiding it. The skirt moved easily around her waist as she twisted it from side to side, trying to make it sit neatly. Not too small at all, she thought as she looked in the mirror and sighed once more before making her way to the studio.