Sophie presses her fingers against her forehead where a throbbing headache is taking hold. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Dottie agreed for your father to pay me a substantial amount of money if I had their baby. I’d have enough money to go back to England with the children, like I’d dreamt about all those years after Thomas died. All those years when I’d felt like a prisoner in that house. Thomas’s war pension was hardly enough to live on, and Agnes …’ Ellie shakes her head. ‘After you were born, I flew back to Gander. George promised to transfer the money to my account.’
‘I can’t believe this.’
‘The money never arrived, Sophie. I wrote to your father, I tried ringing …’ Ellie licks her dry lips. ‘After that, the only place I wanted to be was here in Tippy’s Tickle. My relationship with your parents …’ She grimaces. ‘Well, that was finished. There was nothing left for me in England.’
She looks at Sophie, a weak smile playing on her pale lips. ‘Somehow I managed. Emmy helped me when he could with money from his fishing. He knew nothing about you. I’ve never told anyone, not even Florie.
‘I began teaching art at the school and started selling my work. When Florie arrived, she persuaded me to make postcards and prints for the tourists. Florie bought the shop with some money she’d saved up. Things slowly got better.’
She reaches over to the table for the plastic cup of water, her body shaking with the effort. Sophie holds the cup to Ellie’s mouth, watching her take a long sip.
Ellie settles back against the pillows with a sigh. ‘I was furious with your parents for a long time, Sophie. Furious with myself. Then, as the years passed, I often wondered about you. I sent a few Christmas cards, a few letters, but I never heard back from George or Dottie.’ Her thin shoulders rise and fall under the hospital gown. ‘Then you showed up on my doorstep ten years ago, and all of the anger I’d been harbouring for years dissolved.’ She smiles weakly. ‘You were a lovely baby, Sophie, but you weren’t mine. You were Dottie’s and George’s.’
‘But why did my mother hate you so much, if you did that for her? Because she did. She really did.’
‘I don’t know, Sophie. Perhaps she was just a very, very unhappy woman. She had a terrible fear of abandonment. She felt that she was responsible for our mother’s death, which was ridiculous. It was an accident, a terrible, unfortunate accident.’
‘What happened?’
‘Dottie had been playing on the road on her tricycle, even though she knew it was forbidden. When Mummy ran out to get her, she was hit by a car. Dottie saw everything. She was only four.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘Yes, it was. But it was an accident. I think Dottie may have felt guilty about what she’d asked of me and George. We’d all committed a terrible sin. We’re Catholics, Sophie, or I was then. We’re very good at guilt.’
Sophie’s eyes burn as the tears finally come. She brushes her hand across her wet cheeks.
‘Why do you want to ruin my life like this?’
‘I don’t want to ruin anything. There’ve been too many secrets in this family. Years of secrets. It’s time for you to know the truth. For Sam to know the truth. That Winny was your half-sister. That you’re Becca’s aunt.’
‘But you want me to keep the secret from Emmett that we have the same father.’
‘Please, Sophie. If you feel you have to tell him, please wait until … I can’t bear to see his face.’
Sophie fights back a sob. ‘What do you want me to say? That I love you because you’re my mother?’
‘Sophie, my darling girl, you don’t owe me anything. I just wanted you to know who you are, before it’s too late.’
Chapter 78
Tippy’s Tickle – 17 September 2011
Aside from black streaks of soot on the white clapboard around the bedroom window, Sophie sees little evidence of the fire as she follows the path down to Bufflehead Cottage. She spies Sam’s motorcycle beside the porch door. As she approaches, voices filter into the garden, but the words are carried away on the cold breeze. Tugging Florie’s sweater up to her chin, she rubs her cold nose with the rough wool and steps into the porch.
‘… another fire. Just like the last time. Did you set this one too?’
‘What are you talking about, Emmett?’
Sophie steps back against the porch wall and turns her ear to the agitated voices coming from Sam’s living room.
‘Boston. The one in Boston, Sam, b’y. The fire that took my poor sister. There was some big whisperin’ about that when you came here all those years ago. Not a penny on you, and me havin’ to take you into the business. I didn’t wants to do it, b’y, but poor Mam was beside herself, losin’ Winny like that in the fire, and Becca only a young thing.’
‘That fire …’ Sam’s voice cracks. ‘That fire was an accident.’
‘So, why did you hightail it up here, broke as a tinker when you’d had a big business down in Boston? Smelled like rotten cod to me.’ A rattle of paper. ‘Where there’s a stink, there’s a reason.’
A long pause. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘In the desk drawer in your furniture workshop. Had to jimmy the lock on the tin case. Figured there’d be something interestin’ in there, it being all locked up. I should’a looked a long time ago. When the fire happened yesterday, it got me wonderin’ all over again.’
‘I know what the report says.’
‘You’re a murderer.’
There is the crash of objects hitting the floor, something decelerating as it spins to a stop. ‘Get out of here, Emmett.’
‘Heard you had a temper, Sam. Did a good job of hidin’ it. Is that what happened, Sam? You had a fight with Winny and you set fire to the place to cover it up?’
‘Get out of here!’ Something slamming against a wall. ‘Get out!’
Footsteps thud towards the porch. Sophie presses herself against the wall, nothing to conceal her but the late afternoon shadow. Emmett stumbles past her and out of the door, his hand over his left eye.
Sophie treads quietly across the threshold into Sam’s kitchen. Sam stands by the wood burner staring out of the window, a white document rolled up in his hand.
She steps over the broken crockery and pot lids. ‘Sam? What’s going on?’
Sam turns to look at her, his face shadowed with turmoil. ‘Nothing.’
‘He called you a murderer.’
‘You believe him?’
Sophie hesitates at the dining table.
‘I guess you do.’
‘Don’t make this about me, Sam. What’s going on? What’s that paper?’
Sam strides over to Sophie and hands it to her. ‘I’ll be outside cleaning the soot off the wall. Come and talk to me after you read it … if you still want to.’
***
Ellie opens her eyes. She must have dozed off. The sun is so lovely. So warm on her face. She takes a deep breath. Such fresh air. She loves this spot. Just under the fir tree on the hill by the house. Her spot.