Chapter 19 #3
We flick through further entries. Mayme and her sister are fighting about the wedding. Her sister wants a big society wedding. Mayme wants a small private one. She writes about how Jeremiah stands up for her where she is used to being overruled by her sister. How he becomes the voice she never had, and she and Jeremiah end up eloping. He is able to get a job, and so is she – as a typist who types an author’s dictated words. They move in together. The stains of happy tears have splashed the page on the day she writes she has fallen pregnant.
It is documenting the happy life she dreamed of, and this time, there is no question that any of it is a fairy story. It’s all as real as she deserved it to be.
It’s amazing to read the further entries and find out the ending that we never thought we’d know, but there’s an undercurrent of tension around the table. Ava loves this diary. I knew that even Lissa would have trouble persuading her to let it be on display in the museum, but it’s rightfully Pamela’s, and Ava is going to struggle to let it go.
The crate is filled with photographs and letters. Endless notebooks where Mayme wrote down the words she couldn’t voice. As cameras became more accessible, there are photographs of the two of them together. Photos of the children they had.
I’ve got tears in my eyes as we leaf through them. I feel like we’ve got to know this woman over the summer, this stranger from so many years ago, and her life matters to me. To us . I glance over at Ava, who’s given up trying to hide the tears streaming down her face, and Ren’s eyes are watery and he’s got his lower lip clamped between his teeth.
‘Thank you for sharing this with us.’ I carefully place the last of the notebooks back into Pamela’s wooden crate and go to unlock the case displaying the diary, but Ava stops me.
‘No!’ She turns to Pamela. ‘You can’t just waltz in and say, “Oh, that’s mine, that is!” and take it!’
‘Ava…’ I start.
‘No! It’s not fair! This diary is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, and it’s not for sale! Go away!’
‘I’m happy to buy it back if need be.’ Pamela goes to get out a purse, but I hold up a hand to stop her as Ren puts a hand on Ava’s shoulder and turns her away. ‘We don’t want anything else back from the house clearance. Everything else was supposed to go, except the diary.’
‘ I found it! Finders keepers!’ she sobs. ‘Mickey gave it to me!’
‘It wasn’t mine to give.’ I realise now that this was a monumental mistake on my part. The very essence of my dad’s business was to reunite owners with things they’d lost. I should have been more aware of the fact that this book was sentimental to someone and, sooner or later, they’d come looking for it. ‘I’m so sorry, Ave. I should have made it clear from the start that it wasn’t the sort of thing someone would have thrown out. I thought someone would be looking for it one day, I just didn’t know it would be so soon or that it would become so important to us.’
Ava’s crying so hard that she can barely catch her breath, and Ren has taken her to the side, crouched in front of her with both hands on her upper arms, and is trying to persuade her to take deep, calming breaths.
He looks over his shoulder and catches my eyes, his flicking between the diary and Pamela.
He’s telling me to give it to her now , while Ava’s not watching. Maybe he thinks it will be easier that way?
Lissa’s looking like she desperately wants to do something to help, and when I risk a glance down at the shoppers in the grounds, Ava’s howling sobs have attracted far too much attention.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Pamela asks awkwardly.
I shake my head as I turn the key and extract it from the display box. ‘She’s had a tough time lately and finding this diary helped a lot. I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to end like this.’
I cling onto it for a moment too long as I hand it over. It feels like the end of Gremlins when Billy has to give Gizmo back to the old Chinese man. He doesn’t want to, even though he knows it’s the right thing to do.
Pamela clearly wasn’t expecting the scene this has caused as she takes it from me and settles it into her wooden crate with the other things and murmurs a quiet thank you, but she hesitates, looking like she’s having second thoughts about taking it. ‘Maybe I should come back another day instead?’
I look over my shoulder to where Ren has still got Ava turned around so her back is to us. On the one hand, leaving the diary here now would make things better today, but then what? Get Pamela to return when Ava’s in school and take it then instead? That would feel even more underhanded and like I was stabbing her in the back. She’d still be just as upset when she found out. Surely it’s better to rip the plaster off in one go than keep picking at it all week?
‘Thank you for looking after it so well.’ She reaches out to shake my hand when I tell her to take it now, and I shake hers too.
‘Thank you for inadvertently sharing a piece of your family history with us. It really has made it a very special summer.’ I glance at Ava and Ren as I say it, filled with a sense of trepidation that our special summer is well and truly over .
