Chapter 31 In the Basket #2
‘After that she only managed a few slow words, with long gaps between, but I’ll never forget them. She said: “Tell Rhys … all … very … sorry … Cariad.”’
He frowned over this. ‘You’re right, she must have been thinking about Cariad at the end. And Cariad ought to know that, later, when she’s old enough. But go on – was that the very last thing she said?’
‘Yes, because after that she just sort of sighed, and then – she was gone,’ I said. ‘I’d never seen anyone die before.’
His hands tightened a little on mine and I went on, ‘I stayed with her till the police and ambulance came.’
He let go of my hands and instead pulled me into his arms and I leaned gratefully against him.
‘I’m sorry you had such a dreadful experience, but also very grateful that you were with her, Ginny – that she wasn’t alone at the end.’
‘I hope so,’ I said. Then I went on, determined to finish the story.
‘When I finally got back to my cottage I tried to contact Will in London to ask him to come home – which is when I discovered he was living with this other woman during the week, and not staying with his friend. So that was the end of that – and just before lockdown.’
‘Poor Ginny! You had a really bad time,’ Rhys said softly, and it would have been so easy just to stay there, held comfortingly close, and with his beautiful, deep and mellow voice consoling me.
Instead, I got a grip on myself and pulled away, although he kept one arm around me.
‘I did wonder later what she was doing in my neck of the woods,’ I said.
‘Verity told me that that boyfriend of hers had a bolthole there, an old cottage off the beaten track near a place called Old Warden. He’s in a band and liked to go there to write new songs. She must have been headed there.’
‘That would explain it. Verity seems to know everything, doesn’t she?’
‘I don’t think she and Annie kept any secrets from each other,’ he agreed.
‘When I got back from the States, I saw Verity and she told me that Annie had texted her earlier that evening to say she and Flint had quarrelled because she was convinced he’d been seeing other women, and he’d flung off in a rage to the cottage. ’
‘So she followed him down there and then fate, probably in the form of a rabbit, intervened,’ I said. ‘It was such a tragedy when she was still so young and talented.’
‘She was very serious about her work,’ he said, ‘and her career was really taking off.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘But like Verity, she was a bit older than me and she’d have really hated turning forty. I’m sure Verity’s still in denial.’
He got up and took my cup with his away to the sink and then came and sat next to me again.
‘There’s no reason why Annie should ever come between us.
I stopped loving her long before our final break-up and she was never the faithful kind to start with.
Our marriage was a disaster from the beginning.
It wasn’t all Annie either. I was the one who rushed her into it, and then decided I needed to live here and not in London and expected her to fall in with my plans.
And the compromises, like her keeping her London studio on and dividing her time between there and Triskelion, were never going to work, although it took me a while to realize she’d kept on her old lover as well as her studio. ’
‘It’s like me and Will. After the first time we broke up, I should never have taken him back again. Our arrangement didn’t work out either.’
‘We both made much the same mistakes,’ he said, ‘but we both also seem to like and want the same things from life, Ginny. Don’t you think we … sort of fit together?’
He took my hands in his again, but although we might have cleared the air about one thing, there was still my mother’s research, which sounded as if it might throw some dynamite into the family circle. I now deeply regretted my promise to her not to mention it to him or anyone else just yet.
He said gently, ‘I don’t want to rush you, Ginny. I think you need breathing space at the lodge, a sort of bridging time between your old life and a new one. And I hope that will be with me and Cariad, but that’s for you to decide.’
‘Evie said much the same about the lodge,’ I admitted. ‘She said it would be a kind of halfway house, where I could work out what I really wanted. And … well, I want to be sure this time – no more mistakes.’
‘That’s right, this time it’s for ever or nothing,’ he agreed, then added with that quirky smile of his, ‘I’d like to kiss you, but your face is so dirty you could probably grow potatoes on it, and I expect mine’s just as bad.’
I blushed and said hastily, ‘I’d forgotten I was so filthy!’ I got up. ‘I’m going for a long, hot shower.’
‘Well, think about me while you’re in there,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll see you at lunch.’
*
Evie’s door was still firmly shut as I went past, and it was only when I came back from the shower, a towel wrapped around my wet hair, that I remembered she might have emailed me the final letters Arwen had sent to Milly, the ones that Liv had been finishing typing up.
And, when I opened my laptop, there they were.
It was tempting to begin reading them straight away, but I suspected if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop, so decided to save them till after lunch, when I could concentrate … that is, if I could keep my mind off Rhys for long enough.