Chapter 49
Climbing Rose Cottage, St Aidan, Cornwall
No returns and the art of doing nothing
Tuesday
It’s funny how inertia works. If George had said to do nothing and the house would be mine, I might have found myself as owner by default.
As it is, the days pass and I still haven’t been able to bring myself to go back to George’s office.
And it’s the same with Lando leaving. I know I’d said I couldn’t bear to see him at work, but I hadn’t considered the longer term.
The thought of never seeing him again has me crying into my pillow, yet my feet still refuse to take me across that harbourside to his door.
It’s as if my limbs and my emotions are paralysed yet completely conflicted; I’m too scared of being hurt to be with Lando, but the thought of never seeing him again is ripping my heart into pieces.
Then, the evening before George’s deadline, Paul’s doing the bedtime stories and I’m downstairs clearing up after a mega waffle-making session when my phone pings. I see it’s a text from Lando and drop my scourer and collapse onto a stool.
There’s something I need to give you before I leave. I’ll come to Windflowers at eight.
Mum looks up from her ironing. ‘Is that Lando?’
‘How did you know?’
She comes across and puts her arms around me, I bury my face in her shoulder, and swallow a sob. ‘He’s asking to meet at the beach hut in ten minutes.’
‘Whatever he’s asking you to do, just this once, please agree.’ She rubs my back in the same way she does when she’s soothing her babies. ‘Go and see him. For me, not for you.’
I blow my nose, scrape away the tears under my eyelashes, and slip off my apron. ‘I’ll take Angel.’
Mum gives my arm a squeeze. ‘Good girl. Take a coat, it’s cold out there tonight.’
I grab a jacket and Angel’s lead, and as we battle into a headwind all the way to Windflowers the moon is lighting up the surf lines as the waves thrash onto the sand.
There’s a table on the verandah with a single lantern, which I light.
Then, while Angel flops down by my feet, I stand with my back to the twinkling lights of the town and rest my arms on the railing.
As I wait, I’m feeling so numb I’m wondering if my heart has turned to stone.
Then Angel’s tail thumps on the plank floor and a second later Lando slides in beside me, and my heart leaps out of my chest.
His face is gaunt as he looks down at me, his tension deepened by the shadows.
‘Thank you for being here, Maeve. Before I go for good, I wanted to return something.’
‘You’re really going?’
His cheekbones are etched in the moonlight. ‘As things stand there’s nothing to stay for. At least this way you and Nemmie can go back to how you were.’
He presses a small piece of paper into my hand.
I tilt it so the moonlight catches it. ‘Where’s this come from?’
The shadowy lines of the ultrasound scan are unmistakable, and from the flimsy printer paper it feels like an original, but I can’t make out the detail.
He draws in a breath. ‘It’s Nemmie. I’ve always had it in my wallet, but it’s much more yours than mine.’
I’m struggling to understand. ‘But there aren’t any scans of Nemmie because there were no antenatal appointments.’
He sighs. ‘It’s from the night they found you were pregnant.’ His voice goes low. ‘It might seem as if I wasn’t here for you, but in my heart I always have been.’
I blink. ‘You’ve had the picture this whole time?’
‘It turned up at the bottom of your mum’s handbag; with everything that happened she didn’t realise she had it at the time. She sent it later to show me that Nemmie wasn’t full term when she was born.’
‘I was so careful with my secret. Why did Mum give it to you?’
He shrugs. ‘A mother’s instinct, perhaps?’ He swallows. ‘She rang to tell me she was sending it in case I still had doubts. She said that at the worst part of your labour you called out my name. It was only the once, but as she had nothing else to go on, she clung on to that.’
I’m reassessing my whole life. ‘So she knew all along?’
‘I’d guess she had a good idea.’ Lando rubs his chin. ‘It was years before she sent it though. She said she’d waited until you were strong enough to cope with me turning up.’
My blood runs cold, and my mouth goes sour and I start to cry. ‘So what happened? Why didn’t you come to find us?’
He scrapes his fists over his eyes and lets out a sob.
‘This is the part that breaks me. I did come. Whatever Sav had said previously, I assumed your mum had over-ridden that, and few weeks later I borrowed a boat and sailed into St Aidan so I could keep things low key and not put any pressure on you. I was so nervous and so excited. Then I saw you walking across the harbour with Nemmie and the likeness was uncanny; she was like a miniature version of Fi in her first school photo, and you looked so sorted and happy, and all I could think was how different it was from my own childhood. That was the first time in my life I fully took in how much I’d missed out on and how dysfunctional my own family life had been.
‘Then it hit me: I had no idea how to love a child and make it feel wanted when I’d been so unhappy myself; that if I’d grown up in a home completely devoid of warmth and emotion, I would be no help to you.
I was just going to be a liability, because I was so hungry for love myself but terrified I wouldn’t be able to give it back in the right way. ’
‘Oh Lando, that’s awful.’
He bites his lip. ‘I stayed a few days, and every day I’d look out for you to see if it felt any different.
And every time I knew I wasn’t good enough.
That I’d only let you down. That you’d made your choice, were doing a great job and you’d be better off without me.
And on the fourth day when I still felt the same, I turned the boat around and sailed back out to sea again. ’
‘And that was that?’
He swallows. ‘I knew I’d missed you, but it was only once I saw you both that I knew how much.
I knew one visit wasn’t going to be enough.
I persuaded myself that next time would be different.
That I’d feel better. That I’d dare to get off the boat and say hello.
That I’d call you over. So a few months later I came again, and Nemmie’s hair had grown and she was bigger.
But again my doubts took over, and I left without talking to you.
‘But after that I couldn’t stay away. I kept on coming, and kept on hoping.’ He stops and stretches his fingers. ‘So I did come. I’ve always come. I’ve always loved you in my own mixed-up way, but I never thought it would be enough. I always knew you deserved more.’
