Chapter 13
13
Finn looked at his father carefully. He still looked pale and it seemed as though new lines of strain had appeared around his eyes – even tonight.
‘OK. Why now, Dad? Why did you decide it was time to tell me the truth now? Because that was what you were doing, wasn’t it – when you sent me that news item. You were prompting me to ask.’
‘It was Dorrie. She thought you should know. And I won’t deny I’ve wondered that too, Finn. Several times across the years. It’s got more difficult as time’s gone on. As you might guess.’
‘So that’s why you sent the news item. You thought if you did that I might start the conversation and you wouldn’t have to.’
‘Aye. I’m a coward, lad, I know.’
That was something his father had never been, but Finn couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that yet.
‘Did Gran and Grandpa know she came back?’
‘No, they didn’t. She never contacted them. Or if she did they never told me. And Finn, I just want to get something straight. Bridie wasn’t coming back to us. She’d got a new life set up. She’d…’ He hesitated, his northern accent thickening a little as he got more emotional. ‘She’d got married ta another man, soon after she left us. She’d moved on. I guess – I guess…’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I thought she might want ta take you away from me. Apply for parental custody – you know – and she might have won because mothers had all the rights in those days, and as you know, although my name was there in black and white on the birth certificate, we never had got married. I couldn’t bear ta lose you too. That’s why I lied. To you and ta her. I was scared if I let her see you, she’d want to take you.’ He let out a deep breath and Finn let out a deep breath with him.
He had no doubt he was hearing the whole painful truth now and although he didn’t condone what his father had done, he was at least beginning to understand it.
‘I’m telling you now because Dorrie said I didn’t have the right to keep that kind of secret forever. She thought maybe I should write it in a letter to you, Finn. At least give you the option of whether you wanted to go looking for Bridie, now you were a man – a father yourself. And old enough, you know, to make your own decisions.’ He met Finn’s eyes again. ‘But I’m not much of a letter writer.’
There was a pause as Finn digested all of this. His father fidgeted, picked at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa. Then after a while he cleared his throat and spoke again.
‘There’s something else you need to know, lad.’
Finn doubted his father could say anything that would shock him more than he was already. ‘Go on.’
‘When Bridie phoned up asking to arrange that visit, she told me why she’d left us.’ He closed his eyes, and now his cheekbones were very tense, his jaw locked tight, and it was a while before he could speak again. When he did, his voice was calm, almost detached. ‘She’d been having an affair with a man she called her childhood sweetheart. She’d met up with him again in England. She said he was her soulmate. And she told me she was pregnant with his bairn.’ Ray opened his eyes again and blinked a few times and Finn saw to his horror that his eyes were full of tears.
As if slowly becoming aware of this too, Ray swiped at his face, like he was swatting away a fly, and shook his head. ‘That’s it. You know it all.’
Despite himself, despite his own shock and pain, Finn’s overriding feeling was compassion. He was in no doubt that carrying this awful secret must have been burning away like acid in his father’s heart for years. The pain that sharing it gave him was awful to witness. He got up swiftly and crossed to the sofa.
‘Dad, Dad, it’s OK.’ He sat beside his father and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all in the past. All done with. All done.’
Ray felt rigid and stiff beside him and Finn knew in that moment that if he pushed it any further – tried to hug him or comfort him with any more words – he might break. So he just sat, quite still where he was, with his hand on his father’s shoulder, and for a few seconds he could feel Ray trembling as he struggled to contain his emotions.
He wasn’t even sure how long they sat there, but eventually Ray stopped trembling, sniffed, then fumbled for a huge white handkerchief in his jacket pocket and blew his nose with it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you all this before.’
‘You’ve told me now. That’s what counts. You’ve told me now.’
* * *
At Duck Pond Cottage, Jade had just gone to bed. Against her better judgement, and because she was missing Finn, she’d let Mickey go upstairs with her and he’d taken full advantage and was now stretched out on the bed beside her.
‘This is our secret, right,’ Jade told him, stroking his shaggy head and uncovering a brown eye. ‘And it’s not going to be an everyday thing, OK?’
Mickey thumped his tail twice on the duvet in agreement – or at least Jade hoped it was agreement – and snuggled in close so the length of him was against the curve of Jade’s body. It felt nice having his warmth beside her. It took the edge off the faint disappointment she felt that Finn hadn’t phoned. Out of sight, out of mind, she presumed; typical man.
Not that he needed to phone, she reminded herself. He’d only been gone a day, and the whole point was that he was spending some quality time with Ray and Dorrie. But it would have been good to have told him about Farmer John retracting his offer and about her meeting with Rural Developments, and the further one tomorrow. It would have been good to know his thoughts on the whole scenario.
She should probably have texted and told him what had happened, but it had been such a busy day. Anyway, she could deal with Rural Developments. She didn’t need any help. This way, with luck, she could just tell Finn the whole story when he got back from Nottingham.
