Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
I wake up with sticky eyes and a sore head, approximately three seconds after falling asleep.
At least that’s what it feels like. I drag myself into the shower, pop a couple of painkillers, and head downstairs in search of a restorative Diet Coke.
As soon as I walk into the bar my heart sinks – I’d forgotten what a state it was in last night.
I grimace and allow myself five minutes of wallowing in self-pity before I crack open my Coke, and get on with things.
I clear tables, scrub the bar, and replenish the fridge shelves, then pile the chairs up and vacuum, before setting them all back down.
I fill and then empty the glass washer, and empty the trash and the recycling.
By the time I’ve done all that, I frankly feel like shooting myself in the head.
Every time I lean down, the pressure in my skull reaches maximum throbbing point, and the painkillers are not cutting it.
I rub my sore back, seeing that it’s almost eight.
Our guests will be down for breakfast soon, so I make a start in the kitchen.
Dad emerges, looking disgustingly fresh for a man in his seventies who has recently had a stroke, and he gives me a quizzical look.
‘Darling, why don’t you go for a walk down at the beach?
I can manage on my own for a while. One suspects you have a few cobwebs that need to be blown away. ’
‘Is that a polite way of one saying that I look like crap?’
He doesn’t reply, the cheeky old so-and-so. I stay until the cooked breakfasts are ordered and prepared but am happy to leave him to it after that. For once the smell of bacon is not sitting well with me.
I drag my hair into a bobble, wrap up in my fleece, and take his advice.
I have lost track of how many hangovers a walk on the beach has cured, and I do indeed have a few cobwebs.
Physically, I do not feel fantastic – but mentally, I feel even worse.
I still feel guilty for thinking about Liam in the way I undeniably thought about him last night, because it somehow seems like a betrayal of Tyler.
I even feel guilty because Liam still seems like he belongs to another woman, a woman I never met, but who he clearly loved very deeply.
I’m having a regular old guilt festival, without even having had any of the fun to justify it.
I would love to ignore it all, and the cleaning and cooking certainly helped me do that for a while, but I am an adult now, not a teenager.
Ignoring problems does not usually make them go away.
I climb carefully down the steps in the cliff-side, blushing as I remember Liam holding my hand on the way down just hours ago.
I amble towards the sea, standing to watch the waves as they tumble onto the sand, listening to the hiss and tug as they retract.
It’s a grey and threatening day, the sky the colour of ash and lead.
The sun is trying to poke through the rain clouds, casting a dull yellow glow.
It will rain today, and wash away some of the settled snow.
I walk along to one side, kicking at driftwood and stopping to stare at shells.
I try to imagine Tyler here, but find I can only picture it because of the dogs.
Tyler is amazing. He’s funny, he’s kind, he’s super hot, and he very much wants me.
He wants to build a future with me and give me everything I thought I was looking for. That should make me happy.
But the bitter truth is that it does not.
Ever since he first started hinting at it, I have been scared.
I worried that I was over-reacting last night, doubting my feelings for Tyler because of what had – or hadn’t – happened with Liam.
I didn’t want to throw away a whole viable relationship just because of one moment.
But now, in the very cold, dull light of day, I have to acknowledge that it is more than that.
I am unsure whether he is the right person for me, or if there is simply no such thing as the right person for me.
I cast my mind back to when I met Jason, my short-lived husband.
I was younger, more open perhaps. More invested in the concept of marriage and children, and having someone strong to help me steer my life.
Did I ever feel butterflies in my tummy about Jason?
Did I ever feel like I missed him as soon as he left the room?
Did I ever feel desperate for his touch?
It’s hard to see it clearly through the lens of betrayal, knowing how things ended up.
I was devastated by what he did, and I was broken by the end of our marriage – but if I am brutally honest with myself, that was as much because it dismantled my life as because I loved him so deeply.
Looking back with distance and clarity, I can say that I am now glad it ended.
It wasn’t right, and at least I won’t have to wake up one day after sixty years together and think that.
None of this really helps. Thinking about Tyler now hurts, makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the heart.
