Chapter 24 #2
‘Well, I don’t think there’s a body in there.’ Ross looked at the box, about ten centimetres to each side. ‘Unless it’s a body part.’
‘Don’t.’ Cautious again I gently levered off the lid.
Inside was the velvet bag of Tilly’s ‘balls’ and a folded piece of paper with my name on one side.
I unfolded the paper and inside was a smaller piece folded into four with Ross’s name in large, heavy letters written on it.
I handed it to him and tilted my sheet towards the window to have enough light to read it.
Dear Libby
You were absolutely right when you said that nothing that happened was my fault and I return the compliment – nothing that happened to YOU was your fault.
People around you, the people who should have helped and protected you were in the wrong and they left you to suffer.
Different circumstances, but still. Anyway.
I am taking the birds and leaving. It was kind of Ross to offer me shelter and a house, but a house isn’t really what I want or need.
I have to feel the open sky and smell the rain.
Please don’t worry, we will be all right; the birds will take care of me, and I them.
I had to work this sentence out in my head for a moment; while it sounded as though it ought to make sense, the words on paper didn’t and I had to mouth my way around the grammar.
I am leaving my diamonds behind. Well, not quite all, I have my favourite that I shall keep to remind me of those times which were – contrary to your imaginings – not all bad.
The rest I leave for you and the child. I no longer need to drag that guilt with me and they will not have the associations for you that they do for me.
Use them for good, Libby; use them to make yourself a better life than the one you know now.
Use them to level the field between yourself and that rather smug young man who is your child’s father.
I like your mother though, she is a sensible woman, if rather misguided in her previous actions and I should regard it as a personal favour if you can see fit to forgive her.
Do not look for me. You will never find me but I shall be all right. Thank you for taking the time to befriend me.
Yours
Isobel
I read the letter twice, it made more sense the second time. Then I looked up at Ross who was looking down at his shorter note with an expression of bewilderment. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘That she’s leaving, don’t try to find her. Er, some stuff about you – flattering, don’t worry – and she gets a bit personal about me but nothing I don’t already know.’ Baffled dark eyes met mine. ‘It all sounds very final.’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ We stood in silence, listening to the rain pounding the roof of the shed with a noise like distant gunfire. ‘I hope she’s all right. Maybe we ought to tell the police? Then they can look for her?’
Ross raised his eyebrows. ‘I think if Isobel doesn’t want to be found then even our finest boys in blue won’t find her,’ he said, folding his note between two fingers. ‘And she asks us not to try.’
‘She’s left me the crow diamonds,’ I said, reaching into the tin to touch the velvet bag. ‘For Tilly, I think. She does love playing with them.’
‘That’s sweet of her.’ Ross smiled into the tin. ‘You could always sell them, you know.’
I recoiled. ‘What? No! They’re Tilly’s now.’
But Ross was reading over my shoulder. ‘She says to use them to level the field between you and David – and, incidentally, I wholeheartedly agree with her summation of his character.’
‘I think she might have been a bit hopeful there. Black diamonds aren’t worth all that much, she told me that.
But better than what I’ve got at the moment.
’ I poked into the tin again. ‘A box of teabags and half a pack of digestives. Not much to show for a life. Ah well. Maybe she’s hinting that I should sit him down over a cup of tea and talk about what we’re going to do in the future.
I know he wants to share care of Tilly, but I’ve no idea how that’s going to work. ’
‘And would you? Could you?’ Ross was still looking at me.
I thought of being without my daughter, of having her so far away from me, and my heart felt as though it physically left my body.
‘He is her father,’ I said faintly. ‘He does have the right. But she doesn’t know him yet so we’ll have to build up gradually.
’ Then, hopefully, ‘He might have underestimated just what it takes to deal with a two-year-old in a tantrum. We’ll work something out, I’m sure.
’ Another bucketful of gravel hit the window and the whole shed rocked. ‘I really hope Isobel’s all right.’
Ross turned his gaze to the grey square of window. ‘If anyone will be all right, it’s Isobel. And she’s got the birds with her.’
‘Good,’ I said, with heavy emphasis.
‘And now I can knock Elm Cottage down and tell the Great British Build team that I’m ready to get started. I think they were beginning to get a bit impatient.’
‘You’ll be building through the winter,’ I pointed out.
‘We’ll wear coats. And hats.’ Now I got a grin and it was lovely to see Ross without the tension that had seemed to keep him running since I’d met him.
There was a new expression almost of mischief in his eyes and his mouth didn’t seem to want to twist over and chew itself any more.
His hands were relaxed too, apparently lacking the urge to have the nails bitten. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
We stood, shoulder to shoulder, for a bit longer while the shed flexed in the gale and the trees roared overhead. There was a feeling of potential futures all colliding in this little metal building with the damp floor and the slightly dodgy wall posters.
‘Do you think we can do it?’ Ross whispered eventually. ‘You and me?’
He’d straightened up too, I noticed, and was taller and more – I tried not to think of the word erect – he was just taller than he had been.
‘Can we have this conversation later, do you think?’ I was moving towards the door now.
‘Only Tia has got stuff to do so I need to pick Tilly up and Mum and David are meeting us at the soft play place later.’
‘Perhaps we could have a drink? When Tilly is in bed?’ he asked hopefully. ‘You know, like real people?’
I sighed. ‘I can’t leave her, Ross. She doesn’t know them yet.’
‘But she will. She’ll get to know them.’ This sounded even more hopeful.
‘I’m not going to rush her into her father’s arms just so I can drink wine in some overpriced bar,’ I said tartly, and then had an image of trying to afford to drink wine in an overpriced bar.
I could possibly sell a few of the crow diamonds but if I did then I would do it to raise money to find us secure housing and to buy Tilly the things she needed.
There weren’t enough diamonds to fund an infinite future of wine drinking.
‘No, no, of course not,’ Ross hastily appended. ‘Sorry. I’m not getting to grips with the toddler thing all that well, am I? I could come over to you, perhaps? No wine but a quiet evening talking?’
‘I’m not allowed guests in the hostel.’ I tried not to sound as though I was putting obstacles in the way of having any kind of relationship with Ross. I wanted a relationship with Ross, I realised. Very, very much. ‘There are vulnerable people there.’
Tilly and I had been two of them. But now?
I had a slight shiver down my spine when I realised that I was in the hostel under slightly false pretences.
I wasn’t escaping a relationship with a coercively controlling man as I had told everyone; did I even deserve to be there?
I was occupying a room that ought to be taken by someone genuinely in fear of their, and their children’s, lives.
‘I need to move out of the hostel,’ I said abruptly.
‘Are you still going to pay me that five thousand pounds?’
Ross held the door of the shed open for me in a gentlemanly way as we exited into the storm. ‘I suppose you did get Isobel out of Elm Cottage,’ he said slowly. ‘So, yes.’
‘Right. I can make plans.’ The wind caught at Isobel’s letter, which I still had in my hand, and tried to throw it into the air.
I folded it and slid it into her metal box, which I’d tucked under my arm.
I wanted to keep that note and reread it later and try to believe what she’d told me about my not being at fault.
And also just in case anyone questioned where I’d got the bag of black diamonds from.
I didn’t exactly look like an international jewel thief, but you never knew.
No, I thought, following Ross back along the mud-flecked path through the trees.
You never knew. When I’d first met him I’d thought of him as a nervous wreck of a man with his chewed lips and nails.
Now I knew him to be a kind and gentle creative, which probably explained a lot about the ‘nervous wreck’ part.
Good looking, considerate and – when he turned around to give me a flick of that dark, slightly wicked smile – bloody sexy too.
We stood as good a chance as any other couple, really.