Chapter 32
32
At some point before I woke at four-thirty, an envelope had been slipped under my door.
I made myself one last mug of tea, curled up in the chair facing the huge window, and watched streaks of pink, gold and lilac sunrise spread across the sky for a long moment before I opened it.
4 April 1989
Gabriel
I don’t need to tell you that today is our third anniversary. I can’t help wondering whether you have written me a letter, despite knowing that it would surely be full of the pain and anger I’ve caused.
You may be wondering why I’ve written one (if you haven’t immediately tossed this into the living room fire).
Well. You are still my husband. And, I implore you – I will happily beg, if that would make a difference – that after reading what I have to say, you consider remaining that way.
I have made a hideous mistake, asking for a divorce. Not least because, for the first (and last) time, I lied to you. I lied about falling in love with another man. It took thirty-seven years to find one man I could envisage sharing my life with. Can you really imagine me finding another?
You are the only man I have, and will ever, love, Gabriel. I asked for a divorce for the most cowardly of reasons – fear. I was afraid that you would choose the farm over me. And I was more afraid that you wouldn’t. That eventually, you would feel obligated to return to England, devastating your family, betraying your legacy and seething with buried resentment towards the wife who you were bound to discover sooner or later is by no means worthy of that sacrifice. I chose to believe that you belonged on your beloved island. That my love had a lesser claim on you. That even if I retried making a home on Hawkins Farm, we would live out our days in misery.
So, I invented a reason that you would find impossible to deny. You’ve always valued my happiness above your own, and I knew you would release me to remarry if I asked.
And, yes, a small part of me hoped that my letter would rekindle the fire you once felt. That you would ride in like a knight on a white horse, to claim your bride.
That, somehow, we would find a way to be happy. Or if not happy, then at least at peace.
Of course, that did not happen. You have fields to plough and calves to castrate. More common sense than money to waste going after a woman who has clearly told you she wants someone else.
So here I find myself, on our wedding anniversary, living with the single greatest mistake of my life.
I had spent so long alone, yet was never lonely until I met you.
I had rarely known joy, and yet never once encountered such despair.
I had considered myself to be content, to be enough. Now I am consumed with longing.
If there is any chance you can forgive me, please don’t sign the papers. Call me. Call my solicitor. Come to me. Or I will come to you. I don’t care what your family must think of me.
I’m not asking for forgiveness now. Merely for you to consider whether it’s worth finding out if there is still hope for us.
I love you.
I’m sorrier than I could ever say.
Please give me a chance. Give our love another chance.
I will do whatever it takes.
Your wife,
Nellie
I could not begin to imagine the depth of feeling that had prompted my proud, pragmatic mother to write that letter. Or the one that must have preceded it, now her motivation had become clear. It was hard not to dwell on ‘what ifs’ as I quickly showered, stuffed the last bits into my bags and made my way downstairs.
The house was silent, as I’d have expected this early on the morning after a family wedding. I took a sheet of Beanie’s colouring paper and scrawled a brief note of my own, tucking it behind a sunflower fridge magnet.
Thank you, for everything.
I’m so sorry for how it ended.
I hope the review helps make up for it,
Emmie
A week after I’d nearly passed out riding Barnie’s rental bike up the coastal road, I whizzed down the curves towards Port Cathan and on towards the airport while barely breaking a sweat. It helped there was nothing else on the road other than a milk van, the postman, a couple of runners and a delivery truck. And that I stopped at Dahlia’s, where they informed me I was the first customer of the day, to fill up my Isle of Siskin travel mug with freshly ground coffee and buy a slice of chocolate cherry pie. I pressed on for another mile before stopping where I’d collapsed by the side of the road on my first evening here, this time leaving the bike propped against a tree (the smell was by now barely noticeable, unless you gave the saddle a big sniff) as I snuck into the meadow.
Reclining against my rucksack, I inhaled the heady fragrance of flowers, sea salt and dew-damp earth and blinked back the tears pressing behind my eyes.
I sipped my coffee, ate my pie and resolved to savour this moment.
The sky was a perfect, mid-summer blue, the sun a new penny warming the back of my scalp.
A family of rabbits whiffled around the hedgerow, while the bleating of distant sheep mingled with the squawking chirrup of siskins in the alder trees.
Yesterday had been one of the loveliest and most traumatic days of my life.
I had successfully catered a wedding.
I had worn a stunning dress and kissed a beautiful man in a treehouse.
I had learned things about my mother I’d never have imagined. Including how she’d broken her own heart for the sake of her husband and his family.
I had been lied about, and to. Insulted and falsely accused.
I had made a decision so brave, it made my spur-of-the-moment holiday seem trivial in comparison.
And then, hours later, I had unmade it, after losing the man I was falling in love with, only a moment after we’d really begun.
Did I regret it, my island adventure?
Perhaps, only time would tell.
I soaked it all up for another few minutes, then clambered back on the bike and headed for home.