‘They couldn’t risk it.’
‘They didn’t trust me? Or perhaps I was not important enough to them to risk it. I am surprised he is bothering now.’
‘He is doing this because I told him you were still grieving for him and would not allow yourself to love someone else.’
Rose fell silent, a thousand questions in her mind but none coherent enough that would make any sense.
‘Rose? Are you alright?’
‘You have just told me Sam is back from the dead. I should be overjoyed. I should be glad he is well and living a good life. But I feel nothing . . . and feel guilty for feeling nothing.’ She cupped her hands to her face as if she had just heard the news all over again, for that was how it felt as she repeated Nicholas’s words in her head.Sam is alive. ‘How should I feel, Nicholas?’ she asked in earnest. ‘Should I be happy that he is alive? Should I feel empathy for him that he has suffered so much? Or should I feel angry that I meant so little to him that he allowed me to think he was dead?’
‘Please, Rose. Try to understand.’
‘Is he well? Is he happy?’
Nicholas nodded.
Rose let out a hysterical laugh. ‘I should be glad that he is happy. Shouldn’t I? Or perhaps I should be resentful that he is.’ She knew she was rambling, but it was as if the jumble of words in her head had suddenly formed sentences and were now spilling out. ‘Did he think of me at all? I spent last Christmas sobbing into my pillow because I believed he was dead. While I sobbed was he eating turkey and drinking mulled wine?’
Nicholas took her hand again. ‘Would you like to go home? Perhaps I could arrange the meeting for another day. You are overwrought.’
‘I deserve to feel overwrought!’ she shouted back. She shook his hand away and took a deep shaky breath. ‘No, I’ll see him.’ She took another as her mind raced. ‘After all, you have bothgone to such trouble, I couldn’t possibly let you both down.’ Sarcasm did not suit her, but it fitted the mood she was in — bitter, angry, resentful, all the emotions she despised in humanity now filled her to the core.
‘You have a right to feel upset.’
‘Is that what I am . . . upset? No! Upset is too simple . . . too clear.’
Nicholas pushed the gear lever into position, pressed the gear pedal and began moving forward, dragging the wheel round to turn the car.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Rose.
He halted, looked over his shoulder and prepared to reverse. ‘I am taking you home. This is a mistake. The shock is too great.’ He reversed, halted and changed gear again. They lurched forward. He stopped, appeared to take a deep breath to calm himself and prepared to move forward. Rose opened the car door and stepped down onto the grass verge before he pulled away.
‘I’m not ready to go home yet. Yes, the shock is too great, but it is not up to you to dictate what happens next. I don’t know how I should feel or how I should behave, but have the decency to allow me to choose what I should do and where I should go.’
Nicholas sighed. ‘You’re right. Get back in the car and when you’re ready I’ll take you wherever you want.’
Rose hesitated. Had she made herself clear? He had just turned everything she understood about her little world upside down and she so desperately needed to take some control back. Nicholas remained silent, with no hint of frustration or impatience on his face. She got in and sat stiffly beside him, straightening her coat with sharp flicks of her hand.
‘I would be angry too, if I was in your place,’ said Nicholas.
Rose remained silent as she clasped her hands tightly on her lap. She was not ready to give the order of where she wantedto go. Let him wait. Let them both wait. She had waited long enough.
‘I love you, Rose, but I know that I’ve not been truthful with you and that was wrong,’ said Nicholas as he waited for her decision. ‘If I could, I would turn the clock back and change everything about how we first met.’
‘How?’ Her voice was as sharp as cut glass. Rose was glad it showed no hint of her inner turmoil.
‘I would’ve entered your tea shop and introduced myself as a friend of Sam’s. But I didn’t. I was expecting to be in and out of your life very quickly. I wasn’t planning to fall in love. War taught me plans rarely go as expected. It was a lesson I forgot. Perhaps it was because I had already fallen in love with you as I had re-read your poem and carried your picture next to my heart for many months. The idea that this — us — could come to an end tears me up inside. I don’t want Sam to come between us anymore.’ She watched him study the road ahead that would take them to Daymer Bay where Sam was waiting for her. ‘He is living with a woman, but they are not married in law, Rose. He goes by the name of Harry Willis. He cannot marry legally with a false name, however, if you both still have feelings for one another, I will not stand in your way. You would have to leave Wadebridge to be with him as people know him there . . .’ Nicholas ran his fingers along the curve of the steering wheel, ‘. . . but having met your father, I don’t think that would be such a hardship for you.’
His suggestion, although kindly meant, strangely incensed her. She breathed in slowly to steady her nerves. Was she angry to hear that Sam had found another woman or was it because Nicholas would so easily step aside? At that moment she really didn’t know.
‘Please don’t plan my life for me. Neither of you have included me in your plans before now.’
‘See this as our clumsy way of starting afresh. We are risking our lives by telling you the truth. Don’t be angry with Sam. He spent a year risking his life in the army before he ran away. Not many soldiers lasted that long. He did his bit and faced the enemy despite suffering from shell shock. It takes a brave man to keep fighting for as long as he did when he was so ill.’
‘And what about me!’ shouted Rose. ‘I was in love with Sam and look what he did to me!’I was in love with you too,a voice screamed in her head,and look what you have done to me!
‘I’ll take you home.’
