Chapter 14 #3
‘That’s true, Tom, but just because I’m a boring old adult it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that chocolate milk is the best.’ She turned towards the fridge, taking out the carton and pouring them both a glass.
She’d send him straight back home after that, before her sister realised where he was, but she just wanted to do this one thing with him.
Just a few minutes, that was all she needed.
‘What’s this?’ Tom gestured towards a small wooden chest that had a map of the world carved into the lid.
It had been the last present Bex had bought her when they’d still been in one another’s lives.
Briony had often said she wanted to travel and go on adventures, and she was sentimental about keepsakes, which back then could have been anything from a ticket stub to a shell she’d collected from the beach.
Bex had bought the chest for her to store her ‘treasures’ in, but these days she used it for a different kind of keepsake.
‘Open it up and have a look. I take a polaroid at each new place I stay at in my van and I keep them all in the box so I can look back and remember all the fun I’ve had.’
‘Is that because you’re always on your own, so you don’t have anyone to remember it with?’ Tom’s innocent question hit her right in the heart all over again. This boy was wise way beyond his years and all she could do was nod, as he picked up one of the photographs. ‘Where was this one taken?’
He chose a photo of a beautifully deserted beach out of the pile and handed it to her. ‘That was at Claigan Coral Beach on the Isle of Skye. I went for a swim in the sea with my dog, Merlin, and we saw minke whales much further out in the water.’
‘That sounds so cool.’ Tom was looking at her as if he was seeing her for the first time and she smiled, enjoying the memory all the more because of his excitement.
‘It was amazing.’
‘Maybe you could take me there one day.’ He gave her such an earnest look and for the second time all she could do was nod, despite knowing it was never going to happen.
‘I’ve been to lots of great places, let me show you the photo I took when me and Merlin made it to the top of Mount Snowdon.
Although he was a lot younger then.’ Sorting through the photographs she handed another one to Tom and it was how they got lost in the moment, seeming to lose all sensation of time passing.
They were soon talking like old friends and Briony knew she’d found a kindred spirit in her nephew, someone who wanted to embrace all the adventure life had to offer.
The hammering on the door when it came was so violent it made the whole van shake.
‘Open this door right now, I know you’ve got Tom in there!’
‘Shit.’ Briony hadn’t meant to say the word out loud, but some situations called for it, and Tom seemed to find it hilariously funny, although she could only imagine how well it would go down with Bex to see her son laughing when she was clearly filled with rage. ‘I’m coming.’
Jumping up, she opened the door, trying to get her explanation in before Bex had a chance to launch her attack, but she barely got three words out. ‘I’m sorry we—’
‘Don’t you even dare start making any kind of excuse.
’ Her sister was visibly shaking, but her voice was scarily calm, the door to the van still wide open behind her.
‘We’ve been out of our minds searching for Tom for the last forty minutes.
Did you even give a moment’s thought to whether we knew he was here, and why the hell he was sitting in here with you, when he was clearly wearing his school uniform? ’
‘It was only meant to be for a few minutes but—’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Bex cut her off for a second time. ‘It’s nothing less than I expect from you, because the only person you’ve ever cared about is yourself.’
‘That’s not true, Mum. Auntie Briony showed me all these photos of—’
‘She’s not your auntie.’ The calm in Bex’s voice had deserted her as she cut her youngest son off.
‘Yes, she is, and it’s not her fault I came here. I wanted to do it because you won’t let me talk to her.’
‘There are some things you’re too young to understand, Tom. Reasons why not spending any time with Briony is for the best, and you just have to trust me and your dad on that.’
Tom made a huffing sound, his bottom lip sticking out, making him look much younger than he had just moments before.
‘Oh thank God, you’ve found him!’ Matt had suddenly come jogging up the campsite field, with two border collies trailing in his wake.
‘Can you take him back to the house please and I’ll be down in a minute, so we can talk to Tom together about the consequences of the stunt he’s pulled this morning. Then I’ll drive him into school.’ Bex turned towards her husband and he nodded in response.
‘Of course. Right, come on, Tom, get your shoes on.’
‘But I don’t want to go home. Auntie Briony hasn’t finished telling me about when she went to Switzerland and camped right by a huge lake.’
‘I said get your shoes on, Tom, this isn’t a negotiation.’
‘You and Mum are so boring, and we never get to go anywhere fun like Auntie Briony does.’ Tom did a remarkably good impression of Kevin the teenager as he huffed towards the door and made a big show of putting on his shoes, before finally stomping off in the direction of the farmhouse with his father following close behind.
‘You must have realised I didn’t know Tom was with you and that I’d be out of my mind with worry.
’ Bex didn’t even wait for Briony to respond.
‘Although that’s not in your wheelhouse is it, to think about how your actions are going to impact other people?
I didn’t want to have to tell the boys anything about what happened between us, but I guess I don’t have a choice now.
They need to know the truth about why you aren’t in our lives. ’
‘But they won’t hear the truth, will they? Because you don’t even know the full story, you’ve never let me tell it.’
‘Story is the right word when it comes to you, and I don’t think you’d recognise the truth if it slapped you in the face.’ Bex looked for a moment as if she was capable of doing exactly that, but if this was Briony’s one shot to have her say she needed to take it.
‘I never slept with Liam and I think deep down you know that, but I did set out to make him fall in love with me. It had nothing to do with proving that I could and everything to do with showing you what kind of man you were marrying. But you chose to believe him and make me the bad guy in all of this.’
‘You can try to twist what happened all you want, but I wasn’t buying it then and I’m certainly not now.
I can’t trust you, which means I don’t want you in my life and I definitely don’t want you in my children’s lives.
Just do the right thing for once, Briony, help Mum and then get back on the road.
It’ll be better for all of us that way.’
Bex turned then, shutting the door of the van so firmly behind her that it shook for a second time, the sound drowning out Briony’s response.
‘Not for me it won’t.’ She should never have come back here and peeked behind the curtain of the life she might have had if things had been different.
The cold, hard reality was that she was never going to have that life now and that realisation hurt even more than the pain it had caused to walk away from Port Agnes and everyone she loved the first time around.