Part of me feels like calling my mother right now, but I hold off. I’m too upset, and if all goes to plan, will soon be too drunk. Besides, she’d wipe the floor with me. She’s a tough cookie, my mother. And my dad… God, he could be a hard man. Leaving me in the garda cells now seems insignificant. If they planned everything that happened with me and Jane, then he deliberately let me sit at that train station all night. He knew where I was, that I was waiting for someone who wouldn’t turn up, and he let me endure that slow torture for all that time. Knowing him, he’d see it as part of the life lesson.
I drink some more, and slam my mug down on the table. I hear movement upstairs, the sound of my old plumbing working. Jane Matthews is in my bathroom. My darling Juliet is under my roof. The love of my life is here, with me in Bonnie Bay – but she still feels unreal, distant. We’re both different people now, and it would be madness to think we could pick up where we left off. Too much damage has been done – we are strangers.
Still, when I hear her footsteps above, I imagine her lying in that bed. Imagine joining her, climbing under the sheets, taking her in my arms… well now. That’s just wrong. I drink more whisky.
If she leaves in the morning, that might be for the best. If she stays, I will have to learn to manage myself. I told her she could – no idea why, the words just spilled out without me telling them to. Can I survive a week or so of this torture? Possibly I will have to spend that entire week black-out drunk, but I can probably manage that. Anyway, Beth is here too. A chaperone, if we need one. A buffer zone at least. It’ll be fine.
If she stays. Will she stay?
God, I think, pouring more whisky,I hope so.
TWELVE
JANE
Against the odds, I do actually sleep remarkably well. It’s so peaceful here, no passing traffic or trucks making deliveries at the Tesco. I don’t mind all of that suburban noise, I’m used to it, but the depth of the silence out here is something else.
Still, I didn’t expect the peace of the environment to have any effect on my sleep patterns. I was in turmoil, staggering up to my room like a zombie, closing the door behind me and wondering if I needed to barricade it. Which was stupid – Rory was hardly likely to barge in, he seemed quite cosy with his whisky bottle. Anyway, why would he be interested in me? I’m not the gorgeous young girl he fell in love with any more. Far from it.
I think I was just edgy and unsettled, and that translated into feeling threatened. I’d told myself I was okay. That I was safe, here in this huge room in this big house. With Rory bloody Callaghan.
I’d distracted myself by investigating the room. I’d barely registered it earlier. High ceilings, a vast bay window. A love seat, upholstered in rich green velvet, complete with spectacular views down to the moonlit bay. It’s a massive space, like Beth’s, and I wondered why a single man needs a house this big. Not, I remind myself, that I know he’s single – why would I assumethat? He could be married to a supermodel, or have a harem for all I know. It’s none of my business, anyway.
For once, having work to do was useful – focusing on emails and spreadsheets and the boring minutiae of my job actually helped to subdue the hornet’s nest of my mind. I’d finally passed out at about two in the morning, which isn’t unusual for this so-called holiday. But the sleep I did get was lovely – deep and restful and free of the dreams that I expected to torture me.
If not for my phone ringing incessantly just after seven, I probably would have stayed in the land of nod. I open my eyes and smack my hand around, trying to locate it, before realising I’m not at home and my phone isn’t on my bedside cabinet. In fact there isn’t a bedside cabinet, just a small antique table, on the other side to where I’d slept.
I sit up, groggy and confused, feeling absolutely fine until I’m not. Until I remember everything that happened the night before. Until I remember that I am here in Rory’s house, and that between us we opened up the world’s biggest can of worms.
I rub my face with my hands, and don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Both seem appropriate. I should feel better about it all now I know he didn’t betray me. I should feel like a weight has been lifted, a burden removed – that my heart can heal.
Except I don’t feel like that, not at all. I still went through all those years of pain, of half-hearted living, of trying to build new relationships when I never really got over the first one. All of those emotions, the rawness and the bitterness and the sting of that life-altering rejection, still live inside me – but now I know I need to evict them. I need to reframe everything that happened to me, and that is hard. The choices I’ve made since, the way I’ve connected with others, was all affected by the underlying conviction that Rory decided I wasn’t good enough for him.
Even as I berated myself for it, I knew it was true. Rory abandoning me caused such structural damage that I don’t thinkmy foundations were ever the same again – and the immediate aftermath of it all, those terrible weeks in France, dug away at me even more. So much happened, and none of it was good. It wasn’t just him I lost.
I groan as the phone starts to ring again, and snatch it up from the pillow next to me. I see John Marshall’s name on the screen, and my groan turns to a snarl. It is barely past seven a.m., and I am on leave – why the hell is my boss calling me? Why couldn’t he at least wait until business hours, if he’s going to pester me while I’m on holiday?
I know why – it’s because John is a workaholic himself, and starts his office days no later than six. Anybody who does otherwise is labelled as lazy, and the whole culture of the place works on this toxic belief that we all have to be available at all times. I’m sick of it. And being here in Bonnie Bay, seeing Moira at the Bookshop at the Edge of the World, a workplace where people actually seem happy and relaxed, has only highlighted that.
Also, I think maybe the people I’m actually mad at – my parents, his parents, Rory himself still, unfairly – are either out of bounds or six feet under. It’s frustrating, and I start to understand a little better why Beth lashes out at me when other aspects of her life are imploding. I might not be a teenager, but I am externalising my pain.
I snatch up the phone, and snap: ‘What?’ I fight back the urge to immediately apologise – he is my boss, after all. But he is also annoying, and really genuinely honestly, a horrible human being.
‘Jane. Finally. I need to talk to you about the Wayman meeting next week. I need you to oversee the catering, as well as manage the IT for the presentation. You know I never understand all that button-pushing nonsense.’
‘I won’t be there, John. I’ll still be on leave.’
A pause, then: ‘Oh. Well, I need you – can’t you just come in for the day?’
‘No, I can’t. I’m in Scotland, and I’m not coming all the way back to London just because you never learned which buttons to press. It’s not rocket science, and anyway, Vivian can help you.’
Vivian is his long-suffering PA, a woman with a neat line in sarcasm and a never-ending wardrobe of pencil skirts. She’s the closest thing I have to a proper friend there, and she’d laugh her perfectly shaped bum off if she could hear me talking to John like this.
‘I’d really rather it was you, Jane. I think I must insist.’
I am now externalising my pain so much I think I might scream at him. Instead I reply: ‘You can’t insist, John. I have three weeks’ annual leave held over, you know. HR keep on at me about taking it. I think I might just stay here – and while I have you, please stop sending me work while I’m away. I’m feeling very… stressed.’
I know how much he hates people who claim to be stressed. He thinks anxiety is fictional and wellness is the work of the devil. But he was also recently successfully sued by a former employee for imposing unreasonable demands, and I suspect he’s been fully briefed on what he can and cannot get away with these days.