Pamela lifts her wooden crate and hurries away, and as she disappears into the crowd, Ava finally escapes the hug Ren has been trying to give her, and realises the diary and Pamela are nowhere to be found.
She lets out an eardrum-piercing scream. ‘It’s gone ? It’s gone ? You distracted me so she could take it?’ She slaps Ren’s hand away when he tries to comfort her and then turns on me. ‘You haven’t got Fairy Godmother magic powers, you’ve got Wicked Stepmother evil powers!’
‘Ava!’ Ren has got that helpless look on his face again, the one I haven’t seen for a few weeks now. ‘Don’t talk to Mickey like that. Apologise now, please.’
‘She should apologise to me! She’s ruined everything!’
‘I’m so sorry, Ava,’ I say again. ‘It wasn’t ours. It was never ours.’
‘Yes, it was! All you had to do was tell that stupid cow to do one!’
‘Ava!’ Ren admonishes again, but she’s so upset that it doesn’t make any difference.
‘It wasn’t ours to keep. No object is ever ours. Old things came into the world before we did, they’re ours for a while, but ultimately, they live on after we’re gone, and someone else will take care of them for a while too. That’s what my entire shop is about – taking things that were once loved and looking after them until they can be loved again. The diary stayed with us this summer, it brought us into each other’s lives, and now it has to go back, like a really good library book that you wish you could keep, but you know you can’t, because other people deserve the joy of reading it too.’
‘You can buy a really good library book on Amazon!’ she mutters, swiping tears away.
‘I know it’s not the same, but just because we no longer have the book, it doesn’t mean we don’t still love it and have it in here…’ I put my hand on my heart because I know where she’s coming from. I feel the gut-wrenching pang of not being able to keep it too, but it’s warring with happiness at being able to reunite someone with something they must have been devastated to lose. ‘We still get to keep the experiences it gave us, but it has sentimental value to someone else and her family deserve that back. Sometimes we have to let things go for the sake of someone else, right?’
The more I talk, the more she cries, and her howling sobs are attracting even more attention. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her until she feels better, but I’m definitely the last person she wants a hug from right now.
‘I thought we were in this together, Mickey, but you let me down. Everyone always lets me down and what I want is never important. I thought you were different, but you’re just like everyone else. You don’t fight for the things that matter. You don’t care about the things that are important to me. You give up when things get tough. Just like everyone else.’
She means her mum, obviously, and the comparison makes me wince, but I have no idea what to say in response. Everything I say is only serving to make Ava more turbulent.
I can see how she feels, like she desperately wanted me to stand up for what she wanted, to be on her side for once, because I don’t think she feels like many people are. I didn’t when I was thirteen either. But this was a situation with only one possible conclusion, and when Ava calms down and thinks it through, she’ll see that. I’m sure she will. She has to.
My stomach is churning and my hands are shaking because I feel so bad about this. ‘I’m sorry, Ava. I’m so sorry.’
‘I hate you! You’re the worst!’ It stings even harder than usual because of the number of times she’s told me I’m the best, and the distance between us feels like it’s several miles wide and expanding by the second. I don’t know how she’s ever going to get over this, and there’s nothing I can do to make it better.
Ava’s breath is gasping, rasping, and hitching every time she inhales and her pink T-shirt is soaked with the tears dripping down onto it, and I see the moment she looks around and realises people are staring at us, and again, I desperately want to hug her.
‘Why don’t we go and get a chocolate milkshake and take a breather from all of this?’ Ren sounds like he’s balancing on a knife edge and has no idea what to do either.
‘No! I hate you! I hate both of you!’
‘Ava!’ Ren bellows, but she’s already turned around and stormed off down the steps. He goes to run after her, but he turns back to me, looking torn, and throws his hands up and makes a noise of frustration. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve got to…’
He points in the direction that Ava went, but Lissa stops him.
‘Let me go. I’m more neutral, and you two need a minute.’ She grabs a photocopied page and rips it off the foam boards behind us and dashes after Ava. ‘And look, we still have some parts of the diary. All is not lost.’
Ren swears and kicks at the gravel under our feet. ‘Sorry about that, she was out of line to say all that and to cause such a scene.’
‘No harm done. She’s upset and hurting. Lissa’s amazing with kids, and she’s not involved in this like we are. It’ll be okay.’ I don’t believe my own words – a feeling that’s further intensified when I reach out to take his hand and he yanks it back and stomps away, gravel crunching under his boots.
