Chapter 56
Kate stopped a few paces from the ambulance.
Bridie noticed. She halted too. ‘Kate?’
‘Are you okay, Bridie? I know it’s a stupid question, really, after … all that.’ Kate glanced at the ambulance.
Bridie said, ‘I think so. But are you okay? It’s been a lot to hear that you had a sister, Lucy, and if things had been different … if she hadn’t died, and Dad hadn’t had an affair with Isobel, and found me, you would have grown up with Lucy instead, your proper sister.’
Kate vehemently shook her head and took Bridie’s hand in hers. ‘You’re my sister, Bridie.’
Bridie blinked back tears.
‘But what about Dad and—?’
‘Look, whatever happened in the past … that’s their affair,’ she said, glancing at the ambulance once more.
‘You’re an amazing sister – do you know that?’ Bridie said.
‘And so are you,’ Kate replied.
Bridie and Kate hugged and then stepped back, smiling at one another. Bridie said, ‘Come on.’ Bridie noticed that the crowd of onlookers on the promenade was now dissipating as the fire crew packed away their gear and got ready to leave.
Kate glanced back at the ambulance. ‘What do you think that’s about?’
Bridie thought of Jack and Oliver. ‘I think they’ve all got things to iron out from their pasts.’
Kate nodded. ‘I get that, but can’t it wait until later? Couldn’t they meet up over coffee or something?’
‘No, I don’t think so. There’s no time like the present, not after all these years. I understand.’
‘Do you?’ said Kate raising her eyebrows.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’d apply that logic to you and Jack.’
‘I am going to apologise – if that’s what you mean.’
‘Um, not exactly.’
Bridie stopped and looked at her a long moment. ‘Oh, you mean Jack and me. Do I need to remind you that Jack is married?’ That wasn’t the issue, and Bridie knew it. But she didn’t want to tell Kate that she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, rejecting Oliver all because of Jack.
‘Separated,’ Kate said matter-of-factly.
‘What?’
‘I heard she’s going to take him to the cleaners. Oh, and he’s moving there.’ She pointed at an old run-down cottage next door to the theatre. ‘It’s a bit different to where he was living with Jade – you should have seen their house.’
Bridie thought she probably had seen it when she’d taken Barney for a walk by the allotments and had looked at those beautiful properties that backed on to the lane – some new, others renovated, but all very large, probably five or six-bedroomed, with gorgeous back gardens.
Kate continued, ‘He was going to knock down that cottage he’d acquired next door to the theatre and replace it with a modern new build house, and sell it for a profit, but now he’s going to keep it to live in.
He thinks it’s all he can afford once the divorce goes through.
It might take some time to renovate, though, because he’ll have to do it himself. ’
‘How on earth do you know all this?’
‘He told me.’
‘He told you? You spoke to Jack?’
‘Yep. I bumped into him in the town a few days ago, and he told me all this. He said he knows you’re with Oliver and that you probably won’t speak to him after thinking he was your saboteur.’
‘He didn’t tell you about my squatter, Isobel?’
‘No.’
Bridie furrowed her brow, realising something – he could have proved he wasn’t the saboteur, but that would have meant revealing the presence of the vulnerable former stage actress who was desperate and alone, and who was refusing to leave the theatre, despite his offers of help.
Bridie had a question. ‘So, why did he leave Jade if he thought I was—?’
‘He didn’t. Exactly. He said he couldn’t deny what was truly in his heart, and Jade knew it, even though that dream of being with you again was over. She kicked him out, apparently, saying there had always been three people in their marriage.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You, Bridie. He never got over you.’
Bridie stopped mid-stride and stared at her.
It was the last thing she wanted to hear, that his marriage was over all because of her, especially now she knew she felt differently, quite the opposite, in fact.
But was Jack still living in the past and not acknowledging that he didn’t really love her; he just loved the idea of them, and it was nostalgia for a simpler time when they were young, carefree teenagers.
She’d been just as guilty of that – seeing the past through rose-tinted spectacles, and thinking they could pick up where they’d left off, as teens, who didn’t know the first thing about love.
But she hadn’t meant to lead him on. They were different people now and did not belong together; of that, Bridie was certain. She just had to convince Jack.
Whatever was going on in his life, his marriage, Bridie realised had been going on long before she arrived.
Bridie turned to her sister. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this?’
