Summer at the Highland Coral Beach (The Port Willow Bay series Port Willow Bay)

by Kiley Dunbar

  Beatrice tore her eyes from the couple and instead considered Atholl eating absorbedly in his white t-shirt, jeans and apron. His hair had formed in tight curls around his forehead from the steam of the kitchen.

  The heat of the Cullen Skink warmed her against the little chill in the air, a sign that August was slowly passing and the cooler, shorter days were on their way. ‘Delicious,’ she said again with a smile, but in that moment her heart felt suddenly dull again after the excitement of the day and the slow realisation that her task was completed. She had nothing else to occupy her now, other than thoughts of returning to Warwickshire.

  ‘Beatrice?’ Atholl’s voice came to her as though through a wall. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m just tired; it’s been a long day.’

  ‘That it has. You did well today.’

  ‘We did. And Cheryl and Jillian, Seth and Patrick, and Mrs Mair. Talk about a team effort.’

  ‘You have a knack for bringing people together, Beatrice.’

  She smiled, saying nothing and wondering what she would do now. They’d fixed up Kitty and Gene – any further meddling in their love affair would be babying Gene to an unfair degree, wouldn’t it? And she’d taken her weaving lesson – Atholl surely wouldn’t want her hanging around the workshop any longer – and she really ought to try to fix her own life back at home. Yet the idea of stepping onto the platform at Warwick station lined her stomach with lead.

  She was pulled out of these thoughts by the sound of Atholl clearing his throat. When she looked at him her heart sank even further.

  ‘Beatrice, I, uh… I don’t want to upset you but…’

  ‘Oh no, what?’ She knew her skin was blanching, just as Atholl’s was flushing.

  ‘Beatrice… I needed the computer in the reception this morning and, uh… when it powered up there was a Facebook page frozen open on the screen…’ His Adam’s apple bobbed as his words tailed away.

  ‘Oh.’ She felt herself shrink. Had he seen her profile picture with Rich at the hospital? He must have, why else would he be mentioning it now, and why so awkwardly? It would certainly explain the recent softening in his attitude. Hadn’t he been kinder to her today? Hadn’t he touched her hand earlier on the waterfront when they were waiting for Gene and Kitty to arrive, and hadn’t he immediately regretted it and snatched his hand away like she was a damaged thing, something he had to be extra careful with?

  She hadn’t liked Atholl being brusque with her, but this? This wasn’t what she wanted at all. Even if her first few encounters with the Fergussons had been tough, she had at least found relief in being with people who didn’t know for sure why she was a total mess and who didn’t look at her with sympathy in their eyes – but that was exactly what Atholl was doing right now. Except, there was something else mixed in with his searching gaze, not just sympathy, but curiosity and caution too. Had he seen the relationship status on her profile, which most definitely still said Married to Richard Halliday?

  What must he be thinking? Did he think she might be married with a child and a husband somewhere out there in the world missing her? Maybe he’d guessed she’d been dumped and was hiding from the breakup? Or maybe he’d grasped at the truth of what had happened – that she was grieving for a lost child and a marriage that was all over bar the shouting? But he couldn’t know about her losing her mum too, or about the redundancy, and she was glad of that. She looked down, wanting to disappear from under that gaze.

  ‘Beatrice…’ Atholl was shifting closer.

  ‘I was just trying to contact my sister… stupid computer crashed…’

  ‘You can talk to me… if you like?’

  Beatrice looked up from her bowl to find Atholl’s eyes level with her own, entreating her to talk. ‘You helped me with my problems,’ he was saying. ‘I hate to call Gene a problem, but you know what I mean. Will you not let me help you?’

  ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘Your sadness. I can listen, I can help…’

  ‘You can fix me?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying, but…’

  Beatrice began to stand, handing him her bowl which he took, his eyes wide and mouth open.

  ‘What I’ve got, you can’t fix, Atholl.’

  He drew his neck back and Beatrice saw the concern in his eyes.

