‘Merrin, I—’
‘No, let me finish! I moved away because I didn’t know how to live with the new shape you carved for me, the new version of me, and the worst thing was, I hadn’t changed! Not one bit! I still wanted to run barefoot, to sit on the harbour wall outside the cottage and drink tea as the sun came up and went down – that was all I wanted! Yes, I liked the idea of spending time in the big city with you sometimes and stretching my boundaries, but I always thought I’d travel on my terms and then go home. Home to settle down for good. But . . .’ She cursed the tears that pooled, wiping her eyes and sniffing. ‘What you did to me, it changed things for me. You broke my heart. You broke my heart, Digby.’ It felt hard to say out loud; her voice was thin. ‘It never healed quite the same, you know?’
‘I do know,’ he whispered, looking like he, too, might be close to tears, and for this she was strangely thankful.
She placed her palm on her chest. ‘It’s like I have a little fault line running through it of which I am overly aware. I doubt it would survive being dropped again.’
‘I’m sorry, Merrin. I was conflicted, and my mother—’
‘Merrin!’ Vanya called from the end of the corridor. ‘So sorry to interrupt you, but I’m swamped!’ She held up a clutch of room keys. ‘Could you help me with check-ins?’
‘Of course, Vanya, on my way.’ She let her eyes lock with his and smoothed her jacket, before tucking her hair behind her ears.
‘I am sorry, Merrin.’ He searched her face, almost imploringly.
Standing straight, she took a moment, before speaking clearly. ‘“Words are easy like the wind, faithful friends are hard to find.” William Shakespeare said that.’
He smiled at her. ‘Did he? I’ll have to take your word for it.’
‘Goodbye, Digby.’
As she walked away, Merrin felt surprisingly calm. It felt good to have had her say, and to see the look of anguish in his eyes was a reward of sorts. Not that she wanted him to hurt, but she did want him to acknowledge the hurt he had caused. It had been strangely healing and today, on Valentine’s Day, as tears snaked down the back of her throat, she felt his eyes on her back and knew he was watching her walk away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DIGBY
Digby sat at the small, leather-inlaid desk positioned at the bedroom window with a lovely view of the large cedar tree that grew outside. He thought this must be the perfect spot at Christmas, especially if they were lucky enough for snow.
‘Darling, I’m going to take the boys for a little amble in the grounds, wear them out a bit before supper. Do you want to come?’ His wife leant forward and kissed his scalp.
He reached up and touched her face, the smell of her as intoxicating as ever. ‘I think I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind. I have some correspondence to catch up on, and then I’ll shower. Really looking forward to supper.’ He smiled warmly at the woman he loved.
‘Me too!’ She kissed him again and turned to her sons, who sat side by side on the wide double bed, glued to a cartoon, the noise from which was infernal.
‘Daddy!’ Noah called, as Lydia grabbed their padded coats from where they rested on top of the overnight bag.
‘No, Daddy is hiding up here and will probably nap for twenty minutes and then make out he hasn’t so he doesn’t feel too guilty that I am in a permanent state of knackeredness and he is unfairly refreshed.’
Digby laughed. ‘Am I that transparent?’
‘Always.’ She beamed. ‘But I wouldn’t have you any other way. I like your transparency. I like knowing everything about you.’ He felt the cold bolt of deceit fire through his core, knowing this was not quite true; she didn’t know about Merrin Mercy Kellow, the girl he almost married. She blew him a kiss and trundled out of the room with the boys rushing ahead.
He opened up his leather folder and placed it open on the desktop before taking the fountain pen from its natty little holder against the central spine of the file and twisting off the lid. Next he turned the pad to an angle and stared at the blank white sheet of paper. It was hard to start, but strangely, once he did, his hand danced across the page with speed and a rare fluidity of communication.
Dear Mother,
I can’t remember the last time I wrote to you – from school, possibly, when we had to pen the obligatory monthly note home to reassure you that we were being well fed and that your fees were being wisely spent. Matron used to check every letter before it was sealed and so even if we had been living off gruel, among cold punishments and misery, it would have been hard to tell you. We weren’t, by the way; I was very happy at school. I liked almost every aspect of it.
I guess it feels easier to write to you rather than try and have this long-overdue conversation face to face, and so here we are. What was it Dad always said? A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer? And so here goes.
I’ve asked myself what I want from this communiqué. What outcome? And the rather inadequate answer is: I’m not sure. Do I want a different life? No, not at all. So, what then? Maybe a little understanding? An acknowledgement that the decisions you have made on my behalf have not been without consequence? Recognition that every stone you have cast out in order to achieve your aims or to satisfy your drive has always caused ripples that I suspect you are quite unaware of?
This is also probably a good place to tell you that I love you. I do and I always will, but love and like are two very different things, Mother. And so, do I like you? Again, the rather inadequate answer is: most of the time.
I want to talk to you about Merrin. That name that has not passed our lips in conversation from that day to this. Merrin Kellow.
I think back to that summer, less than three years ago, but a lifetime too. I was a naïve kid, but who isn’t at twenty-two? I did, however, feel old enough to make good choices. That was another thing Dad always told me: make good choices – and I did. I chose Merrin. She was sweet and made me laugh and she made me happy. She made me really happy. And now whatever I write with regard to her makes me feel disloyal to Lydia. Darling Lydia, whom I adore and who is the best mum to Noah and Freddie, but life with Merrin would also have been good. Life with Merrin was good! Did you know she was at this hotel? I can’t believe you did, not even you would be that cruel, surely?
I feel again, it’s important to say that I love Lydia. And ours is a good, strong, solid love, but I loved Merrin, too, and she loved me, and you know, Mother, she made me so very happy when I was discovering who I was. She didn’t want anything from me, from us, despite your warnings to the contrary. You were wrong about her, and the way I let her down, guided, encouraged and coerced by you, is something that will haunt me. She deserved better, we both did.
The love that I had for her might have waned, might have dried up or might have bloomed into a whole lifetime of love – who can possibly know? Not me and not you. But you know that feeling, that love that is so all-encompassing it’s like a drunken madness, obsessive and singular – when the prospect of not being with that person is a thought that’s almost unbearable. Well, it was like that. It was everything, and I desperately wanted to find out what came next, but you took that opportunity from us. Should I be thanking you? Because if you hadn’t intervened I might not have met Lydia and my Noah and Freddie would be different or not at all, and those thoughts are as desperate as they are unimaginable to me. But good God, Mum, it was a hard lesson.