Kate frowned. ‘Why would I? We thought he was your saboteur. Perhaps he hoped I would pass it on, but I didn’t see the point. And he mentioned that you and Oliver were together, so the last thing I wanted to do was muddy the waters.’
Bridie understood. She wished she was with Oliver.
‘Sounds like, from what Isobel said, once he’s restored the cottage, he’s invited Isobel to stay with him. It’s three storeys, so I expect there will plenty of spare bedrooms.’
‘Yes, I remember Isobel mentioning that.’
Kate nodded, smiling. ‘He’s a good guy, Bridie. Underneath all that bravado, he’s still the boy you fell in love with all those years ago.’
Across the crowds, Bridie saw Jack and Oliver shaking hands, Jack’s eyes roving over to her.
Kate took her hand. ‘I think you and Jack have some things to talk about – don’t you?’
Bridie slowly nodded, not taking her eyes off Jack. ‘I think so.’ And Bridie knew it wasn’t what Jack was going to want to hear.
Rufus returned to his seat opposite Isobel and Reggie in the ambulance.
‘You don’t know who the father is, do you, Isobel?’ said Claire. She turned to Rufus. ‘That’s why you didn’t want Bridie in on this conversation. She’s got enough to deal with, without finding out about this little love triangle.’
Isobel turned her gaze on Rufus. ‘It wasn’t a love triangle.’
‘No, it was not,’ said Rufus. ‘We were good friends, the best of friends. And I did fall in love with you, it’s true, when we first met.
I wrote you a love letter, pouring my heart out to you, if you remember.
But you only had eyes for another. And I was so pleased you did, because then I met the love of my life. ’ Rufus turned to Claire.
Sitting next to Isobel, Reggie was fiddling with the locket. He finally opened it. He studied the photos inside. ‘Why is my photo in here with baby Bridie?’
‘Are you telling me,’ said Claire, talking to Rufus, ‘that you and Isobel never—?’
He shook his head. ‘Of course not.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you would have gone straight to social services to find the father of the child, even though you loved her the moment you set eyes on her. It would have broken your heart to give her up, so when I told you where I found her—’
‘You made me think—’
‘You jumped to conclusions and assumed …’ he trailed off. ‘I was hurt you’d think I’d cheat on you, of course I was. But I had to put my own feelings aside. I did it for you.’
‘Oh, Rufus. All these years you let me believe that you and Isobel … you silly old fool.’
‘I know, but it was the price I had to pay to keep her, for you to keep her, because you must have assumed it was what Isobel wanted for her baby.’
‘It’s what I wanted to believe,’ admitted Claire.
‘I realised that, but I didn’t know she was Isobel’s baby – not straight away; it never even occurred to me that she might be until you accused me of having an affair and being left literally holding the baby when I told you I’d found her at the theatre.’
Claire took Rufus’s hand. ‘It wasn’t the only price you paid. You gave up working in the theatre too.’
‘How could we have afforded three children on your part-time GP salary and my irregular theatre work? But it wasn’t just the money.
The work that I loved would have taken me away from home, away from you and the children, once the local theatre closed down.
A life on the road on theatre tours – I’d have missed you and the children terribly.
I knew that if I changed jobs, I would miss the theatre terribly instead.
But I made a choice, Claire, and that choice was my family. ’
Claire squeezed his hand tight. ‘I never expected you to make that sacrifice.’
‘It didn’t feel that way, Claire, not at all. I’d do it all over again if I had to. I just wish you hadn’t been so dead-set against theatre after that. Even taking the children to shows was forbidden. But I understood.’
Claire said, ‘Of course you did.’
‘I thought in time I could tell you the truth that, despite what you believed, I’d never had an affair with Isobel.
Imagine my surprise when Bridie got a bit older and the resemblance became apparent.
You’d been right all along – she was Isobel’s baby.
She still wasn’t mine, but it made me realise why Isobel had disappeared from that show months earlier.
She’d found out she was pregnant, and somebody in that theatre troupe was the father.
I was afraid to tell you that, in case you went searching for the real father, and then …
well she wouldn’t be my Bridie anymore. For my own selfish reasons, I just kept my mouth shut. ’
‘You avoided Aldeburgh, and especially Cobblers Yard,’ said Claire.
Rufus looked across at Reggie and quickly averted his gaze. ‘I knew of all the people in our theatre troupe, it was Reggie she had eyes for. I wasn’t sure whether they’d … slept together …’ Rufus trailed off.
‘I have a daughter?’ Reggie stared at the locket.