That evening saw the reconvening of The Friendship Pod for the third time and a crafting session run by Tara to create needle-felted sheep. I headed over to The Chocolate Pot an hour before to move some tables around and it was great to see Zoe downstairs and helping out. Her bruises were fading and she looked a lot brighter. Tara had messaged me to say that her gut feeling had been right about Zoe opening up and they’d had a heart-to-heart. She couldn’t tell me any details as she hadn’t asked Zoe if that was all right but she could tell me that Zoe wanted to start working in the café next week and was interested in the gallerytoo so Tara and I needed to have a chat about the logistics. She hadn’t mentioned anything to Zoe about the flat yet and would play that one by ear.
Carly had plans with Liam but her sister, Bethany, had offered to help. I hadn’t seen her for ages and had forgotten she was pregnant until Tara mentioned something about her not lifting heavy tables in her condition.
Anastasia and Colin arrived together but peeled off to talk to other people. Drinks last week had turned into dinner, they’d seen each other most evenings since then, and were officially an item which had delighted Tara. Anastasia had really wanted to do the craft but hadn’t been sure whether it was okay to keep coming seeing as she’d already found more than friendship from the group. Tara and I had been insistent that finding a friend, romantic or otherwise, did not get anyone booted out. Hopefully they’d still form other friendships by attending.
Bethany and Zoe seemed to be getting on well. Tara told me that Bethany was nearly seven years older than Zoe but that she had one of those natural abilities to connect to people of any age. I saw that in action during the break when Bethany moved around the attendees, easily opening up conversations then leaving them to continue chatting without her. Zoe clearly wasn’t as confident but she didn’t look out of her depth either so, with some training and experience, I could imagine her being good with customers.
‘Fifteen tonight,’ I said, settling down at a table in the café with Tara after everyone had left and we’d cleared away. We’d normally have headed upstairs but we didn’t want to make Zoe feel like she was a gooseberry. There wasn’t anywhere to be alone in an open-plan flat.
‘Yeah, and some of them newbies. It’s a good number. I’d maybe like a few more but it’s going to take a while for word to get around and, of course, creating a needle-felted sheep isn’t for everyone.’
‘They all enjoyed it, though. Bethany looked well. I can’t believe I’d forgotten she was expecting.’
Tara sighed. ‘You know what struck me when I saw Bethany’s baby bump? She’s at a similar stage to Leanne – due a fortnight later. Bethany’s going to be an amazing mum but I just don’t see Leanne as one.’
‘Have you made a start on that email?’
‘I managed a first draft of the opening paragraph during my lunch break, but that’s it so far. I’ll hopefully find some time by the end of the week.’
‘Time?’ I said, raising my eyebrows at her. ‘Good luck with that!’
Time was in short supply for both of us at the moment. It felt like we were seeing a lot of each other but very little of it was spent alone. With us getting together so close to Christmas, we’d agreed not to give each other gifts as we wouldn’t have the time to go shopping for them. Admittedly I’d deviated from that by giving Tara a couple of gifts that I knew would carry great meaning, one of which was a piece of artwork showing Hercules in a field of daisies – her birth mother’s favourite flowers – on a moonlit clifftop overlooking the lighthouse to pair with the one I’d given her the night we first kissed. Both canvases were up on the wall in her flat either side of the log burner. In lieu of gifts, we’d agreed to a weekend away in February or March.
‘How is it that we’re ten days from the end of March and we’vegot nothing booked?’ Tara said, shaking her head. ‘I have to admit, I’d forgotten about it thanks to everything that’s been going on.’
‘Me too. It’s not a good time now but wewilldo it at some point. I wish we could pencil in a date but I daren’t commit to anything while it’s all still in the air with Ingrid.’
‘From what Pam told you this morning, she surely has to come back soon. If it hasn’t worked out with Declan by now, she has to know it isn’t going to.’
I shrugged. ‘It goes back to that obsession thing we were talking about. I don’t think she’ll ever be ready or willing to let him go so I can’t shake the feeling that, if she does come back, it’ll only be because Declan’s rejected her and not because she’s choosing to be with her kids. What sort of relationship is she going to have with any of them if that’s the case? She’s already screwed things up with Aaron and it’s easy to say the twins are only three and they won’t understand but they’ll be four soon and starting school and, before you know it, they’ll be teenagers. What sort of life will they have being with a mother who’s only with them cos she has nowhere else to be?’
