‘Is that right?’ Ben’s tone now a lot less jolly.
‘She’s the talk of the town, all right!’
His words were like daggers, sharp and wounding. Merrin felt a quake in her stomach.
‘What is it you want exactly, Mac?’ Her dad was now short with the pub landlord and she knew this was for her benefit.
‘You left your wallet on the bar last night. I said to Robin and Jarv, not like he can afford to be throwing money away. I bet it cost you a pretty packet for the wedding and all – I saw your fancy suit and Merrin’s dress! Thought I’d better bring this back to you, can’t have you any more out of pocket!’
Merrin heard the door slam and saw Mac slope off across the cobbles.
‘What the bloody hell is going on? I’m still waiting on a cup of tea!’ Ruby shouted as she hurtled down the stairs.
Merrin collapsed on to the rug in front of the sofa.
‘All I did was fall in love and all I wanted was to take care of a family, be a mum and make a home, and now this; my whole life has fallen apart! I’m a bloody laughing stock!’
‘Ignore them.’ Her mum sank down to the floor with her and held her tight. ‘Ignore them all.’
‘How can I? I wanted to live quietly.’ She looked up towards Reunion Point and wondered how long Digby had sat there, wallowing in self-pity. ‘And now I’m something different. Someone different. How can I live a quiet life in the place I love when I am marked as that girl?’
‘It’ll pass, Merry. It will.’ Her sister looked anguished.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t, I can’t stay here, not with everyone talking about me and about yesterday; I can’t stand the thought of it. I don’t want to see anyone, don’t want to go outside. Staying here with reminders on every corner and people wanting to bring it up would make it hard for me to get over it, hard for me to rebuild myself.’
‘Don’t be daft, my love.’ Her dad’s expression was fearful. ‘You are just very tired and things will seem different in a day or two. You need to be right here among the people who love you. We’ll have no more talk of not staying here. Port Charles is where you belong. It’s where we all belong!’
She tried to sit up, tried to find a way through the waves of distress that had knocked her from her feet, but her sadness was too all-consuming. Merrin didn’t know how to stop crying, didn’t know how to flick the switch that would make her instantly stop loving Digby Mortimer, but the one thing she did know: her dad was wrong, she did not belong here in Port Charles, where being left at the church and how she had been jilted would live on in the mouths and minds of all those present and even those who weren’t. She would not be that girl. She would not give old Ma Mortimer the satisfaction. No.
Heaving herself into a sitting position, she looked at her wonderful parents and sister and knew that she would miss them and all the chaos of this little cottage, because she would leave. She would go away and build a life; not the life she had dreamed of, but a life away from this noise and the stain of her ‘almost’ wedding day. And she would do it alone. Forgetting these had been her thoughts and not rational conversation, she stared at her family through her tears.
‘I’m going to miss you all so much,’ she whimpered.
Her dad sank down into the chair and her mum wrapped her tightly in her arms, as if this could prevent the inevitable. The sound of their tears echoed around the bay, before the wind whipped up the saddest noise and carried it far, far out to sea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEN
It was a cold winter’s day and, even before he left home for the day, Ben was looking forward to returning, kicking off his boots, a hot bath and an evening in front of the fire. He would never admit it to his wife, but a small part of his joy at coming home after being out at sea on the Sally-Mae had been missing since Merrin had left Port Charles. Ruby was an ever-present source of happiness with her spiky manner and lack of filter and he loved nothing more than to hear about her day spent working at the fishmonger’s in town. It was, and always had been, interesting to him how much folk were willing to pay for what he hauled from the sea. He used to joke with the girls when they were little, explaining the role of a fisherman and how his catch went from his boat to tables far and wide.
‘’Magine that, liddle ones?’ he’d laugh. ‘One minute you’re swimming about in the briny, a happy little lobster, and the next you are facing a boiling pot while a fat man in an expensive suit sits on a velvet chair with his napkin tucked into his shirt collar, willing to pay over the odds for nothing more than a bite of your bum!’ The girls had found this hilarious, but there was, as ever, truth in his joke. He smiled now at the memory of them at such a young age.
Not that there was anywhere on God’s planet he would rather be than in this small plot of land that was his home, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t mind the fact that one of his daughters was so far away. It was a dilemma. He of course wanted his girls to find their feet and fly. Doing whatever it was that made them happy, but if he had his wish, no matter that it might be a selfish one, he wanted them close. His little family, his greatest achievement, within reach for a shared cup of tea, a glass of blackberry wine or a good old chat in front of the fire.
He knew, too, that Heather, as much as she tried to hide it, now carried a certain sadness about her. He understood; it was as if all was not quite right in the world with their littlest so far away. She might only have been on the outskirts of Bristol, three hours away on a good run, but it felt like she was on the other side of the world when she wasn’t under their roof. They had raised two strong women and yet the thought he kept to himself was that at some level he felt it was his job to be there if and when anything went wrong. Not that there had been much he could do when things had gone so horribly wrong last summer. His impotence surrounding it was like a paper cut in his mind that just wouldn’t heal.
Those damned Mortimers . . .
Climbing down the rickety stairs, he felt his fingers flex and form a fist as they did when he pictured Merrin’s face in the vestry, as she sat upright in the chair with her dress puffed up all around her, looking at once like a child and yet somehow older, as if the reality of life, something truly terrible she had not known existed, had been revealed to her. He exhaled deeply and tried to settle his pulse, which always raced when he pictured the face of the boy he had welcomed into his home for cosy suppers and anecdotes recounted around the table.
‘I could still bloody kill him!’ he muttered under his breath, wondering if this feeling would ever subside. He rubbed at the top of his arm, where a shooting pain had a tendency to spark, due to the cold, no doubt, and the effect of hauling heavy nets and crates of fish at his age in all weathers.
As he rolled his shoulder and walked into the parlour, Heather called from the stove, where she stirred a lamb stew, the rich, peppery aroma filling the air.
‘Where you going, Ben?’
‘Old Boat Shed.’ He grabbed his old oilskin jacket and pulled on his sturdy boots.
‘That’ll make a change.’ She sighed.
‘Where else am I to go? This is Port Charles! There in’t that much choice!’
‘I know where we are. And well you know that my point is that you can’t keep hiding up there. It won’t bring her back. It’s been nearly six months.’ She spoke over her shoulder.