Chapter 44
Briony left Willow in the house, in charge of two kittens and two dogs. She knew she shouldn’t leave a child unsupervised with dogs, but she really didn’t have a choice. Although Luna and Wilbur were friendly, she left them in the kitchen, shut the door, and gave Willow strict instructions to stay in the lounge with the kittens until she returned.
When she was satisfied Willow had listened, and promised to do as she was told, Briony raced down to the beach, feeling relieved that the wind had dropped and it looked as though the storm clouds were dissipating. She could see Troy, Richard and Sebastian standing at the water’s edge. She’d heard another car arrive on the driveway outside the house, and guessed it had been Sebastian.
The only person who wasn’t on the beach was Frank. The boat was nowhere to be seen either. Briony hoped that perhaps he’d taken the boat somewhere to sell it and make a nice profit. But now that he’d reunited with Blythe, she couldn’t imagine him doing that.
As Briony rushed towards the water’s edge, she imagined that Frank must have had help from the people who had fixed up the boat, if he had indeed taken it there. Frank’s green Bentley wasn’t parked outside The Beach House as she’d expected. Maybe he’d launched the boat from the beach car park.
That probably explained why Richard, Troy and Sebastian were looking down the beach, in the direction of the car park, perhaps hoping, like Briony, that they’d discover he was just taking a gentle walk along the beach to clear his head. Maybe they’d rushed to The Beach House for nothing.
As Sebastian turned to greet her, Briony attention was drawn to something bobbing on the water in the distance. She pointed. ‘What’s that?’
Troy, Richard and Sebastian turned as Briony asked, ‘Is that my grandmother’s boat?’ If it was, then they’d been looking in the wrong direction.
Richard had a pair of binoculars.
‘Oh, heavens!’ Richard exclaimed as he looked through the binoculars. ‘I think the boat is adrift.’
Sebastian said, ‘Richard, let me see.’
All three of them watched Sebastian raise the binoculars to take a look. ‘Oh, no.’ He lowered the binoculars. ‘I’ve got to get out there.’
‘What is it?’ asked Troy.
Sebastian passed him the binoculars.
Troy looked out to sea. ‘Oh, no!’ He lowered the binoculars. ‘Dad – the boat is too far out for you to swim to it, even if you brought your wetsuit.’
‘I did bring my wetsuit. I’m wearing it. I’m going to attempt it.’
Briony said, ‘What’s going on?’
Troy looked at her. ‘No time to explain.’
Briony grabbed his arm. ‘Explain!’
‘There’s no one aboard.’ Troy looked through the binoculars again. ‘I think Grandpa took the boat out, and by the look of those waves, he fell overboard.’
Troy handed the binoculars back to Richard as Sebastian started to wade into the water, leaving the tracksuit he’d been wearing over his wetsuit on the beach, where he’d hastily stripped it off.
‘Sebastian – wait!’ Richard yelled out.
Sebastian had been about to dive under a wave and start swimming towards the boat. He turned around and shouted out, ‘What now?’
‘I see him.’
Everyone turned to look at the boat in the distance.
‘Are you sure?’ Sebastian shouted back.
Richard passed the binoculars to Troy. ‘I see him too!’
Squinting, Briony now saw a shape in the boat. ‘There’s someone in the boat!’ Briony shouted excitedly. It had to be Frank.
Briony breathed the biggest sigh of relief. She wanted Frank to feel remorse for sending those letters; of course she did. But she didn’t want anything to happen to him, depriving him and Blythe of the chance to get to know each other and fall in love all over again. All she had wanted was a confession. But now all she wanted was for Frank to return safely to shore.
Sebastian, still standing in the surf, shouted out, ‘Is it definitely him?’
Troy called out, ‘Yes, Dad, it’s definitely Grandpa, and it looks as though he’s making his way back to shore. Look – the sail has gone up.’
Briony saw that too, even though she didn’t have the binoculars.
Satisfied, Sebastian returned to shore.