  ‘Look, I’m fine. I’m just tired.’

  Atholl was on his feet now, his hand running nervously through his curls. ‘Don’t go yet.’

  Beatrice was already stooping to pass through the low window from the flat roof back onto the carpeted corridor that led to her room. He didn’t follow after her but she heard him bidding her a fraught goodnight.

  As she turned to close the bedroom door, she caught a glimpse of him leaning taut muscled arms on the window frame, his skin pale as pearl in the moonlight, wearing an expression of exasperation and alarm that made her shudder. It was a look she had seen on Rich’s face many times in the weeks before he left her and she had tried so hard to ignore its significance then. She never wanted to see that look again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Baby-making

  Leaning against the closed door as if to barricade it shut, Beatrice clutched a palm to the pounding in her chest as the memories flooded back, along with the heavy, burning lump right at her core.

  She’d felt it before, but tonight its presence was more pressing than ever and she at last understood what it was. It was words.

  Words swallowed down, stuck inside, and never spoken aloud.

  The feelings had been too large to express and the lump was compounded by her pain at the loss of her lovely mum – a woman who had barely lived her life at all when she got sick. Her mum had escaped a horrible man, whisking her children away from him to a safer place when they were just babies and worked all her life to provide for them, then just as her life was looking a little easier and there were weddings and grandbabies and travel on the horizon, the diagnosis had come and swept away all her plans for a bright future with her thriving family made up exclusively of women and a little baby girl who she adored so much.

  That was when the words first started to get trapped, thought Beatrice, still leaning heavily against the door. Then Helen Smethwick had rocked up and turned her loose from the job that had anchored her for nearly two decades, the only occupation she’d known and the source of so much of her pride and confidence.

  The ache of this had lain on top of her grief for her dying mum, layering it over like sediment, thick striations of shame, powerlessness, and bitter anger piling up.

  Then there had been the loss of her baby and the great blow it had dealt her marriage, and Rich’s dad with his coldly confident, ‘I’m sure it’s for the best,’ and ‘There must have been something wrong with it.’

  Wrong?

  Beatrice turned the key in the lock before racing up the ladder and onto the towering princess bed, burying her face in the pillow so she could scream the word. ‘Wrong! I just wanted my baby breathing in my arms, no matter what.’

  Clasping her hand to her mouth, she let herself cry into the soft down, knowing no one could hear.

  At the time, although she hadn’t been able to fully process why she had kept the words inside and she was unable to anticipate the disastrous consequences of bottling up her most painful feelings, she had made a decision. She decided to channel the hurt that she felt into something that she could do.

  She couldn’t be nothing but grief and loss and failure. Instead she would do what she did best – make a plan and put it into action. She would do research, write a list, consult the experts, and she would find out how to fast-track herself and Rich back to happiness. She was going to get pregnant again and quick.

  Beatrice groaned to think of it and the emotions buried deep within her shifted. ‘Again with the clarity,’ she murmured into the pillow before rolling onto her side. She could see it all.

  She had awakened one morning in May feeling oddly brighter; the first day of
her second proper period since the miscarriage – day one of a new cycle. Her head buzzed with the hope and excitement of it all. Potentially, she could get pregnant that month. Even though she knew they could have gone for it the previous month, and she’d been dying to, what with Rich steering clear and looking so sad, she had held off mentioning it. Talk about willpower.

  But now she was ready – or that’s what she’d told herself. She’d started taking her folic acid again, inspired by the online baby forums about mums who got pregnant in the months after losing a baby and how they got to full term and a take-home baby. Rainbow babies, she had learned they were called – babies made after miscarriage.

  She’d discovered there were certain foods that could aid conception – Brazil nuts and pineapple cores – and she had gorged on them in secret and Rich hadn’t thought to ask why she was carrying four pineapples back from the shops in her backpack.

