Chapter Ninety-Six
Ninety-Six
Truth
Betty is walking Caleb towards me like he’s six years old and she’s bringing him to apologise for stealing an apple from a greengrocer.
Before I can even begin to collect my thoughts, I’m opening the front door to them.
‘Caleb has some things to tell you,’ Betty says, releasing Caleb from the vice-grip of her arm.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ I say, seeing how unwilling he is to be here.
‘Yes, you do. Tell her who Marlene is.’
‘I already know she’s his wife.’
‘She’s my ex-wife,’ Caleb says. ‘The divorce was finalised a few weeks ago. It was not particularly amicable.’
‘It looked pretty amicable as you went off for a cosy walk together.’
‘She’s no longer my wife, but she’s still my manager. She got me this book deal that I’m locked into. She was worried I was distracted by you and thought that was why I couldn’t get the work finished.’
‘But it wasn’t?’
‘No. I couldn’t finish it because I was never meant to start it.’
He looks so morose that I want to hold him close, pull his head down onto my chest and make it all better, but I can’t. He lied to me, or at least, withheld things I deserved to know.
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘Break the contract, give back the book advance and get a job.’
Betty pats him on the back at this, as if she fully approves of this plan of action.
‘Keep going,’ she whispers.
‘You make me happy, Lindy. And I was miserable for so long that I thought it was karma. I thought I deserved to be unhappy because I let my ego make my decisions, and I took a stupid risk that almost killed me. That could have killed other people who had to rescue me.’
‘Oh, is that Ted I can hear barking?’ Betty says, as Ted suddenly realises there are visitors at the door that he needs to alert everybody to within a one-mile radius. She walks across the lawn to the gate leading to the back garden.
Caleb clears his throat. ‘Come back to Loor.’
‘Give me one good reason.’
He takes something out of his pocket and shows it to me, and for a moment, I wonder if it’s going to be something ridiculous, like a ring, but it’s not; it’s something even better.
‘I love you, Lindy, and I will never keep anything from you again.’
He hands me the little piece of Lost at Sea Lego I found in the baby waves.
He’s kept it in his pocket all this time.
‘Before I met you, I was drowning,’ he says. ‘You gave me a lifejacket. Let me be yours.’
He leans down and kisses me, and when he pulls away, Betty is back from the garden holding Ted, who’s licking her neck as if he hasn’t seen her for a year.
‘Guess what I forgot to tell you?’ Betty asks, before answering her own question. ‘Max has been busted.’
‘Huh?’ I say, reeling from this strange confluence of people and topics.
‘Your ex – Max – been exposed for planting a ring in the ground and pretending to find it. You know, the medieval “Alas for fayte” ring that he used to propose to Greta?’
‘Max found that ring,’ I say, frowning.
‘No. Another detectorist found it at Detectorville and lent it to Max – for a hefty fee, of course – solely for the video recording, and on the strict understanding that he’d get the ring back afterwards and take it to the Finds Liaison Officer for official registration.’
‘But Max used it to propose to Greta.’
‘Exactly. All of mudlark YouTube is on fire with the scandal!’
I listen, open-mouthed, as Betty explains how Max got swept up in the moment and proposed to Greta with a ring that wasn’t his, and how she won’t give the ring back, since she accepted it in good faith. It’s a mess. They’ve broken up, Greta’s run off with the ring, and the other detectorist – the true owner of the ring – is suing Max for all he’s worth.
‘Now that…’ Betty says, ‘is karma.’