And the whole story would be – hopefully – ‘Farmer John changed his mind about selling me the field, but luckily I managed to persuade the developer it would be in their best interests to sell me it, so all’s well that ends well.’
Jade wasn’t at all sure this was going to happen but for now she wasn’t letting any negativity or doubt spoil her happy vision.
She fell asleep to the sound of Mickey’s snoring, which was louder than Finn’s and didn’t stop when she touched him on the shoulder.
What with the prospect of meeting Declan Stone tomorrow and Mickey’s snoring, it wasn’t the best night’s sleep she’d ever had, which meant Jade overslept. Usually her eyes snapped open just before six and she was up and about by ten past, but on this Wednesday she didn’t wake up until nearly twenty to seven and she felt bleary eyed.
Mickey was still asleep beside her. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she scolded him gently. ‘Now everyone’s going to have a late breakfast.’
The cockerpoo wagged his tail at the word breakfast, yawned, sat up and began scratching himself.
‘You’d better not have fleas,’ Jade said, even though she knew he’d been dosed the previous month. July was always tricky for fleas.
Everyone was going to have a late breakfast, Jade thought, gulping back an instant coffee and skipping her usual toast. She didn’t mind not eating, but there were eight dogs, plus Mickey, five cats, plus Diesel, who’d probably caught his own breakfast by now, two horses, several hens and one verbose parrot who would all be wondering where their benefactor was.
Breakfast and mucking out took the best part of an hour and a half at Duck Pond Rescue, although it was slightly easier in the summer because the horses were out at grass this time of year and didn’t need much feeding. Jade did put fly sheets on them in the summer, though, which helped to keep them from being bitten too much. Recently she’d had a couple of teenage girls – Thea and Ann-Marie, who were best friends – who’d come in to help exercise them.
Jade was painfully aware that without exercise both her horses were in danger of getting too fat. Rosanna, a 15-hands thoroughbred cross, who’d been at the sanctuary the longest, went lame if she had very much exercise. Light riding or lead rein walking was best for her. She was a sweet girl, but not a very good proposition for rehoming because of this. Jade was hoping someone might come along who was looking for a companion horse for one that would otherwise be kept alone – this did happen occasionally.
The other horse, Cocoa, was an elderly cob and his previous owner had given him up when he’d got too old for her to compete on, saying she didn’t have the space for a horse that wasn’t earning his keep. Jade had never been able to understand how anyone could give up an animal just because it had entered its golden years, but it happened a lot. Senior dogs and cats, past their sell-by date, and sometimes requiring ongoing medication, often came in to rescue too, and she knew that some of them would never leave. This was another reason she needed extra land. Not all animals were rehomable, and Jade had a mission to give the ones that would live out their lives at Duck Pond Rescue a comfortable and peaceful retirement.
The teenagers, Thea and Ann-Marie, were both really nice girls who adored animals and shared Jade’s sentiments about heartless owners, who were only interested in young and healthy animals. Neither of them would ever be able to afford their own horses, but they loved helping out with Rosanna and Cocoa, and Jade was grateful for their help.
Jade got a WhatsApp from Finn about ten, which said he’d just woken up. She felt slightly guilty about that. Finn must have been totally exhausted to have needed such a long lie-in. She had always been a lark – getting up with the dawn even before necessity had forced the issue, but she’d never considered that Finn might actually like the odd lie-in. He never had them here.
Again, she marvelled that she’d met a man who seemed totally happy to fit around her life because running an animal rescue centre wasn’t a job, it was a vocation. Finn never complained or even questioned the fact that their lives revolved around the feeding, cleaning and rehoming rituals of the sanctuary. They couldn’t go away for as much as a day without having to get cover. It was not easy by anyone’s standards.
She messaged him back, telling him to make the most of it. She got a smiley face back and a ‘catch you later’.
Hopefully he meant on the phone, Jade thought as she got on with the business of the day. She’d also got a text from an unknown number which turned out to be from Declan Stone, asking if 3p.m. would be a convenient time for him to call.
She texted back and said it would. With luck there would be a volunteer around to cover reception while she walked down with him to look at the area she was hoping to buy, and if there wasn’t, she’d lock up for half an hour or so.
True to his word, the property developer arrived bang on time. A shiny black Range Rover Sport with alloy wheels drew into the yard and parked outside reception, and Jade watched Declan Stone emerge. He was carrying a briefcase and he paused to look around him.
His Range Rover, which was almost new, reflected the afternoon sun like a gleaming sculpture of black glass, and Jade was reminded of what Sarah had said.
‘Baddies always have black cars.’ She’d been talking about crime dramas though, not real life. Jade cursed her overactive imagination and gave herself a little shake as she went outside to meet him.