‘No harm done?’ He repeats my words in a nauseating tone. ‘Do you honestly think that any of us have come out of this summer unscathed?’
‘The diary was never ours to keep…’ I start, feeling knocked off balance by both his tone and the pinched look on his face. He seems to be getting at something much deeper than the diary, and he looks like he’s aged ten years in the last five minutes. ‘You agreed. You knew she should have had it back too.’
‘Yes, but it’s not about that. It’s about Ava needing to feel like she comes first – like she matters.’
‘Of course she matters. I tried my best to defuse that situation, but what was I supposed to do – tell Pamela she couldn’t have her family heirloom back because Ava wanted it more?’
‘I don’t know.’ He pushes a hand through his hair, sounding more desperate than frustrated now. ‘It’s not just about that, Mickey. It’s about everything. Everything that’s happened these past six weeks. Everything that shouldn’t have happened.’
He paces for a minute and I can see his anger building, and I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that this is all about to come crashing down. ‘You should have made it clear from the outset that someone might come back to claim it one day, not “given” it to her and let her think it was hers forever.’
‘You could have made it clear too! It wasn’t all my doing.’
‘I’m not the expert on curiosities and reuniting owners with their lost treasure.’
‘No, but you are the father obsessed with micro-managing your daughter’s expectations. You were glad to see her enjoying something – neither of us thought through the possible outcomes. No one ever really thinks that someone’s going to turn up and claim something back. My dad reunited, like, three objects in thirty years. It’s not a regular occurrence.’
‘Yeah, well, you had no right to let either of us believe in bloody fairy stories and magical nonsense.’
‘What?’ I raise both eyebrows because he’s not just talking about the diary. He’s loosened up so much this summer – I never expected to hear him say something so cutting when I know he’s enjoyed every moment too.
The gravel crunches under his feet as he continues pacing. ‘There’s a reason I don’t get involved with anyone, and this is it. People are reckless, spontaneous, and never think through the consequences of their actions – everything that I am not. Because, guess what, you can’t be like that when you’re responsible for a child. When you’ve got someone who looks up to you, you have to be a role model, not a bloody mermaid!’
‘Or you can show her that it’s possible to be both. Everyone can still be a well-rounded adult while saving space for a touch of whimsy in their lives. The last thing anyone should be showing any child is that there is such a thing as too old to believe in magic, or that there is something wrong with being both sensible and level-headed and fun and whimsical!’
His hands swing out as he turns around and paces in the other direction. ‘Ava didn’t need any more trauma in her life, and now this thing that’s brought her so much joy has ripped her heart out – exactly what I was trying to prevent happening, I just thought it was going to be when we found out the writer wasn’t really a mermaid or the sailor had died, I didn’t foresee it being like this .’
‘What was I supposed to do, Ren?’ I ask again, defiantly, because that was a no-win situation and I have no idea how I could have handled it differently.
‘I don’t know. But I do know this was a mistake. I got so tangled up with you that I let myself make it anyway, even though I knew it would end in tears. Or a bloody great hormonal meltdown, in this case. What we need to do is forget all of this and go back to how things were before we met you.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Tears I was fighting to hold back spill out of my eyes, and he hesitates, and for half a second I think he’s going to throw his arms around me and tell me that he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t.
He shakes his head, but it’s a gesture of resignation, not a rebuttal of those words. ‘Yes, Mick, I do. I have to. Because I have a daughter who needs me to put her first, and I should never have forgotten that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and undo some of the damage this summer has caused!’
As he marches down the steps and back into the castle grounds, Cleo races up them and pulls me into a hug. ‘Oh, that was painful . I’m so sorry, I thought he was “the one”.’
‘So did I,’ I mumble, trying and failing to fight the tears that are running down my face.
‘Anyone who buys that amount of tea and cake is a good ’un at heart. Emotions are high at the moment. Don’t take it personally.’
How many times have I said the same to Ren this summer? I never expected to have someone saying that to me when it all went wrong. Because it has all gone wrong, hasn’t it?
Ava will never forgive me, and Ren… never wanted to get involved in the first place, and this is his perfect excuse to shut himself off again.
Cleo rubs my back and lets me cry into her shoulder while I try to come to terms with how quickly this all went south. With the way I’ve been feeling about Ren, I expected them both to be in my life forevermore, but somehow, we didn’t even make it to the end of the summer holidays, and I suddenly wish we’d thrown that diary into the fathoms below as soon as we found it, and stayed well and truly not a part of each other’s worlds.