‘All of us. We want you to be honest with us, Liv.’
‘I…’
‘Beryl brought Bertie up to the farm. She was surprisingly discreet, but she dropped some very strong hints that there was more to your leaving than you led us to believe. Of course, we all knew that already. She also hinted that you need our help and told us in no uncertain terms we weren’t to let you leave again until you’d at least been honest with us.’
Harry took my hand in hers, and we walked into the farmhouse. I was both terrified and desperate to see Seb, and felt relieved and disappointed to find he wasn’t waiting in the dining room. TheweHarry had mentioned included Pat, Stephan and Maggie. Each hugged me by way of a greeting before taking their seats around the table.
‘Thank you for looking after Bertie,’ I said, as Harry poured me a cup of tea. ‘I really think I should check on him.’
‘He’s sleeping,’ said Maggie, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand.
‘OK.’ I stirred my tea with a spoon, despite not taking it with sugar. ‘Harry says you want to know the real reason I had to leave?’
‘Only if you’re comfortable telling us,’ said Pat. Maggie scowled at him. ‘But of course we’d like to know.’
‘You deserve the truth,’ I said, launching into my tale of woe. I barely took a breath, my friends making no attempt to interrupt or stop me as I poured everything out. ‘And so you see, I reallydidn’t have a choice. I couldn’t risk having Bertie taken away from me. What else was I meant to do?’
‘Dear God,’ said Pat, leaning back in his chair and blowing out his lips. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say something sooner?’
‘I knew you’d all want to help me, and I didn’t want you taking resources from the work you do here, be that time or money.’
‘Silly girl,’ said Maggie. ‘Even if we couldn’t help you financially, we could have supported you emotionally. What a thing to go through alone.’
‘How much does Bertie know?’ asked Harry.
‘Nothing. That’s why he hates me.’ I let out a laugh that held no joy.
The dining-room door creaked open, and we turned to see Bertie, his hair messy and sleep clogging eyes that were fixed on me.
‘How much of that did you hear, Bertie?’ I stood up, unsure whether to go to him, scared he may run from me. Instead, Bertie flung himself across the room, wrapping his arms around my waist and squeezing hard.
‘I don’t hate you,’ he said. ‘Well, maybe I did a bit, but I thought you wanted us to leave.’
‘No, Bertie. I never wanted to leave. I didn’t have any choice.’
‘Why couldn’t Dad have stopped Grandma?’
‘He was in the same position as me. You know how things went wrong with his business?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of that, Dad doesn’t have any money of his own and has to rely on Grandma and Grandpa to help him.’
‘I hate Grandma.’
We’d always tried to stop Bertie using the word hate, but on this occasion, I felt it was justified. ‘Did you manage to get some sleep?’
‘A bit. Mum, can we stay here?’
‘No, I’m afraid we can’t, Bertie. Now you know why, I hope you’ll understand. You know how I go out to work while you’re still asleep?’
‘Yes.’
‘The reason I’m doing that is so we can start again somewhere new, even come back here if that’s what you want. But, Bertie, it’s going to take me some time before we can do that. So, until then, I’m going to need you to be brave for me. Brave and patient.’
‘Do we have to leave straight away?’
‘Well…’
