Chapter 25 #2
I press send, then instantly regret I didn’t type ‘love Tilly’. Not because I love him – though maybe I do. It’s possible to love someone as a very good friend, after all, and as friends go, they don’t get much better than Adam. Then because I’m overthinking things again, I text Elena.
Tilly
Hi! I’m back!! Fancy a coffee? Or wine? Sometime this week? Xxxx
That night, I sleep in my old bed, the house both familiar and alien to me. I awake early the next morning to leaden skies and rain that make me long to be back in Greece. Picking up my phone, I read the message from Elena.
Elena
Thank God. I’ll come over this afternoon if you’re not busy. xxx
I text her back.
Tilly
Come any time xxx
Then I read one from Adam.
Adam
Still undecided. Glad the flowers reached you. The sea’s stirred up this morning. I think there’s a storm on the way. Enjoy your stay. A xx
I can’t deny I’m disappointed that he doesn’t type ‘love Adam’. But then it’s not as though I typed ‘love Tilly’.
I get up and go to the wardrobes to find that everything of Gareth’s has gone. I’m impressed. Then as I go from room to room, I’m suspicious. It’s too tidy, too organised, in a way that is most definitely not Gareth’s style, which leads me to one conclusion, which is that Olivia has been here.
I imagine her going through our things, under the guise of helping him. Not at all liking how that feels, I think about texting him. But then I calm myself down. I wasn’t here, remember? And it’s done now. I need to get the hell out and start moving on with my life.
* * *
After getting up, I drive over to my father’s house. Now, I will be honest here. Much as I’m looking forward to seeing him, I’m secretly dreading the state I know the house will be in.
As I turn into the drive, I’m unprepared for the nostalgia that wallops me head on. But then it will always be a place of lifelong memories; and it’s exactly as it was when I left here – only three months ago, I remind myself.
Once parked, I get out, noticing the flower beds are tidy, that pinprick green shoots are poking through the earth.
As I stand there, the door opens and my dad steps outside, a broad smile stretching across his face. ‘Tilly! You should have said you were coming over. I didn’t know you were back.’
‘Hi, Dad.’ I hurry over and hug him tightly. ‘It’s really good to see you.’ He smells of home and my childhood rolled into one.
‘Come on in. I’ll put the kettle on.’
Now, this is the bit I haven’t been looking forward to, expecting the detritus of the months, a thick layer of dust, a grimy kitchen. But as I walk into it, to my utter astonishment, it’s neat and clean, one of the windows cracked open onto the garden.
Relief washes over me. ‘The place looks great, Dad.’
‘Not bad, is it?’ He gives it perfunctory glance. ‘I have an admission to make. It isn’t my doing. It’s Rick’s.’
‘What?’ Since when has my brother-in-law become my father’s cleaner?
‘Felt a bit sorry for the bugger, truth be told. He misses your sister terribly. Asked him if he’d like to come and stay. That was before Christmas. He hasn’t left. He’s not a bad cook, believe it or not.’
I’d always known Lizzie had him well-trained. But I didn’t know he was good at housework, too. ‘What about his and Lizzie’s house?’
‘He’s putting it on the market. I know what you’re thinking, but there are too many memories in that place. It was his idea to move in here for a while – he’s not very good on his own, and I’ve rather got used to him being around. So I thought, why not?’
‘I don’t know what to say.’ I watch him make us cups of tea, marvelling at how Rick being here makes an odd kind of sense. I mean, he and my dad were lonely; now they’re not. ‘I’m really glad it works for both of you.’
‘Strange how things work out, isn’t it?’ He comes over, frowning as he puts the cups on the table. ‘But I was rattling around in this place.’
I pick up my cup and sip my tea. ‘I’m really pleased it’s working out, Dad. For both of you.’
‘Well, it does for now. I’m sure in time, Rick will meet someone else. But in the meantime, it’s good for both of us. Now.’ Sitting down, he looks at me. ‘I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to.’ He hesitates, clearing his throat. ‘But first, I have a confession to make.’
I’m taken aback. ‘You do?’
He nods. ‘You see, when you went away, I have to say I felt quite cross with you. You and Gareth separating, then this…’
‘Dad,’ I start. This is not what I came here for. But he lifts his hand up.
‘Please. Let me just say this, Tilly. I was cross. But then I got to thinking how it was Gareth who had the affair. And it isn’t just that.
I think that all of us had become rather dependent on you.
Goodness knows, your mother used to tell me off for taking her for granted.
I realised I’d been doing it again. Taking you for granted.
