‘Are you okay, Tawrie?’ Maudie called as she and Jago walked up from the shoreline.
‘I will be, Maudie. See you tomorrow.’ She spoke plainly, no false smile, no platitude to ease the atmosphere, just the truth. It felt good.
‘I’m not weak and I’m not a liar! I mean it, Taw.’ Edgar, it seemed, had no intention of shutting up and she felt shards of guilt prick herconscience that she’d been so harsh. ‘I didn’t plan it, but meeting you has made me think about what I want and where I want to be and—’
‘Well, let me help you out.’ She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and stared at his face, his handsome face, with the floppy fringe that hung over his forehead. ‘What you want is to marry your fiancée, who seems very nice, and who I feel very sorry for because you’re lying to her too, and where you want to be is London, so do me a favour and sod off back there as soon as possible. Please, just go away, for all our sakes.’
‘Please, Tawrie, I just want to be with you, be near you!’ He pawed at her arm as his tears mustered.
It was more than she could take. ‘You don’t understand!’ She cared less now that tears sheeted her face, or that talking was difficult with this particular level of distress altering her voice, the rhythm of her breathing. All attempt at control was abandoned as her sorrow spilled from her. ‘Loving you was like going to a different place, a place I doubted existed. I wanted to stay there forever. It was wonderful. It was winning. It was all the good things I thought it might be.’
‘Tawrie.’ He took a step towards her and she took a step back.
‘And now it’s gone and it’s worse than having never been there at all because I know that it exists, and I know that I’ve lost the key and I can only go there in memory, like ... like with my dad. It’s the same; I can’t see him or feel him or touch him, I can only remember little bits – like his singing, the scent of nail varnish and bowls of fucking cherries!’
‘Tawrie—’
‘Stop saying my name! It’s not yours to say any more. I’m no part of you and you’re no part of me. You’re someone else’s. You’re fickle and false, a liar, and that’s that.’
‘T—’ He started but clearly heeded her warning and thought better of it. His tears didn’t have the same impact as they wouldhave only days before. Before Petra had pitched up. ‘I’m not fickle or false and I’m not a liar.’
‘Oh no? You keep saying that as if it might make it so. Like father like son! Isn’t that what they say? I sat and listened to you tell me how bitter you were about how your dad treated your mum and his whole catalogue of misery and bedhopping, and then you do this!’ It was a low blow and she knew it. ‘I slept with you; you said you loved me!’
‘I am not like my father, I’m not. I think—’ His voice was raised now, jaw tense, eyes blazing.
‘It’s irrelevant what you think. What matters is what I know!’ she shouted.
‘What youthinkyou know!’ he implored. ‘But that’s the trouble – you make your mind up and that’s that!’
‘You don’t know me! Just like I don’t know you!’ she spat.
‘I know that you can’t fully grieve because you think your dad might live on Lundy and is hiding from you!’ His return attack was well aimed and lodged in her breast. To hear her greatest secret spoken so freely in anger was something she knew she’d never forget.
‘Fuck you, Edgar, fuck you!’ Her voice was gravel thin, she cursed without caring that Maudie and Jago might be close enough to hear – it was all too late for that.
‘You need to face what happened and free yourself, you need to ...’ He calmed and swayed slightly, and for a brief second she feared he might fall.
‘You need to stop talking before I lose it!’ She turned on her heel as fast as she was able and wheeled her bike up to the road, moving quickly, determinedly, doing all she could to get away from him.
‘Tawrie!’ he yelled.
‘Just go back to London and live your split-down-the-middle life. I hope everything works out for you both.’
As the wheel touched the road, she jumped on to the saddle and raced home back to Fore Street, her sight clouded by the tears that fogged her vision.
It felt good to have told him to go away and yet no matter how strong she had sounded, how firm her outward stance, her insides were shredded with sorrow.
‘God, you look like shite.’
Connie’s observation, voiced as Tawrie walked into the café to start her shift, did nothing to help ease her flagging confidence. She knew, however, that this whip-smart ribbing was preferable to probing questions about how she was doing, why her eyes were a little red, her demeanour a little off. She knew that kind of investigation might lead to a total breakdown, here in public, and a tear-soaked admission that her heart was about as scrambled as the eggs Connie ladled on to hot, buttered toast. Her plan was to keep it together, get through the day and collapse tonight on her own time.
‘Thanks, Con, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.’ She let her lip curl in distaste at her cousin’s remark.
‘Who got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?’ Connie pulled a face, trying to cheer her up, but at the mention of getting out of bed, her mind flew to the cosy attic room and again she felt winded at how quickly her life had turned from a fairy tale to rat shit. Her shoulders slumped and her cousin’s expression turned to one of concern. ‘You okay?’
It hurt knowing Connie had been right all along; Sebastian Farquhar wanted nothing but fun, and he’d got it.
‘I saw him this morning, he came down to Hele while I was swimming.’