  She’d confessed her action plan to Angela and Vic one night over dinner at their place while Clara slept on Vic’s chest and Vic tried not to dribble rogan josh over her slumbering daughter. Beatrice told them all about how she’d surprised Rich with the idea, now a fully formed, bullet-pointed action plan.

  ‘So, I made Rich his favourite dinner last night and told him about how we could start trying again any day now – in fact I’ll most likely be fertile in about two weeks, but he was horrified. He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to try again, and I burst into tears over the profiteroles and asked why, and he said he didn’t think he could go through it all again, if the worst should happen. And I ended up shouting, “You can’t go through it? You can’t?” and storming out, and the whole time he was looking at me like I was nuts. A bit like you are now, Angela, come to think of it!’

  And Angela had replied, ‘Of course I don’t think you’re nuts; you’re grieving. It’s only natural you’d want to try again.’

  ‘I get it,’ Vic had chipped in. ‘When we were trying for Clara, in between all those failed rounds of assisted insemination, we were the same. It was a huge rollercoaster of hope then despair then hope again. I understand the desperation. I really do.’ Vic looked down at Clara and the word desperation rang in Beatrice’s ears over the sound of Angela snapping a poppadum and squirming in her chair.

  ‘I’m not desperate.’ Beatrice had looked between her sister and Vic. ‘You think I’m desperate?’

  ‘That’s not what she’s saying, is it?’ said Angela. ‘We just know those feelings, and they’re a lot to deal with, that’s all. They can overwhelm you if you’re not careful. Consume you, even.’

  Beatrice saw the wary glance Vic threw Angela. They’d spoken about her before, clearly. What was this? An intervention?

  ‘Well, if you’ve been there, you’ll understand why I want to do this quickly and efficiently.’

  ‘This is Mother Nature you’re talking about. You can’t rush these things. Even with the best fertility doctors our money could buy, it took us so long to get Clara.’

  Three pairs of eyes fell upon the sleeping child and Beatrice sighed.

  ‘So where is Rich now?’ Vic asked.

  ‘At the pub. Apparently I’m obsessed with getting pregnant again. It was all my talk about ways of increasing cervical mucus to aid conception that did it.’

  Vic let her fork settle on her plate with a queasy look on her face. Beatrice didn’t let that put her off.

  ‘But he did ask what was with all the pineapples and really he needn’t be so flaming squeamish. He turned so grey I thought he was having an aneurysm. I can’t help thinking of Charlotte on Sex and the City when she’s in couples’ therapy with Trey, her drippy, mummy’s boy husband. You know, Kyle MacLachlan? Yum!’

  Angela shrugged.

  ‘Never mind. Anyway, Charlotte taunts Trey for being sex-shy and shouts about how at all costs she mustn’t scare the penis!’

  Angela and Vic screamed with laughter at this, making Clara wriggle and squeak but she didn’t awaken.

  ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to scare any penises to conceive Clara?’ Beatrice had blurted, before seeing the look of shock on their faces and immediately feeling guilty because the memory of all those injections, blood tests and scary procedures Angela had had to endure – as well as all the expense and the waiting – must still be so fresh for them both. ‘I’m sorry! What I’m saying is, I know you had a really hard time of it and I know I’m not the only one who’s struggled, but you three just go to show that with the right planning and a lot of effort you can get your take-home baby in the end. And that’s what I want.’

  ‘OK, we get it, just please give yourself some time too, OK?’

  ‘Ange, the last thing I have is time. I’m thirty-nine, this might be my last chance.’

  The couple had smiled with crumpled, closed tight lips, a little shadow of defeat and resignation in their eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to upset you, but… you’re a bit… jumpy today, a bit… hyper,’ Angela said, looking down at her food, trying to sound unthreatening.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly. Totally fine,’ Beatrice said with a wave of her hand. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, determined to make them relax again. ‘Tomorrow I’m bulk buying milk chocolate-covered Brazils because the plain ones are awful. Who cares if Rich raises an eyebrow or two at them? Obsessed, indeed! I’m organised, that’s what.’

