Chapter Twenty-Three
The book she’d been reading, The Great White Palace by Tony Porter, now cast aside, Cassie watched Ben swimming in the Mermaid Pool.
His front crawl was infinitely better than hers and she observed his steady strokes with admiration.
She might be able to beat him at tennis, as she had after breakfast that morning on the hotel’s court, but he was a far stronger swimmer than she was.
They’d arrived here at the renowned Art Deco hotel on Burgh Island two days ago, Ben having booked a beautiful suite with fabulous sea views.
His arranging this mini break for her birthday had been one of the surprises he’d planned for her, knowing as he did that the hotel had been on her wish list ever since watching Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun with David Suchet which had been filmed here.
He’d even managed to organise excellent weather for their stay and although it was September, it was warm enough to sunbathe as well as swim in the sea.
Some guests had said that the water at this time of the year was at its warmest.
The combination of the Devon sea air, the stylish comfort of their suite and the excellent food and drink they’d consumed, together with the complete absence of stress and worry, had done wonders to restore her equilibrium, as well as her sex drive, which had dwindled to nothing in the emotional fallout – and upheaval – of Drew’s death.
When her daughter had begged Cassie to help Rosalyn and Finlay, she’d had the nerve to use emotional blackmail.
‘Mum,’ Emily had said with tears in her eyes, ‘Finlay’s my half-brother, how can we not help? When I was little you had Gran and Grandad. Rosalyn and Finlay have no one.’
‘But they must have somebody who can take them in,’ Cassie had tried.
‘Not anyone who matters. Come on, Mum, what do you say? Rosalyn’s really nice. I know you’ll like her.’
Emily didn’t have a clue what she was asking of Cassie.
But then she was still full of the youthful and naive belief that black could be white and vice versa if you said it often enough.
Give it time and Emily would be battle-hardened like the rest of them.
But was that the problem? Was Cassie so embittered that she couldn’t see the world the same way her daughter did? Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?
‘I can’t make an important decision like that unilaterally,’ she’d told Emily. ‘Ben’s hardly going to be overjoyed at the prospect of welcoming strangers into our home.’
‘Let me speak to him,’ Emily had said. ‘I’m sure I could talk him round.’
Cassie hadn’t doubted that for a minute; Ben had always been a big softie when it came to Emily. Many a time the two of them had ganged up against Cassie when Emily had wanted to do something and Cassie had deemed it too risky, or too expensive or just plain unsuitable.
‘No, Ems,’ Cassie had said firmly, ‘I’ll speak to Ben, but please don’t go getting your hopes up, or Rosalyn’s, it wouldn’t be fair to her.’
‘I knew I could rely on you, Mum,’ Emily had said triumphantly when ending the call. ‘Love you!’
Before speaking to Ben, Cassie had checked online what the legal situation was in the UAE for a newly widowed partner, and she discovered that there wasn’t the urgency Emily had inferred.
She’d as good as said that Rosalyn and her son could be deported any minute from the country.
But Cassie knew that to point that out would only serve to make her look petty.
Naturally, being the generous and compassionate man he was, Ben had said yes, but only if Cassie was in agreement, and on the clear understanding by all parties concerned that it was a temporary measure.
‘We must keep in mind that Emily is grieving for her father,’ he’d said, ‘and perhaps this is her way of dealing with it, of doing something positive and not dwelling on what she’s lost.’
‘But you’re her father!’ Cassie had remonstrated. ‘Emily knew Drew for no more than a blink of an eye.’
‘Semantics,’ Ben had said mildly.
Why did he have to be so infuriatingly reasonable and kind, she’d wanted to scream, why couldn’t he have exploded and shouted that no way did he want a strange woman and her child living in their apartment with them?
But if he’d been that type of a man, he wouldn’t have been Ben, and she wouldn’t love him the way she did.
The trouble was, his generosity and compassion underscored her lack of it and worse still it fuelled her insecurity, made her feel as though she were unworthy of his love and that it wouldn’t be long before he realised his mistake in sharing his life with her.
Then step to and be a better person, a stern voice commanded inside her head, stop whingeing and do something that would make your daughter and Ben proud of you!
Once Cassie had given Emily the go-ahead, the girl had swung into action, dealing with the British Embassy and the local authorities in Dubai, including the coroner.
