While sitting on the bench together that warm day, the sound of voices coming up from the beach and the screeching cry of seagulls overhead and motorboats chugging in and out of the harbour, she had apologised for shutting him out the way she had. She had then told him the truth about her marriage to Colin. He’d listened in horrified disgust, appalled at what she’d put up with.
‘Whatever you do, don’t pity me, or God forbid, judge me,’ she’d said vehemently, when she had eventually fallen silent.‘After the way I cheated on Colin with you, I accepted that just like me, he was less than perfect. Then later, when the violence started, I accepted that for the sake of the children, putting up with his occasional loss of control was the price I had to pay for maintaining a stable and happy environment for them. Countless women, and men, would do the same as I did. Which doesn’t make it right, I know, but I swore to myself that if he ever laid a hand on the girls, that would be it.’
Ellis wasn’t an expert on the subject, but he knew enough to know that staying with an abusive partner was, in some circumstances, not an act of weakness, but of strength. Which only reinforced the opinion he’d already had of Naomi, that she was a woman of great inner strength and resilience. He hated the thought, though, that his affair with her, as brief as it had been, had made her feel that in some twisted way she deserved what Colin had done to her. Never would Ellis accept that that was right.
Holding her hand now, and stroking her finger that was indented from years of wearing the rings that had symbolised her union with Colin, Ellis said, ‘If we’re to be married, I’d like to buy you a ring; that’s if you want to wear one. If you do, it must be a ring of your own choosing.’
‘I’d sooner wear a ring ofourchoosing,’ she said. ‘But as lovely as your suggestion is, I think a ring can wait for the time being. We have more pressing decisions to make.’
He smiled. ‘How very businesslike you sound.’
‘I don’t mean to be. But you said it yourself, the tenancy agreement runs out on Waterside Cottage next month, at the end of July, so how would you feel about moving in with me?’
‘What about Martha and Willow; what will they think?’ He knew that it troubled Naomi that his presence in her life had caused something of a rift between her and her daughters.Perhaps not a rift exactly, but certainly an upsetting of the family apple cart. He couldn’t help but wonder if they might regard him differently if they knew what their father had really been like. Wouldn’t they then welcome someone who would love and cherish their mother? Naomi had been adamant that she never wanted Martha and Willow to know that she had allowed Colin to do what he had, that it would undermine the very foundations of their family. But was it possible they knew anyway, if only on a subconscious level?
‘I told you before,’ Naomi said, breaking into his thought, ‘I’m not going to let my daughters determine how I live my life. I nearly gave you up because I was worried about losing their love, which has always been the most precious of things for me, but if they love me and want the best for me, they’ll come round to the fact that you and I love each other. And,’ she went on after a slight pause, ‘that we plan to marry.’
Staring up at the bulging moon in the inky-black sky that was studded with diamond-bright stars, Ellis hoped that was true. ‘I suppose if I did move in with you,’ he said, ‘it would give you the opportunity to put me on a probationary trial.’
She rested her head against his shoulder. ‘That works both ways, you know. You might decide that you couldn’t possibly put up with my irritating habits.’
‘Only one way to flush them out on both sides, in that case,’ he said with a laugh.
‘But how do you feel about living in the home that I shared with Colin?’
‘I’m not going to ask you to sell it to pander to my finer feelings. I know how much you love Anchor House, how it’s a part of you.’
‘You haven’t really answered my question, have you?’
‘I’m very adaptable,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I’ve lived in many houses over the years; admittedly some I’ve liked better than others, but at the risk of sounding hopelessly corny, I’d be happy to be with you in an old caravan with a leaky roof.’
‘Lord, let’s hope it never comes to that!’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘a caravan and the freedom to up sticks and go wherever we feel like going does have a certain appeal to it, don’t you think?’
‘I think that’s called running away,’ she said with a small laugh. ‘But you know, I would never have had you down as such an old romantic.’
‘I fear it’s come with a receding hairline and a grizzled beard; all my edges have been softened.’
‘I rather like your grizzled beard,’ she said, ‘it makes you look—’
‘If you say it makes me look like a cuddly teddy bear, I shall throw you over my shoulder and dunk you in the sea.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘No, I wouldn’t, not when I’m now officially a year older; my back would probably give out.’
‘Thinking of your birthday, I have an idea. In the morning, while I make you a birthday cake, why don’t you move some of your things in from next door. How does that sound?’
‘It sounds good. Especially the bit about a birthday cake. I can’t remember the last time I had one made for me.’
‘Then I shall bake you a cake to remember!’ she said with another happy laugh. ‘And guess what we should do now.’
‘Go on.’
‘We should go for a swim.’
‘A swim, you say. In yonder actual sea just some few yards from our feet and which is no doubt colder than the Champagne we’ve just drunk?’
