I stave off the impending meltdown by doing something sensible and getting out my phone. Maybe there is a message from him. Maybe he has called. Maybe I’m worrying about nothing…
Except there is no message, there is no missed call. Guy is as absent from my phone as he is from his camp. He came here to find his daughter, and now he knows that she is not his daughter, never was. Isn’t it understandable that he’d struggle with that? That maybe he’d want to cut his losses? How must it feel for him to be confronted with that awful truth, especially when his girlfriend is pregnant with another man’s child? It must feel terrible. Perhaps the only way he could deal with that is by leaving. By reverting to his default setting: being alone.
I don’t know quite what to do next, so I carry on walking. I can’t face going back to the village and dealing with all of the lovely people who live there. If I told any of them what was going on, how upset I am, how distressed I feel, they would be kind and understanding and look after me. They would ply me with tea and sympathy, and wrap me up in their cocoon of care. Right now, though, I would not be able to tolerate that. Like Guy, perhaps I am reverting to my default setting too. I need to be alone – I need to think this through and let myself feel all of the unacceptable feelings that are flowing through me.
So I walk, and I cry, and I occasionally stop to get my breath when the sobbing starts to choke me. I give myself pep talks and tell myself off in equal measure. I wander through the woods, stomp over fields, and trample through damp grass that is tinged with deep-set frost. My feet are wet and cold, my legs tired, my sciatica sending shooting pains up to my hip. I welcome the physical discomfort, the chill, the soggy toes. They are alldistractions from the real pain – the sense that I have been abandoned. That I risked everything, and I lost.
On autopilot again, I stop when I realise that I have walked all the way to the house. Our house. The place where we were planning to live together. I remember the day we found it, the way he visualised our future here. Miranda and Evan were part of that future – is it any surprise that he now feels differently about it?
I am tired, and I am filled with gloom. I need to stop, to rest for a little while before I head back to the village. I climb up the terraces, now scattered with crisp fallen leaves in rich golds and oranges, and sit on the wrought-iron bench in the secret garden. I gaze up at the sky and see that the sun has finally chased the clouds away. There is warmth on my skin, however weak. The sea is still rolling, the birds are still singing, the world is still turning, no matter how bad I feel.
Will I still live here, I wonder, gazing at the house? Will I want to, without Guy? Probably not, I decide. I can’t imagine this place without him. Then again, I can’t imagine much without him. I start to cry again and feel the baby kicking furiously away inside me. Back on that first day here, he suggested the baby knew it was home. Now I wonder if the baby knows that has changed.
The baby certainly knows that I am upset about something, that’s for sure. It will be affecting my blood pressure, my heart rate, my hormones. And what affects me affects my baby.
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, having sneakily become convinced that it is a boy. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit rubbish right now, and I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. I’ll do better, I promise. I’ll be as good a mum as I can, but right now I’m so bloody sad I feel like I might actually dissolve into a cloud of misery. And where would that leave you, eh? Nowhere good. So, this is the deal, little one – I’m going to give myself another ten minutes of complete and totalself-pity. I’m going to cry and bawl and complain, get it all out of my system. And then I’m going to give myself a giant kick up the backside – figuratively, not literally, because I’m not that bendy any more – and get on with my life. With our life. How does that sound?’
The baby doesn’t reply, due to being a human mango, but I feel like he understands. I check my phone again, and when it remains empty of messages, I open up the clock and set a time for ten minutes. That was the deal, and I am a woman of my word.
I am possibly three minutes through my allotted crying time when I hear footsteps crunching on the leave-strewn pathways, distant but distinct. My eyes fly open in alarm, my fight or flight response kicking in despite the tears that are pooling in the hollow at the base of my neck. I’ve cried so much I might drown.
I stand up, stare down the hill, and see him. Guy. My Viking warrior, carrying a blanket and a flask. He is making his way towards me, and when our eyes meet I don’t know whether to run to him for a hug or run to him so I can get up close and personal and punch him in the face. In the end I stay exactly where I am, paralysed by the sight of him. I am relieved and anxious all at once. He is here, he is real, and he has not left. But what if he has come to say goodbye? What if he can’t stay here now, knowing the truth?
I am unsteady on my feet, and he looks concerned as he approaches. Concerned and tired, with dark circles beneath his eyes suggesting he has not slept well, if at all.