‘It’s not ideal but it’s better than her taking them to live in Aus. She told you herself that there’s nothing for her there without Declan so if they’re through, it follows that she’ll settle here.’
I thought about Ingrid’s exact words in the pub –I can’t imagine living in Aus but not being with Declan. He was theonlyreason I went there in the first place. Tara was right. There’d only ever been two outcomes – it worked with Declan and Ingrid abandoned her children to be with him in Australia or it didn’t work and she returned to the UK. She’d battled with Declan and she was going to have to return to a fight withme because there was no way I’d stand by and let her treat those three incredible kids as though they were the consolation prize in her life. They deserved to be her top priority and be lavished with love and, if she wasn’t willing to do that, there were plenty of people who were and I was right at the top of the list.
41
TARA
Billy had a chemo session on Friday so the twins were staying with Jed’s parents for a few days. When Jed told me they were going to need to cancel some longstanding plans with their friends Peter and Joyce for Friday daytime, I stepped in and offered to look after Piper and Savannah instead. Zoe said she’d help me which turned out to be just as well because keeping two excitable three-year-olds entertained turned out to be way harder than I’d imagined and I’m not sure I’d have managed it on my own.
We took them down to North Bay first thing and I spent a small fortune working round the various kiddie rides outside the arcades. We visited The Sundae Shack for an ice cream before catching the bus round to South Bay to visit the Sea Rescue Sanctuary. The smiles, giggles and cuddles were ample reward for the effort and the cherry on the top was the last couple of hours in the flat hearing their squeals of delight as they crawled across the floor following Hercules.
I left Zoe in the flat and took the twins back to Jed’s parents’ in time for their tea and was so touched when the pair of themsmothered me with hugs before I left. They really were the sweetest.
On my way back to town, a call came through on the Bluetooth from Mum’s phone. Exactly a week had passed since I last saw or spoke to them so, anticipating it could be emotional, I pulled over to accept it.
The conversation was light at first – what had I been up to? – but I could hear the worry in Mum’s voice and knew she was leading up to telling me something I wouldn’t want to hear. Sure enough, the rental period on Leanne’s holiday cottage was up and, rather than have her move to another cottage and waste money on that or a hotel, Mum and Dad had invited her to stay with them for a while.
I could see that it made sense not to waste money when they had more than enough space. I could also see that it was better for Leanne not to be so far away in Claybridge as, while it was only half an hour from Whitsborough Bay, it was more like an hour from Whitby.
But then came the part that really hurt. They’d given Leanne a tour inside Whispering Winds. Dad had specifically said that, when they got some keys, I’d be the first to see inside after the builder and I hadn’t been. Even though I told myself that circumstances had changed and they had a right to show their new home to whomever they wanted whenever they wanted, the wordssecond bestkept creeping into my mind.
I didn’t say anything to Mum about how I was feeling but I didn’t encourage her to expand on it either. When the call ended, I sank back in my seat with my eyes closed, a feeling of weariness overwhelming me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leanne had already earmarked the room she wanted. Make that rooms because I could just imagine her wanting her own suite. She’d done it. The baby hadn’t arrived yet and she’d already found her way backinto their current home and probably their new one. I just hoped that, for their sake, I was wrong about her.
I’d been working on the email in snatched moments all week and all it needed now was a final read but I wasn’t sure there was any point sending it. If she’d already moved in with them, was it better to accept that they were grown adults capable of making their own decisions, to just let them get on with it and to keep my relationship with them and their relationship with her as two entirely different things? Or try to.
Michael from Bay Trade had given Jed a heads up that the first of the bluebells were out and he’d be in touch again when they were at their best. The pair of them had hoped to meet up for drinks one evening but it had been impossible to coordinate with everything going on. Instead, Michael had joined Jed in his studio a couple of times and they’d talked about the parallels between art and photography over a coffee. He’d offered to take Jed to the woods as soon as the bluebells were at their best and talk him through his thoughts on the best angles for the light.