Now that the drama was nearly over, Briony confronted Sebastian with a question that had been on her mind ever since her mum had turned up at The Beach House. She knew it was most definitely not the right moment, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know. ‘Is my mum leaving my dad for you?’
Troy overheard. He looked at Sebastian. ‘What’s going on?’
Briony looked at Sebastian too and thought, If he isn’t going to tell Troy, then I am. ‘Troy, you once said you were convinced Sebastian’s heart belonged to another, but you didn’t know who. Well, I thought it might be my mum, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.’ It all made sense; Sebastian’s shock when he saw Lorna’s daughter, because she looked just like her mum. The shell box that Willow had found, which belonged to her dad, with the key to The Beach House and the wolf necklace inside. And the little bracelet Briony had found accidentally in a secret compartment in her mother’s identical shell box, inscribed with the words, A Summer to Remember. She looked Sebastian in the eye, and said, ‘Well, now I am sure.’
Sebastian eyed her a long moment. ‘We will talk, I promise. But there’s something you need to know.’
Briony looked at him expectantly. It sounded just like what her grandmother had written in that letter. She folded her arms. ‘Well …?’
‘You need to talk to your mother.’
Briony scoffed, ‘She’s the last person I want to speak to right now.’
‘Is that because you’re pregnant, and you didn’t tell her?’ Troy asked.
Sebastian was picking up his track suit and shaking the sand out of it, when he stopped. ‘Oh, I didn’t congratulate you – about the baby.’
Briony did not want to be reminded about that embarrassing party and her pregnancy being revealed to everybody present.
Sebastian smiled at her fondly. ‘It’s such wonderful news, Briony – truly wonderful.’
Briony thought, At least someone thinks so. She’d caught Troy’s grimace. That seemed to answer her question of whether Troy would want to raise someone else’s child.
Sebastian surprised her by stepping forward and enveloping her in a hug.
Troy fixed his frown on his father. ‘Can you let her go now, please?’ Troy grabbed her hand, and took her to one side, still frowning at his father.
‘Um, sorry,’ Sebastian apologised to Briony. ‘I’ve made your clothes wet.’
‘It’s all right.’ What wasn’t, though, was that he hadn’t answered her question about his relationship with her mum. She realised she had no choice but to ask Lorna.
Sebastian said, ‘I’m going into the house to change out of my wetsuit. But first I want to give my dad a piece of my mind.’
They all turned to look out to sea. The boat with the single occupant was heading to shore.
Troy still had hold of Briony’s hand. He leaned in and whispered, ‘I love you, Briony.’
Briony turned to look at him, wide-eyed.
‘Say something, Briony.’
I love you too, she wanted to say, but instead, she said, ‘We need to talk about—’
His eyes roved to her tummy. ‘I know.’
Richard exclaimed, ‘Here he comes!’
Sebastian joined Richard and Troy to help pull the boat to shore. They held it fast as Frank, in a black wetsuit, climbed out of the boat on to the beach.
Sebastian lifted off. ‘Did you go diving? I thought you were just sailing the boat! What the hell is wrong with you? You know you don’t go diving alone, especially when you haven’t dived for years!’
Troy, Briony and Richard stood behind Sebastian as they all waited for an explanation.
Frank shrugged. ‘I needed to clear my head, Sebastian.’
‘You – what?’
‘I just told you – I needed to clear my head. I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
‘Why didn’t you just go for a walk, like ordinary, sane people do?’ Troy asked.
‘Because of these?’ He reached in the boat and took out a wad of letters in a plastic wallet. He sighed. ‘She loved me. All along she loved me, and I never knew.’
Sebastian looked at the letters. ‘Who are you talking about?’
Richard stepped forward. ‘Blythe.’
Sebastian turned towards The Beach House. ‘Blythe? Lorna’s mum?’
Frank nodded. He looked at the boat. ‘I wanted to go out and read them alone, then go for a dive, like I used to. You’re right; it was a pretty stupid thing to do. I’m sorry.’
Sebastian folded his arms indignantly. ‘And so you should be. You scared me, all of us, taking the boat out like that. We thought you’d drowned. Where did you get it from, anyway?’