Whenever I think about him, I am consumed with guilt and regret – for what I wanted to do last night but didn’t, and also for what I don’t want to do, but know I must. I have to end things with him.
He is too good a man to be anybody’s second best. He deserves someone who is as certain about him as he weirdly seems to be about me.
He says he will give me time, but I think I have come to realise that time will not change anything, and I have to set him free.
Of course, I might be wrong… I will miss him terribly, and what if time does change things?
What if I just need to take a leap of faith, go home when my dad is well, forget about Liam, and really commit to Tyler?
What if, what if, what if? What if, I think, viciously kicking the sand so hard it flies up in a wet clump and smacks me in the face, I just run away to a remote convent and become a bloody nun?
I carefully wipe the sand from my face, and almost jump out of my skin when I hear a voice behind me.
‘What did that sand ever do to you?’ it says.
I whirl around, and see Bella, her long dark hair whipping in the wind.
‘It looked at me funny. Definitely gave me some side eye.’
‘Right. Well, okay. Seems fair that you kick the shit out of it then.’
She gives the heap of dislodged sand a whack with her Doc Martens boot, and I nod in thanks. Teamwork’s what makes the dream work.
Ralph is with her, and after a quick lick of my hands, he disappears off to run in big zooming circles around the beach, his little legs flying and his bushy tail streaming out behind him.
It’s very comical, and exactly what I needed.
This is why the internet has succeeded – dog videos. Or cats, if that takes your fancy.
‘How are you, Bella?’ I ask her, as we stroll along the waterfront. The sky is so dark now, it almost feels like night-time.
‘Well, I’m not down here to run into the sea, so there’s that. And… well. I’m okay, I suppose. I really wasn’t trying to end it all, you know.’
‘I didn’t suggest you were. But it was reckless and dangerous.’
She looks as though she wants to argue, but glances out at the waves, at the raw power of them as they pound into the bay.
‘Yeah. It was. I just miss my mum a lot at this time of year, and I do stupider things than normal. I miss her all the time, obviously, but especially now. That last Christmas with her sucked, but at least she was here. My period started the day before she died, and that was one of the last conversations we had. Merry Christmas, welcome to womanhood, it’s awful…
She got one of the nurses to help me, because she was too sick to leave her bed by then.
Obviously, not something you want to share with your stepdad at that age. Or ever.’
Her tone is so matter-of-fact, but it is a story that breaks my heart. How hard must that have been, to have gone through those formative years without her mum? Without anyone to turn to for help?
‘I’m sorry, Bella. That sounds awful.’
‘It was. And every Christmas and New Year, I get to remember it all over again. I know it sounds mean and selfish, but sometimes I’m jealous of the twins, because they don’t even remember her. And worrying about Liam doesn’t help.’
I frown, and ask: ‘What do you mean, worrying about him? It’s his job to worry about you!’
‘I know that. But I’m going to make mistakes, aren’t I?
I’m going to do some stupid shit at my age – but every time I do, he reads too much into it and worries more than he needs to.
And then I worry about him worrying, and I worry about him being lonely, and I worry about how either of us will ever stop bloody worrying… ’
Ralph starts to dig a hole, his paws scrabbling at the wet sand. Oh, for the life of a Ralph, full of strokes and simple pleasures.
‘That’s a lot of worry,’ I say, patting her on the arm. ‘For both of you. Have you told him how you feel?’
‘No, because then he’d worry about me worrying about him – you see? It’s a mess! Sometimes I like it when we just fight about stuff like my coursework, or giving the finger to random passing strangers at the bus stop…’
I grin at her, and wink. ‘You’re welcome. The Ellie Dexter School of Etiquette is always ready to help.’
‘Dexter? I thought you were de Vere?’
‘Dexter is my married name.’
‘You’re married?’ she asks, scrunching up her eyes in confusion. ‘You don’t seem married.’
‘Right. How do married people seem?’
She shrugs and pulls a face. ‘I dunno… bored?’
‘That’s just being an adult. And I’m divorced, actually. I think I might go back to de Vere, but it’d mean changing all my documents again, and then having to spell it all the time. At least with Dexter, you can just say “like the friendly serial killer”, and people get it.’