She gripped her mug tighter.‘It was him,’ she said, the words spilling out. ‘Robert Miller. The Wesley & Co collapse. The missing money. Your family’s trust fund. I should’ve told you years ago. I didn’t. And I’m so, so sorry. I’ve lived with that for over twenty years, and I can’t anymore.’ She paused, steeling herself for the worst part. Somewhere outside, a bee batted angrily at the kitchen windowpane, and she waited for Hamish to vent his own anger at her, but his eyes remained shut, his lips tight. She took a breath. ‘There’s more. The money I spent at St Andrews, that was probably yours ... Mum told me it was her savings, but not where it came from, she didn’t tell me that that until after I’d taken my last exam.’
The silence that followed was long and terrible. The ticking wall clock suddenly sounding thunderous.
‘I know,’ Hamish said at last.
Tina stared at him. The world seemed to lose focus.
‘For years I wondered why you wouldn’t talk about your father. Initially I thought it was to protect your mother, but after Dee died ... when you still never said anything, I started to wonder. Then that horrible row we had two years ago ...’ He glanced up at her, and she winced, recalling their furious exchange. ‘I started digging and I uncovered the truth.’
Of course he had. That was his way – careful, deliberate, academic. Turn over every stone. Seek the truth, even if it cut you.
‘I knew what your father had done,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘But I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. With you. You weren’t him. You never were. I spoke to Ma, asked her what to do, and she told me to let sleeping dogs lie.’
Tina felt her throat constrict. For a moment she could hardly breathe.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she managed. Her voice sounded strange to her ears – thin and rough with old pain.
‘I persuaded myself you’d buried him. That you’d scraped him out of your life and didn’t want to dig him back up. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to tell me. I desperately hoped you would talk about it, but you never have.’
‘But how could you bear to stay with me when you knew?’
‘You were still silver. Tarnished, maybe. But not fake.’
The words lodged, because they weren’t true. She had been real once. Before the smart dinner parties, the careful vowels, the shrinking in rooms where she wanted to be approved of more than she wanted to be known.
Understanding settled with a dull, unmistakable weight. This was what had hollowed them out. He had fallen in love with someone unguarded, unpolished; and slowly, for his sake, for his family’s, she had replaced herself with a version designed to pass muster.
Christina looked down at her hands. The polish was still visible beneath her nails. Hands that had shaped so many things – mended, forged, faked; and now they trembled not with fear, but with recognition.
She had not deceived him at the beginning. She had done it gradually. No wonder he’d grown distant. She’d thought space would fix things. That a proper house might make her feel like she belonged. But the problem had never been the house. It had been the shape she’d twisted herself into, trying to match other people’s expectations and become the woman she thought Hamish wanted to be married to. Now, with the act dropped, she saw it clearly: she wasn’t less worthy. Not compared to them. Not at all. And Hamish had never wanted a different wife. Just the one he’d married.
‘Dee never had a bean to her name; she couldn’t have saved enough to fund your time at St Andrews. I guessed that stolen money had paid for you at university and that was why you stayed silent. I thought you were getting close to telling me. I had to stop myself from asking last night ...’
‘You knew. And you stayed with me anyway.’
‘I loved you anyway. You can’t choose your relatives, Tina. God knows, I wouldn’t choose half of mine.’
The simplicity of it undid her. For years she’d imagined this moment, had feared it would end in rage or silence. But for two years Hamish had carried his truth alongside hers. Tears welled, hot and unexpected. Not from guilt – she was done with that – but from the shock of being known. Really known. And still wanted. Would he still want her when he heard the rest? She could barely get the words out, but she knew she had to.
‘Wait. There’s more.’
He looked up, startled, and she told him about the forgeries. Not all the details – those could wait – but enough. Ernest. Frank. The pressure. What she’d done. Why.
Hamish’s face tightened. Not in judgment, but with a cold, focused anger. The kind that knew exactly where to direct itself. ‘He used your father’s crimes to manipulate you. That’s what he does. He manipulates all of us. That’s why Ma is in that ghastly nursing home, that’s why Hugo is never sober after lunch. It all ends today.’
The kettle started whistling and Hamish turned away busying himself making tea. Then he asked. ‘What really happened to your father? He didn’t move to New York like you and Dee always said, did he? He went to jail didn’t he?’
She closed her eyes, the words heavy on her tongue. ‘Yes. He got twenty-three years. And he ... he died of cancer before he was released. I never saw him again. I only found out what really happened after he died.’
A sound broke the tension – bare feet slapping against the carpet, a sudden burst of cheerful noise.
‘Morning, you two!’ Elspeth’s voice filled the room like birdsong, bright and oblivious. She bounded in, hair wild, pyjamas askew, grinning. ‘I’m absolutely starving. What’s for breakfast? I need feeding if I’m going to be fit for rehearsal with Ben.’
‘Ah, do you think your wounded boyfriend can still manage a romantic stroll in the Forest of Arden?’ asked Tina.
Elspeth groaned, blushing. ‘Mum! We’re rehearsing a play, that’s all.’
‘Of course,’ Tina said, suppressing a smile. ‘You’re Rosalind, he’s Orlando ... justleads, nothing to see here.’
