Her mum had calmly held her ground and turned her attention to her sewing. ‘I couldn’t care less what I wear. I’ll stick a turnip on my head if she likes. We need the money, Ben.’
This reminder of the fact that his fisherman’s wages alone weren’t enough to cover their living expenses did not help the cause. Her dad had grabbed the offending items and marched from the house. Merrin had no idea where they ended up, but suspected they were heaved into the fish-gut bin with a few choice words to send them on their way.
It was odd for her to think that Loretta, a woman who liked the finer things in life, had, according to local lore, spent a childhood without anything fine in it. Ben had always rather enjoyed telling the tale of how the woman with all the airs and graces had grown up living in a caravan, without running hot water and with only a shared compost toilet, at the back of Mellor Waters with her parents and siblings. Rumour had it that Guthrie Mortimer used to ride his horse in the area and took a fancy to the young Loretta, who, twenty-five years his junior, had been swimming in the lake one day. And according to those same rumours, she wasn’t the kind of girl who owned a swimsuit. It was interesting to Merrin that seeing the Mortimers out and about, you would be pardoned for thinking it was Mrs Mortimer, with her shoulders draped in fur and her favoured pillbox hat sporting two curled pheasant tail feathers, who had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a biscuit fortune in the bank. And old Guthrie – the affable drunk who, before he spied young Loretta, had apparently spent a decade roaming the high seas on a yacht – who had grown up in a damp field.
Merrin felt a little sick at the thought of the woman, who even after all this time and without any contact, still had the power to make her feel anxious. They were on her mind, and no wonder when she was about to return to where a Mortimer might be within touching distance. The thought made her shiver. She had, of course, been sorry to hear about the passing of Guthrie, but mourned him little, as he had passed away at the same time as her beloved Granny Ellen.
And tomorrow she would set off for Port Charles. Excited and agitated thoughts about the weekend ahead raced around her mind and left her breathless with anxiety. She was nervous about taking Miguel home for the first time, hoping for the thumbs up of approval from her family, but aware that it was so much more than taking a new boyfriend home. It would be the first time she had been to a wedding, and the first time she had paraded around Port Charles, since that day, and the only thing that made the thought of it bearable was that she would be doing it with Miguel by her side; someone to cling to. With a man by her side no one was going to view her as pitiful – instead, if viewed through the right lens, she might be seen as triumphant, vindicated and happy! This felt important to her, especially if the Mortimers were within sight.
Of late, things were a little improved between her and her sister; they trod carefully, unpicking the fight that had fractured their bonds, both seemingly aware that those bonds were still a little brittle. There remained a thin film of awkwardness, rooted, Merrin was certain, in the fact that Ruby was about to become Mrs Jarvis Cardy – even though Merrin knew that what she and Jarvis had shared had been no more than a childhood fling with a bit of inept kissing thrown in for good measure.
It was Bella who had first told Merrin that her sister’s trips with Jarvis up to Reunion Point to drink cider and their shopping days in St Austell had developed into something more, until there was no question that Ruby was dating the boy. And so, wanting to break the ugly stalemate, Merrin had plucked up the courage to call her sister to get the gossip and help patch up their wounds. Still, she bitterly regretted the words that had left her mouth quite involuntarily. Words that she wished she could swallow back down and erase. Words that instead of putting a lid on the simmering stew of friction only served to put more heat under it.
‘So come on then,’ she had urged with a note of caution, treading carefully, badly wanting to erase the lingering sting of their row. ‘Bella said you’ve been seeing someone? Tell me everything!’
Ruby had giggled. ‘God, is nothing a secret around here?’
‘Nope! So come on, spill.’
‘It’s Jarvis.’
‘My Jarvis? I knew it! I could tell by the way you’ve always defended him that there was something there.’
The silence following her words was deafening. Merrin closed her eyes tightly and pulled a face, wishing she could rewind. When Ruby spoke her tone was cutting and her irritation apparent.
‘First, he isn’t your Jarvis.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘And second,’ her sister interrupted her, keen to make her point and clearly in no mood to hear any kind of justification, ‘how many bloody Jarvises do you know, Merrin?’
She tried to smooth the waters. ‘I’m . . . I’m happy for you both, I really am. You are two of my favourite people. I think it’s brilliant. I really do!’
‘You think I need your approval?’
‘No! Of course not, I just . . . I’m trying, clumsily, to say congratulations and that he’s a good catch. A good catch for you, that is, because you are made for each other!’
‘A good catch for me?’ Ruby snarled, her unspoken assumption that he was not, of course, good enough for Merrin. Merrin had rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t win. But Ruby wasn’t done. ‘And what do you mean, a good catch? What is he, Merrin? A bloody cod?’
‘No! I—’
‘I’ve got to go, Mum’s calling me.’ Her sister had brazenly lied, and before Merrin had a chance to talk her way out of the situation, offering platitudes that might heal, Ruby had hung up the phone.
‘Brilliant, Merrin!’ She hid her face in her hands. ‘Just bloody brilliant.’
These careless, ill-considered words, spoken without thought or agenda, were lodged in her mind so firmly that at every encounter with her sister she felt as though she were skirting around them. It felt like Ruby was slipping further and further out of reach. The dynamic of their relationship had uncomfortably shifted and it meant that even now, as Jarvis and Ruby prepared to wed, every conversation was bookended with a little awkwardness and reservation on both their parts. Merrin wished it were different, but was too busy in her new role as Front of House Manager of this five-star venue to allow such thoughts to cloud her mind today. It was, however, just another aspect that made the prospect of returning to Port Charles daunting, to say the least.
The day passed in a flash, as those worked hard often do, and before she knew it, Friday had dawned and she and Miguel were on the road. The car had been packed slowly and with trepidation as she considered the wisdom of returning at all. She paused often, looking at the little rust bucket that was to transport them, and at one point hoped it might break down and make travelling impossible. She even wondered how easy it would be to catch Vanya’s nasty tummy upset, which would mean confinement to bed – anything that might give her a reason to legitimately bow out.
In the run-up to today, she had barely slept, tossing and turning as dreams wrenched her from rest, all with images of her in her wedding dress, the diamanté waistband glittering in the sunlight as she traipsed up the aisle after her sister, much to the amusement of the great and good of Port Charles. She figured the best way to get through it might be with the aid of Dutch courage. An image of a strong glass of gin being put in her hand formed in her head and how very, very happy she had been on her ‘almost’ wedding day . . . well, the first half of it anyway.