‘I saw you from the window,’ he says simply, his gaze taking in my tear-stained face, my soaked-through shoes, my trembling lips. ‘And I thought you must be cold. Come on, sit down.’
I realise as soon as he says it that I am in fact freezing. It’s a cool day, and I’m not wearing a proper coat, and I am filled with strange emotions that have somehow stopped me noticingthe temperature. I sit, suddenly weak, and he sits beside me. He tucks the blanket around us, and I am grateful for the warmth. For the contact.
Grateful, but still uncertain. I have no idea what is going on in his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says eventually, pouring me a small cup of tea, the steam billowing in front of us, my hands wrapping around the warm container. ‘For my disappearing act. For not talking to you about it all. I shut you out, and that wasn’t fair. I just… I didn’t know how to handle it. Something bad happened, and I did what I’ve always done when something bad happens – sounded a retreat. I have no excuses other than I learned early on in life to never show weakness. I felt weak, and I was too afraid to share that with you. I’m sorry if I hurt you.’
‘You did,’ I murmur. ‘I understand what you’re saying, but you did hurt me. I’ve spent the whole night worried about you, and then I saw Miranda and she told me what happened, and then I found that your tent was missing, that you’d packed up and left. I thought you were gone.’
He looks slightly surprised at that but quickly recalibrates. He nods and bites his lip before replying.
‘I can see why you thought that, but I’m not gone, and I’m not planning on going, and I’m so sorry I put you through that. I was so far up my own backside that I didn’t even think it through properly. I should have messaged you, or put a note through the door, anything at all to let you know where I was.’
‘You should have done that, yes. You know we’re both flight risks, Guy. I thought… I thought you’d finally come to your senses and flown.’
He turns to look directly at me, and smooths the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. He leans down and kisses my eyelids and strokes my damp hair back from my face.
‘I was upset. The conversation with Miranda did not go well. It’s not her fault. She was shocked and off balance and lashing out. But after that, I needed to do something. I couldn’t deal with being around people, I was too toxic, but I also couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the tent and lying awake all night. Maybe right then, in that moment, I was a flight risk – I’d be lying if I said a tiny part of me wasn’t capable of packing up my rucksack and walking away. But that tiny part of me is an idiot, and I knew that. So I packed up my rucksack and came here. Did some jobs, got on with some work. In fact I stripped all the old anaglypta wallpaper from the hallway.’
I remember that wallpaper. It was hideous. Some good has come of all this, at least. I sip my tea, and take some deep breaths, and try to calm my emotions and my thoughts. It’s like herding drunk cats. I’m so relieved that he is here, but I’m also confused and hurt and scared. This whole episode has shown me how much I love him, how much I depend on him – and that is terrifying.
‘How are you feeling now?’ I ask. ‘Truthfully? Because, Guy, I can’t go through this again. You can see how upset I’ve been. I thought you’d gone, and that almost broke me. I can’t live like this, it’s not fair to me or to the baby. If you’re not sure, I need to know – I’d understand. There would be no hard feelings, you could walk away unscathed. You came here to find your family, and none of it has quite turned out like you thought. So if you have doubts, then go. It would be the kindest thing to do for all of us.’
I hear him suck in a hiss of breath, and glance up to see real shock on his face. I guess he didn’t quite appreciate how upset I was after all.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he says firmly. ‘I have no intention of going. You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not. I love you, and I’m here to stay. We’re officially not-engaged, and Itake that commitment seriously. I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t trust me, but I promise you can. I’m here. I’m yours. And family is so much more than DNA, isn’t it? I was thinking about it last night. I was thinking about it at dawn, when I sat right here and watched the sun rise over the sea. I’m thinking about it now. Family is what you make it, not what you’re born with.’
His voice is full of emotion, and I can see that it’s his turn to be close to tears. I slide my hand into his, hold on tight.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. I want to just forgive him, to hold him, to give us both the comfort and relief of going back to normal. But this is too big, too important. It has to be right.
‘I mean that Miranda might not be genetically mine, but I still love her. I still remember seeing her being born, screaming at the world even then. I still remember holding her in my arms and being filled with fear and wonder. I’m still incredibly proud of the young woman she’s grown to be, no matter what life has thrown at her. Evan might not be a blood relation, but I still feel like his grandad – I still want to give him aeroplane rides on my shoulders, and watch him bang bang fix with his hammer, and see him grow up.’