I’m sure Gareth did, too. Anyway, I apologise.
’ A look of regret crosses his face. ‘I want you to know I love you, Tilly. You’re a wonderful daughter, and I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. ’
‘Gosh.’ It really is a day of surprises; I’m speechless for a moment. Then I blink away the tears that are suddenly in my eyes. ‘I love you, too, Dad.’
It’s actually the nicest time I’ve spent with my dad in as long as I can remember, as I consider that maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
It’s also one of those life lessons, that without me sticking my oar in trying to fix everything for them, my father and Rick turned out to be perfectly capable of sorting out their own lives.
It’s just I never would have imagined it.
But three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.
* * *
‘You are sure you’re OK now, aren’t you?’ Elena looks worried when she comes over.
‘I’m fine. My head has been scanned almost to death,’ I tell her, which isn’t the best choice of words, given the circumstances.
‘So what now?’ She cups her hands around her coffee mug.
‘Well…’ I look at her. ‘I never thought I’d say it, but I’m definitely done with this house.
I want it sold. I’m well and truly done with Gareth, too.
’ I pause for a moment, thinking of last night.
‘It’s over. In the past.’ I try to think how to explain to her.
‘All that grief and sadness… it seems to have gone. But nothing seems the same, now. All that time I was lying in a hospital bed, the weirdest thing happened, El. It was like I relived my life all over again.’ I frown.
‘Actually, not so much lived it… It was like I was observing it. The thing is, I saw things I didn’t the first time around.
It taught me so much about the choices I made – and about Gareth. ’
‘He’s an arse,’ she mutters.
‘He knows he’s been an arse,’ I say quietly. ‘He was here when I arrived last night. He’d even put a bottle of wine in the fridge. We had a glass together.’
‘You what?’ Elena’s eyes are like saucers.
Then I tell her. ‘He asked if I thought there was a chance for us.’
Elena looks shocked. ‘Cheeky fucker. I hope you told him where to go.’
‘Of course – you wouldn’t believe how diplomatic I was. And it was OK, actually. You see, I’ve decided there isn’t any point in rowing with him. We talked about the elephants…’
‘Elephants?’ Elena frowns.
‘Just the stuff we were never able to talk about before – and the mistakes we made. But we both know there’s no going back. What happened between us is in the past. He and Olivia are planning to move near Oxford.’
‘Good,’ she says with feeling. ‘At least that makes it easier for you to stay around here. I mean, it is your home.’
‘That’s the thing,’ I say slowly. I love El, and I don’t want to upset her. ‘It doesn’t feel like home here. Not any more.’
She stares at me. ‘What do you mean?’ Then she looks at my flowers. ‘Who are those from?’ she says suspiciously.
‘Those?’ They really are the loveliest flowers. ‘They’re from Adam.’
But as I tell her how we left things, something happens inside my head.
By that, I mean a kind of unravelling of all the confusion starts, and this glorious pattern begins to emerge.
I see the shimmering threads of my life interwoven with those of Adam’s.
From our first meeting to the chance meetings since.
The times we’ve just missed each other, been committed to other people.
Culminating in now, when both of us are free – albeit in separate countries.
‘So why are you hesitating?’ Elena looks perplexed. ‘Seriously, Tilly, I don’t get it. Here you are in the middle of what seems like some great fated love story – if it’s really like it is with Adam and you haven’t embellished it…’
‘I haven’t,’ I say firmly. I mean, honestly. What is she thinking? Me, embellish things? ‘I suppose my marriage has left me a bit untrusting. Hardly surprising, in the circumstances. And if something’s too good to be true, in my experience, it usually is.’ I hesitate. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Not always,’ Elena says. ‘Don’t forget, Tilly. Life can truly be magical. Only you seem to have forgotten that.’
Once, I would have agreed with her. But as I’m all too aware, it can be magical – I rediscovered that in Crete.
In the landscape, the people. In myself.
Oh Tilly. Even now, can’t you be honest with yourself?
‘I don’t think this is so much about realising how I feel,’ I say, somewhat sheepishly.
‘It’s about finding the courage to admit it to myself. ’
There’s frustration in Elena’s eyes. Right now, there must be a million things my friend could say to me. But mercifully, she keeps it brief. ‘You need to call Adam,’ she says. ‘Immediately, for God’s sake.’ Leaning across the table, she pushes my phone towards me.
* * *
On this occasion I don’t do as she says. I wait until she’s gone, while I try to work out what I’m going to say to him. When eventually I do call him, it goes straight to voicemail.