Richard raised his eyebrows at Frank. ‘Shall I tell them about your spy in the village? That’s who told you about the boat, isn’t it? Because I know for a fact Troy didn’t.’
Frank breathed a heavy sigh. ‘All right, Richard.’ Frank glanced at the boat. ‘The barman at the pub—’
‘Your spy.’
Frank threw Richard a look of annoyance. ‘Yes, Richard, thanks for pointing that out,’ he said sarcastically. ‘My spy in the village heard about the boat from Peter, a guy I knew years ago who used to work at the boatyard. He’d popped in there for a pint, apparently, and happened to mention that he was in the village to see if a boat beached outside a property could be repaired.’
Sebastian looked at the boat. ‘Are you saying this is the boat that Phoebe, Lorna and I used to go out in? Because it doesn’t look like it is. Not at all.’
On closer inspection, although the boat had been in a bit of a state when it was beached in front of her grandmother’s house, and Briony had imagined it would look quite different when restored, she didn’t think it looked like the same boat either.
Frank said, ‘It’s not her boat.’
‘Oh, my god. What did you do with it?’ Sebastian asked.
Frank sighed. ‘I wanted it repaired ASAP. I told them I’d pay whatever it took. However, because of the condition the boat was in, they had to take it to the boatyard in Southwold; said it could take up to six months to do a proper refit, the hull, the sails, the onboard motor; everything needed replacing. I’m used to getting what I want, when I want it. But this time …’
Richard shook his head. ‘I’m not surprised. How did you think they could possibly get it repaired in one day? Anybody could see that wasn’t going to happen – except you, Frank.’
Richard held up his hands before Frank responded. ‘I know, I know, with the right amount of money, miracles can happen, which is what I had considered, but even I was surprised when I assumed it was Blythe’s boat you’d sailed here after I’d seen it in your boathouse.’
Sebastian said, ‘So, where did this boat come from?’
‘I bought it.’
‘Today – just like that?’
‘Yeah – why not? I noticed it for sale in the boatyard where they’d taken Blythe’s. They launched it for me from Walberswick and I sailed here.’
They all stared at the rather impressive little sailboat. Up close, there was no mistaking it for her grandmother’s old boat.
Frank turned to Sebastian. ‘I know why you reacted the way you did, Sebastian.’
‘Are you saying I overreacted?’
‘You were afraid that what happened to Phoebe would happen to me.’
Briony stared at them. She glanced at Troy’s pained expression, realising they were talking about his mother. She said, ‘Phoebe – drowned?’
Frank replied, ‘She went diving alone.’
‘It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there,’ said Sebastian miserably.
‘But you weren’t to know,’ said Frank, ‘that she’d do something irresponsible and go diving alone.’
‘I still blame myself. I thought Lorna did too, until I discovered, when I met her again just recently, that Phoebe had asked her to go too. It led to the biggest misunderstanding, because I assumed Lorna blamed me, when all along she’d blamed herself for Phoebe’s death, and consequently stayed away.’
Briony stared at the boat, wondering if there was more to her mother trying to put her off her love of the ocean, over the years, than just her past with Sebastian. Perhaps after what had happened to Phoebe, she was afraid her daughter would learn to dive and would drown, like her friend.
‘You were so close, the three of you,’ commented Frank, especially you and Phoebe. I thought that out of Lorna and Phoebe, it would have been Phoebe you got together with. After all, you were both from the same very well-off background, and at the same school, although you were boarding, and Phoebe was a day pupil. Whereas Lorna was the outsider, just spending her holidays here in Suffolk.’
Briony listened to all this with interest. This was her mum they were talking about. She realised that maybe Lorna couldn’t face returning to The Beach House – not only because of her parents’ break-up, and because of Sebastian, but because of the tragedy that had befallen their best friend Phoebe. But it sounded as though it really was not of their making. For whatever reason, neither of them had turned up to dive with Phoebe that day. But Frank was right: it wasn’t their fault she had chosen to go out alone.
