Chapter 40
Sixteen Years Earlier
Rae ran to the back door of the hotel to find Rosa screaming as if she’d seen a vision of the devil himself culling the strawberries, but in fact, when Rae pushed past her, she realised it was her grandfather, stretched out, face down across the ridges he’d been digging the previous day.
‘NO!’ the scream that rose up inside her never made it to her lips.
Old Packie, the night porter who’d been having breakfast in the kitchen, managed to grab her shoulders, holding her in place for a moment so she could pull herself together.
When she wriggled free and knelt beside Pappy, she knew it was bad.
He was broiled in sweat, his eyes staring vacant, as if he was ready to leave them.
In that moment, she thought about something Blythe had said years earlier.
When their mother died, Blythe said, it felt as if she was still with them. Apparently, when no one was looking, Blythe slipped back into her mother’s room to see if she could wake her up, really, her passing had been so peaceful, it seemed as if she hadn’t fully left.
This time, they were lucky.
‘You were lucky,’ the doctor told him the following day as Blythe and Rae sat there, taking it all in.
‘So, no more missing your medication, no big shocks or…’ And he looked to the two women who sat silently, next to each other.
‘I mean, obviously, your grandfather has to enjoy life, but for a while, until everything settles down, nothing that will aggravate him, it’s all about treading water until he is stronger. ’
‘What about our wedding?’ Marcus stood at the door and honestly, Rae was so dazed, she wondered what he was doing there.
‘A wedding is always something to look forward to,’ the doctor smiled, ‘yes, a wedding could be just the thing, so long as there’s no stress around it.’
‘But…’ Rae said softly, and all eyes turned on her, she felt Blythe’s gaze more than any other.
She couldn’t do or say anything to upset her grandfather now.
They hadn’t planned to get married as such, nothing official at any rate.
She was twenty-one years old, even if she absolutely adored Marcus, couldn’t imagine life without him, she was only twenty-one.
She still harboured the dream of training to be a veterinary nurse, of seeing life beyond the island, maybe even travelling the world for a few years.
‘Of course you can still do all those things, darling,’ Marcus promised her when they were alone together later. ‘We’ll do them together, this way, they’ll be part of our adventure. We are going to have such an amazing life, I’ve always known it.’
‘And babies?’ Because she definitely wanted children, but not while she was backpacking around Asia or visiting the Empire State building.
‘As many as you want!’ He pulled her close and kissed her, long and hard, and it felt like some time since he’d done that, but it didn’t matter. Everything about him just filled her with desire.
Marcus told Pappy, they didn’t want a circus for a wedding.
It felt surreal to Rae. So many times, she wanted to say, it’s too soon.
I’m not ready. Of course, Marcus said, that was just nerves – everyone had them.
Then, she would look at Marcus, and she knew she couldn’t live without him.
He was her rock. These days, he was her only rock.
Blythe was hardly talking to her, and Pappy’s health was deteriorating with every passing day.
Marcus said it would kill him if they created too much of a fuss.
She needed Marcus. Or at least, it felt that way, as if, without him, all oxygen would be snuffed out.
He had built her up from a fragile girl to the woman she had become, and when he wrapped her up in that familiar warmth, it was still easy to dampen down her fears.
Without telling her, he went to the mainland and bought her the most beautiful engagement ring.
Edwardian. Delicate. Simple. When he slipped it on her finger, she never wanted to take it off.
She told herself; it was fine that they hadn’t even booked a honeymoon.
That could wait, until later. There were guests arriving in the hotel the following morning and it went without saying, Marcus simply had to be there to welcome them.
*
The night before her wedding, Blythe invited her to stay in Still Water House, to avoid any bad luck of seeing the groom before the ceremony. Rae didn’t need luck, she and Marcus were meant for each other, but she relished the thought of staying with Blythe and getting time with Siggy.
It was strange being back at Still Water House.
This had been her home. A happy home for many years, until it was tinged by tragedy.
Somehow, in a few short years, Blythe and Kip had managed to strip, sand and rag roll it into a very comfortable and contented home again.