‘You wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved with repatriating Dad’s body back to the UK,’ she’d complained to Cassie.
‘And then there’s all the packing to do.
Rosalyn says she couldn’t have coped without me.
Oh Mum, it’s so awful for her, and she’s so grateful to you and Ben for what you’re doing. ’
The grieving widow herself had phoned Cassie to express her tearful thanks and to say just how amazing Emily was.
‘She’s a wonderful girl,’ she had said, ‘but then I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.’
From thousands of miles away, Rosalyn’s breathily thin, watery voice trickled down the line and Cassie had known a moment’s guilt that she had harboured so much resentment and animosity towards this unknown woman.
Cassie had known Rosalyn was fifteen years younger than she was, but she hadn’t expected her to look quite so young in the flesh.
In all her Instagram and TikTok posts, Rosalyn had come across as a generic, heavily contoured version of the millions of young women who had ever pouted and posed in front of a camera, but Cassie’s first glimpse of her at the airport revealed a fresh-faced girl who looked almost as young as Emily.
What make-up she wore was the bare minimum, just a little smudgy dab or two around her eyes and a touch of lip-gloss on her pillowy lips.
Cassie had driven Ben’s SUV to Heathrow to meet Emily and her charges and at some point, while they were collecting the luggage from the carousel, Drew’s body had been discreetly removed from the plane by the appointed funeral director.
Their job had also been to deal with sorting out the mundanity of Customs Clearance and Airline Handling charges.
That was a week ago and it would be some weeks before a funeral could take place as a coroner in the UK had yet to decide if a further inquest or postmortem was required.
Ben had been waiting for them when they arrived at Hope Hall, and with his help they’d hauled the luggage from the boot of the car and carried it up to the apartment. In the days that followed, more luggage arrived and went straight into storage until Rosalyn knew where she was going to live.
It rapidly became clear just how dependent Rosalyn was on Emily, leaving most of the care of her son to the girl while she spent much of the day in her room in bed.
Also clear was that Emily treated Rosalyn more like a friend or a big sister, rather than a stepmother.
Observing this closeness as Emily fussed around Rosalyn, willingly fetching and carrying for her, it filled Cassie with an emotion she wasn’t proud of: envy.
She was profoundly jealous that Rosalyn had usurped her role as Emily’s big sister, a role that Cassie had enjoyed ever since Emily had become a teenager and people who didn’t know them would assume they were sisters and not mother and daughter. It was a role she’d treasured.
In deference to the situation in which they now found themselves – a grieving widow and confused little boy living with them – Ben hadn’t felt it was right to go ahead with the surprise party he had arranged for Cassie’s birthday.
It seemed disrespectful. But he’d insisted that they still go away for the surprise trip he’d planned. Emily had been quick to agree with him.
‘Mum, you not being here for a few days will help Rosalyn relax, as you can be a bit reactionary and give off, you know, a bit of an intense vibe at times,’ Emily had said. ‘It will give her some, you know, head space.’
Cassie had taken offence at that and had been on the verge of saying, ‘Well, pardon me for breathing in my own home!’ when Ben had given her a warning look.
Swallowing back her outrage at the injustice – she did not give off an intense vibe and was not reactionary!
– she’d suggested a game of tennis to Ben as the safest way to vent.
The poor man had known he was in for a beating but had gamely complied.
I’m a bad, bad woman, she thought now as she watched Ben swim to the pebbly shore of the man-made pool which they had to themselves.
While a pair of seagulls wheeled overhead, she kept her eyes on him as he made his way up the short strip of beach to where she was sitting on the raised platform of decking.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, when he was standing in front of her and shaking the water from his hair before grabbing the towel from the sun lounger next to hers.
‘You do?’
‘Yes, that I’m the spitting image of Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in his sexy blue swimming trunks. It’s the rippling muscles, isn’t it?’
‘Got it in one, Mr Bond,’ she said with a happy laugh.
Wrapping the towel around his boyishly slim waist, he said, ‘How about a kiss then, Miss Moneypenny?’
‘Oh, James!’ she said in a girlish voice, mimicking myriad Bond conquests as Ben bent down and kissed her long and hard on the mouth.