  Lying on the towering mattresses, Beatrice finally accepted that Angela, Vic and Rich – especially Rich – might well have had a point. But at the time, the action-planning really had given her something to feel hopeful about.

  She recalled the days following the miscarriage which she’d spent wandering round town in trainers and sweats, or on long walks along the canal, out to the supermarket and the big Boots, anything but sitting still and alone with her thoughts.

  She had felt better when moving. It was a salve for the restlessness that wouldn’t leave her in peace.

  Then she had struck upon the idea of asking Angela if she could push Clara in her buggy one day so that she had some company and looked less weird ranging about town on her own.

  Walking with Clara had been a revelation. She just slept in her buggy or sucked on rice cakes, looking about her, and they’d gone miles together – all the way to the castle on one occasion. She remembered the grave look on Angela’s face when she’d taken Clara back home that afternoon, turning her over to Vic for a feed, when she’d said, ‘It was nice. People stop and talk to Clara and to me. They think I’m her mummy.’

  And the walking had helped when the letter arrived from the hospital letting her know the date of her six-month scan, still weeks away, and she’d torn it into pieces wondering how the system could have let that happen and telling the empty house that she had thought she couldn’t feel any worse, but it turned out she could. Rich was at work and missed the whole thing and when he came home that evening the scraps of paper were in the bin outside and they went unmentioned forevermore.

  She’d gone in secret to the GP too and heard there was no explanation for the miscarriage, none that they could ever know of. The GP told her he wouldn’t be prepared to investigate further unless she’d had a few. Beatrice had experienced a dizzying wave of nausea at that.

  ‘A few?’ she’d replied. ‘How are you meant to endure this more than once? God, those poor women. I hadn’t really thought that this could happen again. And all those poor daddies.’

  In those first few desperate weeks she had felt sadder when she thought of Rich than when she thought about what she herself had lost. She had truly felt sorry for him. And she couldn’t fix it.

  Normally, if there was a problem, she could swing into action and come up with some solutions. Like when Vic and Angela had needed help finding a donor service and paying for a few rounds of their assisted inseminations. Her talent for organising stuff – as well as half her savings – had come in really handy then. But her efficiency and organisation hadn’t been enough to help her in her own time of crisis.

 
; All the temperature charting and ovulation prediction kits and the mad bicycling of her legs above her head after sex, and all those bitter, chewy pineapple cores and Brazil nuts – none of it had helped her. Rich had taken his broken heart and left.

  She had scared him away and proved his vicious, boozy old dad right. No baby ever fixed a struggling marriage. And no myopic striving to conceive when she and Rich should have been grieving had fixed it either.

  Beatrice felt the sleepiness come over her. The inn was silent and warm and she became aware of the waves shushing against the sea wall over the road. A small sense of peacefulness reached her. Was this it? Had she had a breakthrough? All by herself? Hah!

  Yes, she had been right after all, hadn’t she? You didn’t have to spill your heart out to get some clarity on your feelings. Vic, Angela, Rich – and Atholl Fergusson – had all been wrong!

  Atholl Fergusson may well have thought he could see through all of her silence and withholding and he may well have wanted to encourage her to talk, and so fix her, but that wasn’t going to happen. She would never tell him or anyone else the humiliating story of how she drove her husband away by turning a cooling marriage, which may even have been salvageable at one point, into an uncomfortably fraught place that Rich couldn’t bear any longer.

  It’s better to leave Port Willow now, she told herself. Let Atholl think of her as cold and sad and then forget about her altogether, even at the risk that her sadness might be compounded by leaving this lovely, eccentric place before she’d had the chance to get to know it properly and just when she was beginning to connect with new people and enjoy herself.

  Yes, she’d get out of here in the morning, taking her scraps of fresh insight with her, along with the heavy lump of words within her chest.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An Invitation

  Beatrice had been standing over her open suitcase for at least five minutes, frozen to the spot. She knew that if she was going to make the morning train she’d have to leave now.