‘I do.’ She crossed her legs and sat forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands inside his. ‘I love you no matter what.’
‘So let’s do it! Why not? Let’s get married!’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Please don’t make me say it again.’ He smiled.
‘One more time would be nice.’ She leant forward and kissed his sweet mouth, feeling a jolt of love deep in her gut for this beautiful man.
‘Merrin, will you marry me? Please.’
‘Oh, my God! Yes! Yes I will! I’d love to marry you, Digby!’ Jumping forward, she lay on top of him, kissing him as he ran his palm over her flat stomach towards her bra so they could celebrate in the only way they knew how.
CHAPTER ONE
MERRIN
Merrin stood outside, barefoot on the uneven cobbles, liking the way they fitted inside the high arch of her instep, anchoring her as she curled her toes around them. No matter the environment, she always felt better without shoes and socks, her feet treading the earth, grass, sea, rocks or shoreline; it seemed to connect her and calm her like nothing else. Especially today and at this early-morning hour when she had woken, climbed from her single bed and trod the narrow wooden stairs, feeling as if a thin cushion of air lay between her and the ground, almost as though she were floating. She was excited mostly, but a little overwhelmed, too. Not that she would show it. It was her knack, keeping herself together when things veered off course – in part because her sister, Ruby, never shied away from high emotion and the chance to display it; her outbursts, mostly unwarranted, were a little draining, no matter how predictable. Merrin’s demeanour provided balance.
‘Grampa Arthur has collapsed; he’s not breathing, Merry! I just seen him in the garden! He’s lying on his front on the path!’
‘Look at me, Rubes! Look at me! Go and fetch Dr Levington and then go and find Dad in the pub and I’ll sit with Gramps. It’s all going to be okay.’
Merrin’s heart had felt like it might explode and yet she had smiled, kept calm and taken control. Not bad for a nine-year-old. It hadn’t all been okay, far from it – Gramps had died – but she knew enough to pretend for as long as she needed to. She missed him still, but it had been a salient lesson that when the shit hit the fan, there might not be anyone else around to take the tiller; sometimes the most responsible person around was you.
She felt a familiar unease at the sight of Lizzie Lick plucking shells from the shoreline and stuffing them into the pockets of her smock, and averted her eyes from the woman most thought of as a weirdo. Merrin glanced back at her surreptitiously with no desire to engage, as Lizzie, who danced to her own tune, mumbled to herself, as per usual.
Breathing long and slow, Merrin closed her eyes briefly, feeling instantly better, calmed. This was the perfect spot with the widest view and she could spend hours here, staring at the waves. Her dad once told her they were the heads of white, foaming horses, cantering up to the break and crashing, before making a sharp turn and petering to nothing on their return. It was now impossible for her to see them in any other way. Looking out over the purple bruise of sky where clouds hung low over the ocean, she offered up a silent prayer.
Please don’t rain! Not on my wedding day . . .
The waves roared against the harbour wall in response. The Kellows lived in one of four solid and compact family cottages on the harbourside, although the end two had been sold off a while since as holiday homes. The hands of Kellow men had built them well over two centuries ago, the stones and rocks gathered from the quarry up the coast, each one hefted down to the harbourside. Her dad and the five generations of Kellows before him made their living fishing. And number one Kellow Cottages was where she’d been born and the only place she had lived.
Digby had listened to her reasoning that even when they were married, there was no question of living anywhere other than Port Charles. To try to carve out a life among the crowded streets and throngs of strangers in a city held no interest for her. This village was her home. The buildings along the shoreline were markers, navigational aids and the pillars around which the cottages had sprung. Homes for fishermen and tin miners alike. Nearly all were small and crooked, whitewashed and pretty. Now, with most of the fishermen and the tin miners long gone, the shutters and doors were painted in ice-cream shades and in the summer, scarlet geraniums, crowded into window boxes, danced in the warm breeze, providing visitors with a photo opportunity at every narrow twist of cobbled street and each glance from the windows of their snaking cars, as they navigated the ever-narrowing lanes. Lanes designed for horses, not cars, and for men on foot with fishing nets, not out-of-towners with heavy suitcases full of finery for which there was no venue suitable and no one who either knew or cared about their value. Yes, this was where she belonged and where they would stay and raise their family.
What was it Digby had said? ‘I’d live anywhere with you – anywhere. Because where you are is home for me.’ Her heart jumped at the thought.
‘Merrin! For the love of God, will you please come in!’ her mum called excitedly from the window of the rectangular room with the sloping ceiling that spanned the depth of the house.
‘I’m coming!’ She let her eyes take one last sweep of the bay before heading inside.
Her mum, Heather, still in her nightclothes, made her way over from the range, which pumped out heat in all weathers, which was why the front and back doors were nearly always open, allowing the odd dog, several neighbourhood cats and sometimes a chicken or two to wander freely from the small backyard into the warm space. The room had its own particular odour, a welcoming combination of woodsmoke, baking and the wheaty tang of animals. The kitchen-cum-parlour was the heart of the house, and whilst by no means spacious, was still the biggest room, where the family gathered to celebrate or commiserate.
‘I’ve put the curling tongs on and I can do your hair while Dad’s in the bathroom, but there’s no time for dawdling. You can’t be late.’
Her mum, it was fair to say, seemed a whole lot more agitated about the day, the timings and the detail than Merrin was herself. Not that she’d say it out loud, but she’d have been just as happy to have eloped, to have stood on a beach or in a register office or even a little plastic chapel with an Elvis lookalike officiating. How they became man and wife didn’t really matter to her, all that mattered was that they be joined in matrimony, in sickness and in health. She loved Digby Mortimer to the point of obsession, fascinated by every aspect of him: the way he looked, the way he sounded, his small unconscious movements, the way he pushed his hair back over his forehead, the flat square of smooth skin at the base of his wrist . . . Just the thought of these jigsaw pieces that made up the whole of him was enough to send a bolt of longing right through to her very core. This feeling was as intoxicating as any liquor.
She reaffirmed her decision to take the day in her stride and not get flustered: confident and unharried in the way that being truly happy had made her. The truth was, no matter the enormous expectation placed on this, her special day, it felt like no more than the final hurdle, and one she and Digby would sail over. After all the calm resistance, questioning, wide-eyed tuts of disapproval and the rationalising of objections raised by both sets of parents –‘You need to live a little first!’ ‘You’re from very different worlds!’ – how hard was it going to be to put on the fanciest frock she had ever worn and waltz up the aisle on the arm of her dad?