‘Yes, I did.’ Heather was smiling now, she could tell. ‘I’ve taken a couple of your old shifts at the Port Charles Hotel and it tides us over. Don’t you go worrying about us, we are right as ninepence.’
Merrin wanted to believe this. ‘I want to pay you back, Mum. I’m going to set up a monthly transfer; it’s not much, but it’ll make me feel less rubbish.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
Merrin read between the lines that the money might be useful. It was the least she could do.
‘And have you met anyone nice?’
‘You mean like a potential boyfriend?’ Her lip curled and her stomach dropped at the thought.
‘Yes.’
‘No.’ She didn’t socialise at all, preferring to keep herself to herself, and had not allowed herself to make a friend, let alone find a boyfriend. ‘Definitely not. I can’t see me ever committing to anyone like I did with him. I don’t think it’s worth the risk. It hurts too much, Mum. Even now. It changed me.’
‘Oh, it is, Merry!’ Her mum’s tone was urgent. ‘Don’t ever think that. It is worth the risk. It would be the greatest shame if you didn’t let yourself love and be loved, it really would. I can’t think of a life without your dad in it, no matter he drives me crackers! Or my girls.’
‘We’ll see. But at the moment I try not to think too far ahead. Anyway, the reason I called was to give you my news.’
‘Yes! What is it?’
‘I got a permanent job, a promotion, kind of. From now on I’ll be on reception.’
‘Oh! Well, that’s . . . that’s wonderful! We are so proud of you.’ Merrin could picture her mum’s face, speaking in that way she did when she coated her words with gloss, trying to disguise the fact they came from a mouth contorted by tears. ‘How I love you, little Merry.’
She nodded and closed her eyes, pushing the phone into her cheek, trying to get as close as possible to her mother across the miles, suddenly remembering again what it had felt like to be guided from the vestry and placed on the cart with Bella and Ruby holding her arms. He’s not coming . . . The Reverend Pimm’s words were as sharp and cutting now as they had been when she first heard them.
‘I love you too, Mum. All of you. Will you tell Dad for me, about my new job?’
‘Yep, ’course.’ Heather Kellow caught her breath. ‘Ruby’s out with Jarvis, they’re collecting firewood on the beach, but she’ll be sad she missed you.’
Merrin wasn’t so sure. Her mum did this too, tried to build bridges between her daughters. She took a beat to consider how to respond. It was no secret that things between her and Ruby had been a little fraught since she had left home. It seemed to have irked her sister that she had chosen to up sticks and leave, as if she took the fact that Merrin didn’t need her help to heal or had rejected the life they lived personally. She had tried again only recently to explain it over the phone.
‘I just can’t be there, Ruby. I can’t be in a place where I might bump into him or his mother on a daily basis.’ She felt her mouth go dry at the prospect. ‘And everyone else who might want to stare at me, whisper about me. It’s more than I can stand to think about . . . and it hurts too much. Every place I look in Port Charles has a memory of Digby and me; I can’t imagine being faced with that, and the thought of seeing him. . .’ She’d shuddered.
‘You’re letting them win then!’
‘I don’t know about that.’ She’d kept her cool. ‘But I know it’s me who has lost a lot.’ My home, daily contact with my mum and dad, walking barefoot on the beach, my beloved Cornwall . . .
Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could smell the smoky fire in the parlour, and her mouth watered for the feel of hot tea sipped on the sofa, sitting with legs coiled beneath her, next to her beloved mum.
‘I’d better crack on, Mum. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
She always took a minute at the end of a call to calm the syrupy loss that sloshed in her stomach. It was a strange thing: rather than make her feel closer to home, closer to those she loved, these calls with her parents or Bella, in fact any contact with home, had almost the opposite effect, like bringing a picture into focus, enabling her to see and feel all that she was missing, confirming how very far away she was.
But that was just how it had to be.
Merrin quickly got the hang of working on reception and more than liked her new position. And today it was a glorious morning. She sat at the French windows in her room and blinked, taking in the view from her bedroom, the beauty of which never failed to captivate her. The flat, manicured lawn beyond the patio was a constant wonder to her and she was thankful to those who worked hard to keep it looking just so. Having grown up on a wild and rocky outcrop, it amazed her that grass could be so neat, so vibrant, and not the spiky, untamed variety that sprouted between rocks, over the scrub land and on the cliff edge of Port Charles. This grass was entirely different, soft like nature’s carpet, and when time and circumstance allowed and after a quick look around to make sure no one was watching, she loved nothing more than to slip off her shoes and run across it barefoot, feeling the soft yield of the verdant blades under her feet, connecting her to the earth in the way that she so loved.
Here, everything was flatter, calmer: the weather, the land and her life. It was a pleasant even keel of an existence and she found it comforting. Waking up in a castle every day was an amazing thing and her surroundings never failed to fascinate her. The high stone walls had been renovated and the original structure added to since it had first been built in the late 1500s, but always sympathetically and with grand style, befitting a once baronial family home such as this. The cathedral-ceilinged hallways and wood-panelled dining room were beyond stunning, with the scent of history and stories lingering in the air. And the library had a vast inglenook fireplace where, rumour had it, the finest ancient oak had been burnt to keep King Henry VIII and his entourage warm one day and night while he courted Anne Boleyn. Merrin liked to admire the walls and carved wood, wondering who else had done the same during their brief presence on this earth. It certainly wasn’t a bad life, far from it, just not the one she had envisaged, and not the one she had wanted.
Lionel had recently found her running her fingers over the spines of the leather-bound books crammed on to the oak shelves of the library.
‘I think it’s a shame if they’re not opened and appreciated. Like having an instrument that’s never played or a vintage car that’s never driven – quite pointless if these things are reduced to ornaments. So please’ – he had gestured around the room – ‘help yourself.’
‘Thank you, but I’m not much of a reader.’
‘Ah, that’s the beauty of reading, it’s never too late to start!’
She waited for him to leave before shyly reaching for a faded red spine that called to her. Taking the delicate book into her hands, she marvelled at its gold inlay title and the marbled pattern on the edge of the pages.
‘The Passionate Pilgrim – A Collection of Poetry by William Shakespeare,’ she read aloud. ‘William Shakespeare. Might give the old dead bloke a go.’ She swallowed the memory of her dad saying something similar, unable to stand the way she missed him, feeling it in her throat like a physical thing and longing for one of his hugs.