Frank continued, ‘When you told me she’d had a baby at seventeen by her then boyfriend, I then realised it wasn’t Phoebe, but Lorna, Blythe’s daughter, that you were smitten with.’
Sebastian said, ‘The day neither of us turned up, we … we knew we should be with Phoebe, but we didn’t bring it up because … because we were together.’
Briony stared at Sebastian, catching his pained expression.
‘In hindsight, I should have known she’d do something … stupid. Her boyfriend, the father of her child, had just dumped her, and she wanted … needed to go out and just dive, to get away from her cares.’
Briony stepped in. ‘But you were only teenagers. How were you to know the repercussions?’
Frank looked at Briony and nodded in agreement. He turned to his son. ‘I’m sorry, Sebastian.’
‘And so you should be – going out alone, scaring the hell out of us, out of me.’
‘No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the phone call.’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Phone call? What are you talking about?’
‘Lorna phoned to speak to you when she returned to Oxford.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that now. When she came back here, in search of her daughter, and we met up again after all these years, she told me she’d phoned, and recalled that you answered the phone and told her you’d pass on the message. I was surprised – I didn’t recall that. But then so much went on that summer with Lorna’s grandparents passing away, and then discovering Lorna and I were together when … when …’ Sebastian paused. ‘I wasn’t in a good place, having just lost Phoebe. I don’t remember.’
Frank pulled the hood down from his wetsuit, his wet hair plastered to his face. ‘I wanted you to break it off with Lorna. I thought she’d break your heart, just like Blythe had broken mine.’
Sebastian stared at him. ‘What did you do?’
Frank grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, son, but I never passed on her message for you to phone her back. She wanted to speak to you. There was something important she wanted to tell you, apparently.’
‘What was it?’ Briony interrupted.
Frank shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’ He turned to Sebastian.
Sebastian shook his head. ‘All these years, I thought she’d cut off contact with me, and didn’t want to see me anymore.’
Frank sat down on the beach and stared out to sea. ‘You were so young, only eighteen, still just a boy. I thought I knew what was best for you. I assumed you’d move on, and meet someone else. But I should have known …’
Troy looked at his father. Sebastian had fallen silent, so he asked, ‘Known what?’
Frank looked around at Troy. ‘That Lorna was the love of his life.’
Briony felt Troy’s hand close around hers.
Frank took a step towards his son. ‘Can you forgive me, Sebby? When I went to see Blythe at the hospital, and Lorna was there, I … I couldn’t look her daughter in the eye. I was so overcome with guilt. I had to leave.’
Briony stared at Frank before turning her attention to Sebastian. His reaction to finding this out said it all – he was still in love with her mum. The question was: was her mum still in love with him?
Frank suddenly looked puzzled. ‘Now you know what I was doing here. What are you all doing here?’
Troy said, ‘Looking for you. We were worried about you.’
Frank fixed his gaze on Briony. ‘By the way – who are you?’
‘She’s my girl.’
Briony turned to look at Troy as she felt his arm slide around her waist.
Frank stared at her. ‘So, you’re the girl who stole my grandson’s heart.’
‘Yes, this is Blythe’s granddaughter.’
‘Ah, I see the resemblance. You take after your mother’s side, for sure.’ He stepped forward and pointed at her. ‘Don’t betray him, and break his heart – I mean it.’
‘I … I …’
‘She won’t,’ Troy said.
Briony turned to Troy. ‘But—’
Troy put a finger to her lips, and whispered, ‘I think we’re both even on the lying by omission front, don’t you?’ He cocked his head at his grandfather.
Briony knew immediately what he was talking about – spying for his grandfather. She shifted her attention from Frank to Sebastian. ‘I’d better go.’
‘Go – where?’ Troy asked.
‘I have some unfinished business.’
‘With your mum?’
‘Yes. And my grandmother.’ There was something her grandmother had wanted to tell her. She couldn’t wait to meet her – and find out. She just wished something that Angel had said hadn’t suddenly come to mind – I saw the relief that swept over you mum’s face when you said your grandmother was in a coma.