‘Hi, it’s me.’ Beth tried to sound brisk and businesslike, but her voice betrayed her.
‘Beth! I’m so glad you called. How are things?’
Completely normal. Just trying to rebuild my life after you walked out. Oh, and trying to coexist with a pinball-machine-inhabiting genie.
‘I’m doing OK,’ she said instead, her tone clipped. ‘I rented out Bilberry Cottage, by the way.’
Luke cleared his throat: a habit he’d had for years. Beth used to find it endearing, but now it irritated her.
‘Yes, I dropped by the other week. The tenants said you’d left. It would have been nice if you’d told me.’
Beth fought the urge to smash her phone to smithereens.
‘It would have been niceifyouhadn’t vanished off the face of the earth, Luke. You left me when I could barely stand. It’s been a bloody battle getting back up.’
‘I know, I know.’ His sigh rattled down the line. ‘I messed up, Beth. It just felt as if the baby thing drove a wedge between us and that we – you and I – weren’t enough.’
The baby thing.Beth’s hand went white around her phone. Thethingthat had broken her heart several times over, reduced to a convenient euphemism.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she said, her voice shaking with fury, ‘but didn’t we both want a child? You certainly gave that impression.’
A silence stretched, then another of his nervous throat-clears. ‘I did want a child. I wanted it so much it hurt. But every time we lost one, I felt I’d failed you. That loving you wasn’t enough. That you’d be better off without me.’
‘So your solution was to disappear?’ Her tone turned icy. ‘How incredibly thoughtful of you, Luke. Truly.’
She’d imagined this conversation a hundred times – civil, calm, maybe even cathartic. A chance to find closure. Instead, she could taste bitterness on her tongue.
‘By the way, do you still have that plant stand and those picture frames I carved? You know the ones. I gave them to you on your birthday and at Christmas.’
Luke’s words hit like hammer blows. Of all the things she’d expected him to bring up… ‘I think I binned them,’ she said. In truth, they were still packed away in a box in the basement, probably next to Gigi’s domain. Maybe the genie could make use of them. Or Ed could burn them next time he lit a bonfire.
‘That wasn’t very nice.’ Luke huffed. ‘I’d have picked them up if you’d let me know you were moving to Cranley.’
Beth froze. So heknewwhere she was. She, however, had no clue where he’d been hiding. And at this point, she wasn’t sure she cared.
‘Can we get to the point, Luke? You asked me to call. What’s on your mind?’
The silence stretched again, and somewhere in the back of her brain, Taylor Swift started singing‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’. Except this version had a distinctlyMiddle Eastern vibe – and the unmistakableding-ding-dingof a pinball machine underneath it.
Beth slapped her forehead. ‘Oh, for?—’
‘Sorry?’ Luke said. ‘Line’s gone funny. I just needed to tell you I’m moving again.’
‘From where? You never said where you were in the first place.’
‘Be there in a minute, Mum,’ he called to someone in the background.
Ah.Mum.
Of course. Back to the nest. His parents’ house: a six-bedroom Essex palace with a kitchen the size of Bilberry Cottage. She could picture him there, being plied with sympathy and shepherd’s pie. ‘It’s not your fault, darling,’ his mother would coo. ‘You married beneath you.’
Beth’s jaw tightened. ‘So where are you off to this time?’
‘I’m moving to Eilean Driftach,’ he said, his voice lifting with excitement. ‘You’ve probably never heard of it, but it feels like my spiritual home.’
What? He’d wanted to talk to her about moving to some remote Scottish island? Not that Bethknewit was an island, but the name conjured up images of a craggy coastline, sheep and fishermen in sou’westers. Well, maybe not thesheepin waterproofs.
‘It’s off the west coast. Beautiful, wild, full of artists. The locals make furniture out of driftwood. Even boats! It’s a whole community built on craftsmanship.’
