Chapter Thirty-Five
With a huge effort of will, Tammy was able to stop trembling when she’d stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. She’d so wanted Sean to be lying to her so she could go back to him and say, You made it up. Ruan isn’t living at Rosewarne.
However, she’d known he wasn’t lying as soon as she’d seen the caravan in the grounds. That was almost as much of a shock as seeing the state of her former home. Rosewarne and its neighbour, now one house again, was a wreck and, if anything, even worse than Sean had painted it.
Her initial instinct had been to run because she couldn’t bear to look at the dilapidated wreck that reminded her of so many shattered hopes and unhappy memories.
Instead, she’d escaped on to the beach and watched the sun set and the egg-shaped boulders glow bone-white in the moonlight.
Their warmth had cooled as she’d waited, hunched up, and finally, she’d walked back to the grounds and made a circuit of the house.
She could almost hear the echoes of the past. Her mother singing along to the radio, her father hammering somewhere, her own laughter ringing out as she played with the neighbour’s kids in the garden.
‘How long have you been here?’ Ruan asked, his face almost white in the light. ‘I didn’t see your van in the lane.’
‘I parked further up the road and walked down here.’
He nodded, crestfallen. Tammy had no sympathy.
‘How’s the migraine?’ he asked.
‘Better. I did have a headache and I did feel like shit but that was because I didn’t want to be right about this,’ she said, sweeping her arm in the direction of the house. ‘I wanted to be mistaken.’
‘You say Sean told you?’ he asked and covered his face. ‘You mean Sean Carrow, the builder. I didn’t realise. Christ. I’m sorry. He came to give a quote for the work.’
‘Does it matter how I found out?’ Tammy said, regretting she’d even mentioned Sean, even though she was gutted that her ex had been the one to shatter her illusions about Ruan.
She’d defended him so staunchly and yet Sean had been correct for once: Ruan had been lying and her faith in him lay in far greater ruin than the house itself.
‘I am so sorry—’ Ruan began but Tammy cut him off.
‘In a way, it doesn’t matter that you’re living here,’ she said. ‘What matters is that you knew it used to be my home and you didn’t say anything. If you’d told me that you’d bought it, I’d have been surprised but I’d have understood. People buy houses all the time.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you,’ Ruan said. ‘And no, I’d no idea it was called Rosewarne until I was clearing the ivy off the plaque on Sunday morning. I’d always assumed it was one big house called Seaspray. You were doing your dad’s tribute that evening and I didn’t want to spoil things.’
Tammy still wasn’t convinced. ‘But didn’t you realise that it had been two cottages once? You’re a lawyer. You must have done your own research before buying it.’
‘No …’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t buy it. I inherited it.’
‘Inherited it?’ Tammy said. ‘Someone actually left you this place?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
‘Why are you afraid?’ she said coolly. ‘If someone left it to you, then you must have been close.’
‘As a matter of fact, we weren’t. I’d only met them once. Tammy, please, come inside the caravan and let me explain.’
Now. Now he offers to tell me everything. Only now, she thought. She nodded, still in a daze.
Inside the caravan, Ruan spoke gently. ‘Can I get you anything? Coffee?’
‘No,’ she said sharply, glancing around the van with its laptop and neatly stacked papers. Everything was tidy and in its place. Then she realised how dry her throat was. ‘I mean, yes. Thanks. I could do with a glass of water.’
‘OK.’
He filled the glass at the sink and put it on the edge of the table he was using as a desk. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, taking the padded bench himself.
Giving herself a few moments to think before she spoke again, Tammy sat and sipped the water. She put it back on the table, careful not to spill any on the documents and betray how shaken she was to have her fears confirmed.
‘Actually, I suppose I’ve no right to ask you where you got the house,’ she said carefully.
‘It’s none of my business, is it? It stopped being ours a long time ago.
In fact, I oughtn’t to have come here at all.
I’m probably trespassing.’ It was impossible not to make the last statement sound sarcastic.
‘You could never trespass here. You’re always welcome …’ Ruan said before his words petered out because, clearly, she hadn’t been welcome or he’d have invited her at the start of their relationship.
‘But?’ Tammy said, voicing what he didn’t dare to.
‘ But I really wish I’d told you about the place before.
When we first met and I heard about you losing your dad and the problems you’d had with finding a permanent home, I felt it would be …
insensitive to announce that I’d been given a beautiful place in Cornwall for no reason at all. It felt like boasting – or gloating.’
