Will slipped his arm round my waist to prevent me from stumbling into the road and kept me upright and moving forward all the way back to the flat.
‘Today took a few unexpected turns,’ I said, sinking onto one of the dining chairs while Will filled me a glass with tap water. ‘Some fantastic and others…’ I shrugged.
‘Do you need anything else?’ Will asked. ‘Some toast maybe?’
‘Just you. Will you stay? It’s okay if you need to go or you want to go. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll stay. Why don’t you get yourself ready for bed and I’ll cover Trevor and put the lights out in here?’
I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth then into the bedroom to remove my clothes, although stepping out of my jeans was a bit of a challenge in my addled state. I pulled on a nightie before climbing under the duvet.
Will knocked lightly on the door. ‘Are you in bed?’
‘Yes.’
He opened the door. ‘Do you have any spare bedding?’
‘No.’ I peeled back the duvet. ‘There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom and you can…’ But my eyes were heavy and forming any more words was such an effort.
* * *
‘Thought you might need this.’
I could smell coffee and I blinked in the dim light. My head hurt.
‘What time is it?’
‘Eight, so still quite early, but I thought you might want some time to listen to more of the tape before you open the shop.’
I nodded slowly. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’
‘Don’t be. I’d have done the same. There’s some paracetamol and a fresh glass of water by the bed.’
‘Thank you.’
Will left the room and I gratefully downed the tablets and the whole glass of water, feeling completely dehydrated. The coffee was too hot so I had a shower while it was cooling and, by the time I joined Will and Trevor, I felt a lot more human but I still couldn’t get my head around what had happened yesterday. Marianne’s death had been difficult enough but the discovery that she was my mother… I didn’t know what to do with that. It didn’t feel real.
‘Thank you for staying,’ I said as I settled onto the sofa beside Will. ‘I didn’t want to be alone last night.’
‘I didn’t want you to be alone.’
‘But you’re going through so much already. I can’t believe I’ve just added to your burdens.’
Will took my hand in his. ‘Nothing about you is a burden. I want to be here. I want to help. How are you feeling?’
‘Apart from the fuzzy head and the mouth like a desert? Still confused. It feels like a bad dream.’
‘You could always listen to the rest of the tape after work.’
‘If I wait, I’ll only spend all day thinking about it. You don’t have to stay if you have plans.’
‘I’m seeing my mum this afternoon but I’m free this morning. Should I plug it in?’
‘Fourth part,’ Marianne said once Will set the tape playing once more. ‘Or I think it is… Yes, it is. I was fifteen when you were born. It was a home birth. Eli Farrow paid a midwife who wouldn’t ask questions. Mum doted on you but Dad couldn’t bring himself to look at you. He used to be warm and friendly but he turned into an angry, bitter man. Mum and Dad argued all the time. She liked Richard and still believed the three of us could be a family but Dad told her to get her head out the clouds. Me falling pregnant destroyed their marriage. Mum went on the happy pills and floated around in a daze, oblivious to how crap everything was. Those Friday-night school reports were so hard for me, pretending to be your sister and not a proud parent. It was easier to push you away than risk getting close and having the truth come out. And it was easier to stay away from you instead of look at you every day and see Richard’s eyes. I know I was awful to you and I wish I could change every part of it but I can’t. None of this was your fault. If Richard and I had been allowed to be together, you’d have been the daughter of my dreams, but we weren’t and I couldn’t cope with it. I’m sorry.’
‘More things suddenly making sense,’ I said to Will when Marianne paused.
‘I’m back and I need to talk to you about the cottage and the smallholding. You already know that the cottage was left to both of us when my dad died so now it’s completely yours. As for the smallholding, if you’ve looked through the documents, you’ll know that I sold it. Shortly after my dad died, Eli Farrow did too and Richard returned to take over the farm. He was married with children and I could hardly blame him for that. It was easy to avoid him. If I went out, I didn’t cross the farm and he was hardly going to call on me. I had no interest in the smallholding so I’d had someone in managing it but they stepped down and I couldn’t face searching for a replacement. I waited until I saw Richard’s wife go out with the kids one weekend and I marched down to the farm and told Richard he needed to buy the land back. Obviously he didn’t want to but I had nothing to lose and said I’d tell his wife the truth if he didn’t. He said I’d told him I didn’t know if he was the father so I told him I’d said that for his own protection and he had to have known that deep down and, even if he didn’t believe me, the fact remained that he’d been eighteen and I’d been a minor. I hated threatening him like that – made me no better than my dad or his – but it worked and he bought the land back. I never spent a penny of it so, as well as the cottage, all that money and the interest it’s earned is yours. I’m sorry there’s nothing much inside that can be salvaged. You’ll need to spend some money doing it up before you sell it as I can’t imagine you’ll want to live here. I hope you don’t. Even after the work, you’ll still walk away a rich woman.’
