Chapter 16
Beth blasted into the kitchen. She stomped up and down the quarry tiles, hands clenched into tight fists, anger crawling through her veins like fire ants.
Rose was right on her heels. ‘Beth? What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine… I’m… I’m just cross with him.’
‘Why?’
‘For putting Jack in danger.’
‘It’s more than that.’
‘It’s… it’s…’
Rose pulled out chair. ‘Sit. I’ll make you some tea.’
Beth sank onto the chair, arms folded, chin down. The sound of the kettle being filled and the clattering of mugs washed over her. A cup of tea arrived on the table and, to her surprise, a gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. Covering the hand with one of her own, she gulped and, against all insistent internal instructions to the contrary, her face crumpled.
Rose tutted. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ She wrapped an arm around Beth’s shoulders and pulled her close, murmuring the same sort of nonsensical nothings that usually soothed a tearful Grace. Stunned, Beth blinked furiously and dashed at her face with her free hand. Paddy sidled up and plonked his bony bottom on her foot in a rare display of solidarity. He’d never done that before.
Rose patted her shoulder one more time. ‘Right. Stop crying. Here.’ She placed a triple chocolate muffin on the table. Grabbing one for herself, she took a huge bite and sat down opposite. ‘Come on. Spill. You don’t usually lose your shit like this. Not even when Daisy’s being totally rank.’
She scrubbed at her eyes with a manky tissue from her pocket. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Don’t gimme that. You’re usually all nicey-nicey and “let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt”. Then, all of a sudden, you’re giving him next door what for.’ She gave a wicked little snicker. ‘Both barrels and then some. Poor sod. The look on his face.’
Beth groaned. ‘I’m going to have to apologise, aren’t I?’
‘Uh, you think?’ Rose’s words dripped sarcasm, but they weren’t accompanied by the usual look of disgust for her that Beth had come to expect. ‘So, go on,’ the teen prompted. ‘Why’d you flip out?’
What should I say? She couldn’t tell Rose about the money. ‘It was that video you showed me, of him running that woman down—’
‘Nah, ah, ah. Don’t give me that. You hate social media. No way would you go for him over something like that. And, anyway, I didn’t mean it when I called him a psycho, I was just ranting. No. You’ve been off your game for, like, ages. ’Fess up, Beth. What’s going on?’
Beth hesitated. Rose always got super-defensive when the subject of her father came up. ‘I’m worried about money.’
‘Why?’
Beth rolled her sodden tissue into a ball. ‘I can’t afford to fix the roof. I thought I could, but I can’t. And if I don’t fix it, the builder said the leak will do serious damage to that wall.’ She nodded towards the doorway with the bucket.
‘Well, speak to Dad. I mean… look, whatever’s going on between you two, he won’t want the house falling down. He can send you extra. On top of whatever regular maintenance he’s sending, I mean. He must be earning a packet and—’
‘I haven’t received a penny from your dad since he left.’
The words fell into a puddle of shocked silence.
Rose shook her head. ‘Don’t be daft. Of course he sends money. Look.’ She jumped up and rummaged through the postcards on the Welsh dresser. ‘This one, no… no… this one. He says he got a promotion. See?’ She waved the card, pointing at the irregular capital letters that were so typical of her father’s erratic handwriting. ‘Even if he can’t be here, he wouldn’t not send money.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What are you spending it all on?’
Beth didn’t have the energy to pretend anymore. Fed up with constantly getting the blame for things that weren’t her fault, she dug inside her handbag, right to the bottom, to the little hidden pocket, and pulled out a crumpled envelope.
‘Dad’s handwriting.’ Rose snatched it and tore the contents from the envelope. ‘It’s dated six months ago. Oh my God! How could you keep this from us?’
‘Just read it.’ Beth stared down at her hands, picked at her thumbnail and waited.
The cuckoo clock ticked away in the otherwise silent kitchen. Beth didn’t need to look at the paper to know what Rose was seeing. She’d read it herself, thousands of times.
BETH,
BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS YOU’LL KNOW I’M NOT COMING BACK.
WE WERE A MISTAKE FROM THE START.
I DON’T LOVE YOU
I LOVE ISLA. I ALWAYS WILL.
ROSE, DAISY AND JACK REMIND ME THAT SHE’S GONE. I CAN’T STAND IT.
I’M GOING AWAY. TO TRY TO BE HAPPY SOMEWHERE ELSE.
A LEGAL FIRM WILL SEND YOU A DOCUMENT TO SIGN THAT TRANSFERS OWNERSHIP OF THE FARMHOUSE TO YOU. IT’LL BE EASIER FOR YOU TO LOOK AFTER THE KIDS, IF YOU OWN THE PROPERTY OUTRIGHT.
DIVORCE ME.
UNDER THE NEW NO FAULT DIVORCE RULES, YOU NEED TO PROVE OUR RELATIONSHIP HAS IRRETRIEVABLY brOKEN DOWN.
USE THIS LETTER AND THE FACT THAT I DISAPPEARED WITH NO WARNING AS PROOF. IT GIVES YOU ALL THE GROUNDS YOU’LL NEED.
YOU WON’T HEAR FROM ME AGAIN.
PAUL
Typical bloody Paul, getting all legal with a goodbye letter. He didn’t have the guts to stay and help manage the emotional fallout his decision had caused. Selfish git.
Rose’s eyes grew big and round. ‘It wasn’t you that drove him away. It was us.’
‘No, Rose, no, no, no. Sweetheart, you mustn’t think that. That’s why I didn’t show you this. I was afraid you’d think that, but it isn’t true.’