‘Thanks for thinking of my feelings,’ Tammy said, not sure if she sounded bitter and not sure if she cared. ‘You could have told me. I would have accepted it.’
‘I know that now, but there never seemed a good time. I genuinely did not have a clue that half the property had been Rosewarne and when I did find out …’ He shrugged. ‘I realised there was something else that complicated things.’
‘What?’
‘The person who left me the place was a relation of mine.’
‘You said you’d only met them once.’
‘I did, when I was a little boy, and for some reason he decided that I was to be his sole beneficiary. He was my great-uncle and his name was Walter Cavendish.’
Tammy’s chest tightened. ‘Walter Cavendish.’ She’d echoed Ruan’s words because she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right and the name felt like poison.
‘Yes. I’m sorry. My grandad married his sister though neither of my grandparents had anything to do with him.’
‘I – How can that be? You know Walter was the man who helped ruin my family. From the moment Dad met him in the pub, he encouraged my dad to drink and gamble. I could hear them laughing and drinking late at night. He’d drive Dad to the pub and the bookies and as time passed, of course, Dad didn’t even have to leave the house because he could bet online.
Even when Dad was trying to kick the habit, Walter would invite him to all-night poker sessions.
In Walter’s twisted way, I think he deliberately wanted my dad to go bankrupt so he could get his hands on the house. Did you realise all this?’
Ruan could hardly bear to meet her eye. ‘I knew he was a vindictive and unpleasant character, but I swear I’d no idea that he was such a calculating bastard in relation to your family until recently.
Since I inherited the house, I’ve found out he hurt a lot of my relations too.
He said some vicious stuff to my aunt and uncle.
Called them idlers, work-shy and weak … My mum told me he also sent poison letters to a cousin when she had a baby “out of wedlock”, as he called it. He never spoke to her again.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Tammy said. ‘I wish my family had never crossed his evil path!’
‘I wish I’d never known him either. He only visited my mum and dad a couple of times. Once when I was little and then, later, he turned my dad down for a loan when Dad was at rock bottom.’
‘If he hated your family, why did he leave you this place? Have you no clue at all?’
‘None.’
‘Maybe he had a change of heart about his wicked ways,’ Tammy said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.
‘Then he should have left it to you .’ Ruan lifted himself off the bench seat, as if he might hug her but thought better of it.
Tammy was relieved he didn’t try it. Given the mood she was in, she’d have pushed him away. ‘But he didn’t.’
‘There are probably many other people Walter hurt. I don’t know why I was singled out and I wish I’d told you but I – couldn’t.’
Through the caravan window, her former home stood, dilapidated in the darkness, and her heart squeezed painfully. ‘I suppose you’re going to sell it when you’ve done it up?’
‘I don’t want to.’
She nodded although she wasn’t sure she believed him. He surely would sell Seaspray – she’d never get used to that name. It was huge, worth a fortune, and too big for a single man. Her mind was overloaded with so much hurt, disappointment and confusion.
Ruan reached out as if to take her hand. ‘I wish he’d chosen you, not me.’
She kept her hand in her lap. ‘No. No, don’t say that,’ she said, hardening herself and wishing she hadn’t exposed her hurt so openly. ‘It – it’s none of my business. No matter how much I wish things had been different.’
‘I love your free spirit. How little you value material things.’
‘But I still want a home, Ruan. I still wish I had my home. I’d like the security of knowing I’ll have a roof over my head and that the kids I might one day have will have a roof over theirs. Being a struggling artist isn’t all that romantic when you need a place to live.’
‘If you’d known I’d inherited it and that Walter was my great-uncle when we met, would it have made any difference?’
‘No …’ She put her hands on her head. ‘I don’t know. It shouldn’t make a difference – not in an ideal world. But it’s a shock.’
‘Would you have hated me?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t have trusted myself to talk to you. I’d have assumed you were just like him – like Walter.’
‘Tammy. I inherited his house, not his grasping ways. I only met him once.’
‘It may be irrational of me, but I need time to come to terms with this.’
‘It’s not irrational. I understand that this place is a symbol of all you’ve lost. Of what happened to your dad …’
‘I don’t understand why I feel so bad about it, but I do and I think it’s better if we don’t see each other for a while. I’m sorry.’ She got up and opened the caravan door and stepped into the moonlight, hearing the sea crashing on to the shore. She had to get away and lick her wounds in private.
‘Tammy, wait,’ Ruan called after her. ‘Please. At least let me walk you up to the lane.’
‘No need. I can find my own way,’ she muttered, fighting back tears of disappointment. ‘I always have.’