It felt, as she sat in the generous drawing room, that anywhere her eyes rested, Blythe had worked to update, save and restore.
It was truly a testament to hard work, a great eye and an ability to re-purpose so skilfully that it was only on second or third glances that Rae saw where her enterprising sister had cut corners and somehow made gilt.
‘Oh, you haven’t seen the half of it. There are rooms upstairs that look like they’re straight out of The Haunting of Hill House.’
‘Except we don’t have any ghosts, do we?’ Kip laughed then.
‘If we ever did, they are long gone with all the pulling apart we’ve done this last year or two.
’ Blythe laughed then and Rae thought, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister so content.
The three of them sat there, talking long into the night, when probably Rae should have gone to bed, but it felt emotional, the idea that in a few hours’ time, she would be a married woman, and she had some inkling that would change things forever between them.
Kip told her about his own father.
‘My old man was no prince.’ They’d been drinking beers, watching a match on the television in Still Water House.
‘I don’t remember him at all,’ she said.
‘You must remember him,’ Blythe shouted from the kitchen. ‘He was the man in the rose garden…’
‘The man in the rose garden,’ Rae felt as if she’d just been doused in a bucket of icy water.
‘Of course, I’d completely forgotten that day.
’ And she had, the main thing she remembered was Blythe’s arm around her, protecting her and somehow making her feel safe, when she was probably just as scared herself by all the commotion.
‘I don’t think Pappy ever forgot it.’
‘You think that…’ Rae stopped, because she didn’t want to hurt Kip’s feelings.
‘Well, it’s the only thing that makes sense,’ Blythe came and sat on the arm of the sofa next to Kip, leaning into him. For a moment, she kissed him in such an automatic way, Rae thought, she probably didn’t even realise she’d done it. Then, he handed her his bottle of beer and she sipped from it.
‘Where did he go, that day?’ Rae had been much too young to think about such things at the time.
‘Ran off with another woman… some poor eejit who left her kids behind for him and believed his big talk about a new life. She was back again within a month, begging her husband to take her back.’
‘That’s terribly sad.’
‘I think we were better off without him. My Ma certainly was…’
‘Is that why…’ She stopped. It was the worst-kept secret in the village, how Kip had a soft heart for families in dire circumstances.
Rae knew he’d spent two weeks sorting out Maureen O’Heir’s kitchen after her husband smashed the place up on one of his drunken binges.
Maureen told her, one day in the post office, that Kip refused to take one penny for all the work he’d carried out for her.
He’d even managed to call in a few favours and pick up materials for half nothing from some mate who was emigrating and wanted to clear out his workshop. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure it out. Any analyst worth his salt would probably say I was making up for my father’s sins.’ He laughed at that.
‘You’re a good man, Kip Carney.’ Rae smiled at him fondly.
‘Well don’t go telling Blythe that, will you, it’ll shatter the whole allure I have going on with her.’ He laughed and raised his can of beer in salute, then pulled Blythe in for a very long and rather embarrassing kiss.
*
Rae woke up the following morning to sunshine, which was a nice surprise, because these last few weeks the weather had been as unpredictable as she ever remembered. It was a sign, a good sign.
Even so, there was a nervous lisp in her voice when she finally said, ‘I do.’ She’d had the strangest dream that Marcus might have second thoughts.
Which was ridiculous of course, because he adored her.
When he looked into her eyes that day, as she walked up the aisle to marry him, she fell in love with him all over again.
If that was even possible. It was that feeling, as she concentrated on putting one foot before the other, that with his eyes alone, he could undo her, and it made her want to lose herself in him even more.
She was so happy when they kissed to seal the deal.
She just knew that they would have something just like Blythe and Kip, maybe even better one day.
*
That summer, the days ran into each other more quickly than ever before, so quickly in fact, that they hadn’t time to breathe after their wedding.
Rae was delighted when she checked the guest book and saw there was a full week free in September.
It felt to her, as if it was written in the stars, the perfect week for their honeymoon.