‘It’s what he says.’ Rose’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
‘Your dad can’t have been well when he wrote this. Grief does strange things to people.’
‘He’s not coming back.’
Beth dabbed at her eyes and sniffed. ‘No, I don’t think he is.’
‘And the postcards?’
‘I sent them. If you look closely, the writing’s a good copy but it doesn’t quite match.’
Rose frowned, looking from the letter to the back of the postcard. ‘But why? And how?’
‘Remember how upset Daisy was, just after your dad left.’
Rose nodded, her face pale.
‘I thought if she heard from him, it would help. I know people working abroad – it was easy enough to call in some favours. I send the cards out already written. They put a foreign stamp on and sent them back in the next post. I only meant to send the one. But it made her smile and I got carried away. I don’t know how to stop. If… no… when she finds out, she’ll hate me even more than she does already.’
‘Don’t tell her.’
Beth couldn’t tell what was going on behind Rose’s rigid expression. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not saying I believe you, but if there’s no money and the roof is as bad as you say it is, then we’ve got bigger problems on our plate. Daisy having a tantrum isn’t going to help.’
Beth tipped her head to one side. ‘So, you’re saying I should focus on the roof first.’
‘Yeah. We can deal with her and this,’ she pointed to the postcard and letter, ‘later.’
A little voice in Beth’s heart sang out on hearing, ‘We’.
Rose crossed her arms and gave Beth a calculating look. ‘You must wish you’d never come here.’
‘No, I don’t. Honestly. I always wanted to be part of a big family.’
‘You should have got married younger. Had lots of your own kids.’
A painful lump swelled in Beth’s throat. No matter what she did, Rose, Daisy and Jack would never see her as a mother. Struggling to keep her tone light, she said, ‘I tried. I was engaged once for nearly ten years.’
‘No way.’
Beth smiled at the memory. ‘Trent. I adored him. He was a musician. He played guitar in a band.’ She sighed. ‘There was always some big opportunity for the band on the horizon and the wedding kept being put off and… well, let’s just say, it didn’t end well.’
‘How come?’
‘He was a heavy smoker. As a way to wind down after gigs, you know? Only, it wasn’t just cigarettes. He moved onto weed, lots and lots of weed, and then stronger stuff. Everything kind of went downhill from there. Eventually, he cheated on me with someone I thought was a friend.’
‘Sounds like a right plonker.’
A gurgle of laughter took Beth by surprise. ‘He was.’
‘You’re better off without him.’
‘Maybe. A few years later, he discovered clean living. He married a woman decades younger than himself, had a couple of babies and now posts nauseating pictures of his perfect family all over social media.’
‘Is that why you’re anti-social media?’
Beth nodded. ‘And smoking. And drugs. The whole thing put me off relationships for ages, too, but then I fell for your dad and decided to give love another chance. Soppy cow that I am. The fact that he came with a ready-made family was the icing on the cake for me.’
‘Yeah, right!’ Rose snorted.
‘I mean it.’
‘I don’t see why anyone would want someone else’s kids,’ Rose muttered.
‘Well, my stepmother is amazing and—’
‘You haven’t got a stepmother.’
The look on Rose’s face made Beth laugh. ‘I have. You met her at the wedding. She came over from Australia with Sophie?’
‘No. I met your mother, Isabella.’
‘Isabella is my stepmother.’
Rose’s jaw hung open, ‘So, your real mum’s…’
‘My biological mother died when I was about the same age you were when…’ Beth’s eyes drifted to the photo of Isla on the dresser. ‘Well, anyway, Isabella married my dad a few years later.’
‘Oh, so Sophie is…’
‘My half-sister.’
‘Like Grace is to me. How did I not know this?’
‘We don’t do the half thing or the step thing. We’re just family.’
‘That’s nice.’ Rose tucked Paul’s letter back into the envelope and slid it back across the table towards Beth. ‘You’d better put that away. Are you sure you’ve not had anything else from him?’
Beth shook her head.
‘No communication at all?’ Rose suddenly stiffened as if a terrible thought had scampered through her mind. ‘What if he’s dead? Like Mum.’
‘No. Please don’t worry. He’s alive. I’ve got proof. Sort of. Look, let me show you.’ Beth reached for her laptop. She searched up her bank statement. ‘See there? I sold the last of the shares my grandad left me to pay for the roof and that’s the money arriving in the account. But six minutes later, it’s gone.’
Rose squinted at the screen. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The money was transferred out again. And not by me,’ said Beth. ‘The only person who could have done that is Paul. This is a joint account and he’s the only other person with access. The bank has confirmed that it went to another account in your dad’s name.’
‘So, you’re saying he, like, stole it?’
‘Well… um…’
There was a long silence.
Rose ran the tip of one bright-pink acrylic nail along the grain of the wood on the tabletop and scowled.
‘What are you thinking, Rose?’
When she spoke, her voice was thick and wobbly. ‘It’s one thing to think that he’s not well and needs to be away from us, but for him to steal from us, to actively make life harder… put us in danger?’ She wiped her eyes, got to her feet, grabbed a jacket from the back of her chair.
Beth stood up. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Rose. Please, I—’
‘Let it go, yeah? I need to think.’
The back door slammed.
Hot needles prickled at the back of Beth’s eyes. She watched through the kitchen window as Rose jumped the stile at the bottom of the garden and disappeared into the forest.
Thank heaven I didn’t tell her what else you’ve done, Paul. Wherever you are, I’ve never hated you more than I do right now.