Chapter Forty-Six
‘So, how was your mum?’ Davey asked Tammy, lowering himself on to a flat rock next to her. ‘More importantly, how are you after seeing her?’
‘OK …’ Tammy said, watching a group of gulls pecking around the shoreline.
She’d asked Davey if they could go for a walk to the far end of Porthmellow beach after she’d returned from Scotland.
She’d felt she needed space and fresh air to have The Conversation.
Maybe she simply felt more comfortable in her natural element with the waves breaking and the gulls crying as they wheeled around the sky.
‘I mean, she was OK, and I was OK with meeting her.’
‘That’s progress,’ Davey said with a wry smile.
‘Yeah … I needed to ask her a few things.’
‘I guessed it wasn’t only a social call, though I held back from saying anything.’
‘No. A lot of stuff has happened this summer and it’s made me hungry for answers to questions I hadn’t had the courage to ask before.’
‘Has the Suit got anything to do with this?’
She laughed briefly. ‘Partly, and my first confession is that Ruan came with me.’
‘I’d worked that out too,’ Davey said. ‘None of my business though.’
‘I wasn’t ready to go into our reasons for heading for Scotland. We both had some answers to find up there. Mine were about my mum …’ she said and paused, hardly able to look Davey in the eye but knowing she had to, ‘… and you.’
Davey nibbled his lip. ‘Ah.’
‘You see, I thought that Mum had abandoned me even though she kept telling me I had a choice to go with her or stay here with Dad. I was young and angry and hurt, and I blamed her for leaving me. Now I know that she didn’t abandon me.
I did have a choice and she really was …
devastated when she had to start a new life without me. ’
‘I could have told you that,’ he muttered.
‘I needed to hear it from her and to be in the right frame of mind to believe it. Now I feel … more at peace with Mum and myself. But there was another reason I went to Scotland and I probably should keep it to myself but while I’m feeling brave, I know I should share it.
Argh …’ She picked at the grains of sand in a groove in the rock.
‘Spit it out,’ Davey said.
‘I’d seen something in a note and I thought – well, if you and Mum – I thought that you might be my—’
‘What note?’ Davey burst out, then added, so quietly Tammy could barely hear: ‘Are you about to say that you thought I was your dad?’
‘It seems ridiculous now, but Ruan found a note in a box of Walter’s stuff at the nursing home.
It was from my dad, responding to something Walter must have implied – that you and my mum had had an affair around the time I was conceived.
Dad told Walter in no uncertain terms to get lost, but it’s pretty obvious that Walter had claimed I was your daughter. ’
Davey snorted. ‘That’s bullshit.’
‘Mum said the same. She said Walter was being vindictive because she’d rejected his proposition. I know you’d never do anything like that. But I had a horrible feeling that, deep down, Dad did believe the lie or kept brooding about it and, in the end, it had tipped him over the edge.’
Davey looked her straight in the eye with such affection that she almost cried.
‘Tammy, love. I’m not your dad, although I’ve tried to help you as much as I could.
It’s been a privilege to be here and watch you grow up, although I feel guilty almost every day that I’ve been here for the big moments – and the everyday ones – when Neil isn’t.
I would have been proud to be your father.
Very proud, but your mum and I weren’t even the best of friends, though I’m very glad you’ve made your peace with her. ’
Tammy touched his hand gently, feeling lighter yet also ashamed she’d almost believed Walter’s lies.
Davey grasped her hand. ‘Tammy, love. Your dad’s death was an accident. I’d bet my life on it. He’d never have left you.’
‘I wanted to think that, but people do leave the ones they love. Sometimes they can’t help it.’
‘Your dad was in a good place at that time. Only the night before he went fishing, he’d told me how happy and proud he was that you were making your living doing something you loved. He said you were a massive talent and you’d go far and he couldn’t wait to see what you did next.’
‘You’ve never told me this before.’
‘I tried, but you’ve been upset and understandably so. I’m convinced Neil had an accident in the boat. That’s all. I wish I could know it for certain, but I’d bet my life on it.’
Tammy nodded, the tears stinging the back of her eyes again, and hugged Davey. Why was every conversation so painful lately? She’d cried more since Ruan had walked into her life than since her father had died.
And yet she couldn’t say that he’d made her unhappy. She could only say that he’d made her feel .
And she hadn’t wanted to feel. She’d wanted to do her art and be outside, living her life from day to day, trying not to dwell on the past or think about the future.
She let go of Davey. ‘I feel really stupid now.’
‘Don’t. Can I see this note?’
‘It’ll only make you angry.’
He huffed, not unkindly. ‘I can live with that.’
Tammy pulled it from her bag and handed it over.
Davey read it in silence yet his brows knitted together and she could see his eyes darken with anger.
She expected him to curse afterwards but he simply shook his head.
‘No wonder you thought I was your father if Walter had tried to poison Neil’s mind with that pile of toxic crap.
He never said a word about it to me, which proves he didn’t believe it.
He never tried to keep your mother and me apart or act any differently.
He knew your mum and I didn’t even get on that well … ’
‘I can only hope Dad wasn’t fooled, and I want to believe he died because of an accident. Like Mum says, I can never truly know for sure, but I feel … better about the circumstances.’
‘I hope so, love.’ Davey handed back the letter.
Tammy put it in her bag. ‘And now, another reason I asked you down here. I’ve something to tell you. Ruan has offered to transfer part of Rosewarne – I mean Seaspray – to me.’
Davey blew out a breath. ‘Bleddy hell. That’s a turn-up, though no more than you deserve.’
‘I’ve said no, of course,’ Tammy shot back, horrified at Davey’s obvious approval of Ruan’s offer.
‘You what?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why have you done a daft thing like that?’
‘Because – because I don’t want it. I don’t want to be beholden to him. Walter left it to him and I have a good idea why and I don’t want to be handed it back like a charity case.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sure the lad doesn’t think like that.’
‘Maybe not, but he does feel guilty, and I don’t want to be given a house out of pity or guilt. Dad lost Rosewarne a long time ago and I want to make my own way in the world. If I ever own a house like Rosewarne, it will be because I’ve earned it.’
‘That’s very principled and I see your point but – a house like that? It’ll be worth a fortune when he’s done it up. You must know that.’ His tone was urgent. ‘And it was your family’s once.’
‘Davey. I’ve said no. And I mean it: nothing will change my mind.’ Tammy picked up her bag. ‘Let’s go back to the studio. I have a big corporate job later this afternoon and I want to be at the beach in good time.’