‘Oh Lando.’
I’m pushing my palm onto his cheek, burying my face against the soft folds of his T-shirt, and listening to the thud of his heart as he carries on.
‘What you have to understand is, I’ve always been crazy about you.
There’s never been anyone else. It took every bit of willpower I had to walk away after our night here.
If it hadn’t been a matter of letting Sav down, I’d have missed my flight to Australia and stayed here with you.
’ He blows out his cheeks. ‘I know we’d agreed not to message, but I had to stay in touch.
All I got was a “number out of service” response. ’
I’m holding Nemmie’s scan, running it between my fingers. ‘I blocked you and threw away your number. I was afraid I was so dull compared to everyone else you’d be meeting, and that you’d quickly forget me.’
Lando’s chest heaves. ‘If I’d known about Nemmie from the start I’d have come straight home.
But by the time I came later I was so paralysed by doubts, and it felt that would never alter.
And then Sav’s fortunes changed overnight, and suddenly there was a way I could help that might be useful to you. ’
‘That must have been a huge climb down with your family?’
He sighs. ‘My father and brothers didn’t make it easy for me to get the financial backing I needed to give help, and we had months of wrangling before they’d commit, but my motive was always to save you, not Sav.’
I swallow back my tears. ‘I know what that must have cost you.’
He shifts against me. ‘I was desperately hoping that coming here with a whole new purpose would give me a new perspective. And someone up there must have been watching over me, because hours after I sailed into the harbour Aunty Jess inadvertently handed me the reset I needed.’
I’m biting my lip as I remember. ‘I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was beyond worried because all these years on, you still make my tummy disintegrate.’
He frowns. ‘It was very tense at first. I was terrified I’d say the wrong thing or cause you problems. The day the kids came to the door, I ran rather than face them.
Then, little by little, I found out they weren’t that scary.
And then after that I was furious with myself for all the years I’d wasted.
And in the meantime I was trying to reconcile your doubts and prove I was about more than my inheritance.
And every day was torture, being dressed like I was about to marry you. ’
I murmur, ‘It’s been the most bizarre summer.’
He carries on. ‘I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, Maeve, and the more time I spend with you, the harder and deeper I fall.
And it might look as if I didn’t care, but this time I’m not walking away.
I used to worry I wouldn’t be able to love, but I have so much love for you and Nemmie that’s not a concern anymore.
Whatever I have to do for us to be together, I’m ready to do that. ’
I clench my fists on his chest, and dig deep for my final truth.
‘When I’m so ordinary and my world is so small, how could that ever be enough for you, Lando?’
He lets out a low whistle. ‘You’re quirky and very, very bright, and you’ve single-handedly made St Aidan’s summer.
When I look at your world, I don’t see small.
I see a place that’s stable and filled with love.
Happiness for me is a warm kitchen, a pile of kids on the sofa, dogs with sandy paws bounding in from the beach and waffle mixture splattered up the windows.
‘But most of all, I want to come home to you. When you’re with me I feel complete.
When you’re not, I feel like I’m constantly looking for something.
I have so many weaknesses, but when I’m with you they don’t matter, because you fill in my gaps and put me right.
’ He’s looking down at me, searching my face.
‘Have I said enough to reassure you? I can keep going all night, if not.’
I finally let out a laugh. ‘Even when you’re talking about less, you make it sound like more, Lando.’
His arms are locked around the small of my back. ‘That’s the way you make me feel. You always have.’ He still hasn’t smiled. ‘I accept our backgrounds are different, but I believe we can do this. I trust you more than anyone, Maevey, let’s do the best we can and make a family of our own.’
I wipe the tears away. ‘Is that why you bought the cottage?’
He looks at the stars. ‘I dared to hope you’d come and live there with me, that’s how much I love you. But if I can’t persuade you to make our life together, I would do whatever works best for you.’
The tension on his face is making my heart break. I throw my arms around his neck, and when he wraps his arms around me, I bury my face in the soft denim of his shirt and breathe in his scent.
‘I’ve cried all week thinking you might be going.’ I’m listening to his heart hammering behind his ribs. I squeeze him tighter and murmur, ‘The night we had here was the best night of my life.’
He laughs. ‘So you did like me a little, back then?’
I choke as I laugh. ‘You say you were crazy about me, but I was ten times crazier about you.’
Lando smiles. ‘It’s more than that. I probably fell in love with you the first time I saw you and I’ve loved you every day since.’
I laugh back at him. ‘I’ve loved you for what feels like forever, but I just didn’t know what to call it.’ I feel my smile grow. ‘I’ve spent the entire summer wanting to jump you, and I want to be able to do that every day.’
He pulls me into a kiss that’s sweet and deep and makes my whole body thrum, and for a long time the world stops turning. Eventually we pull apart, then go back for more, then do the same again.
The fifth time Lando murmurs in my ear, ‘So shall we stay here for old time’s sake. Or shall we go back to mine?’
‘To yours first. And then on to mine?’ I hand him the scan. ‘I’ll give this back to you. When you’ve kept it safe all these years, we mustn’t let it blow away into the sea.’
Lando slips it into his pocket, kisses me again, and then grins. ‘Do you need to warn the kids or your mum we’re coming back?’
I laugh. ‘If they wake up tomorrow and find I’ve sneaked you into my bedroom, they might not let you leave again. Ever!’
Lando laughs. ‘That’s fine by me.’ He laughs again.
It takes forever to walk along the beach because I keep stopping to kiss him.
And stopping again to look to make sure he’s really mine.
And to check he likes waffles. And eventually we get to Smugglers End, and I push him against the wall by the doorstep and snog his socks off, just because I can.
And then we go inside, close the door, and tear off each other’s clothes.