by Susan Lewis
‘I told you, darling, I’ve tried, but every time we tell one another it’s over, all that happens is that our feelings seem to grow and the betrayal, the deception just gets worse. I can’t go on like that and nor can he.’
‘So why not let Eva’s life be destroyed instead?’ Livvy spat scathingly. ‘You are not my mother.’
‘Livvy, wait,’ Patty cried as Livvy started to walk out. ‘I’m not asking you to try to understand, or to forgive, all I ask is that you listen – or at least that you don’t go like this.’
Livvy kept her back turned.
‘Dave’ll be here any minute,’ Patty reminded her. ‘I’d like the three of us to sit down and work out how we go forward from here.’
Livvy spun round in disbelief. ‘How we go forward?’ she repeated contemptuously. ‘There’s no we here, or not that includes me, and besides, I think you’ve already taken that decision, haven’t you?’
Almost buckling under her daughter’s contempt, Patty said, ‘OK, in a way, yes we have, but it’s going to affect you, and …’ She broke off as the phone rang, but Livvy was her focus now so she didn’t attempt to pick it up.
They both stared at the machine as Patty’s voice told the caller to leave a message, then Patty’s head started to spin as Eva shrieked, ‘How could you? He’s my husband. What gives you the right …?’ Her voice was choked off by anger. ‘I know you’re there, you’re hiding, you coward!’
‘Speak to her,’ Livvy shouted.
Patty fumbled for the phone. ‘Eva …’
‘Don’t ever come near me again,’ Eva yelled at her. ‘Do you hear me? I never, ever want to see you again.’
‘Oh God,’ Patty sobbed as the line went dead.
‘Well, what did you expect?’ Livvy cried, snatching the receiver from her and banging it down. ‘You had to know you were breaking her heart … Oh Mum, don’t cry like that, just don’t.’
‘I – I’m sorry,’ Patty gasped, trying to pull herself together, but the guilt and pain were too much and as she turned to press her face to the wall, sobbing and wailing in despair, Livvy came to hold her.
‘It’s OK,’ Livvy soothed, choking on tears of her own. ‘No it’s not, but I don’t know what else to say. Mum, it can’t be good if this is how it’s making you feel.’
‘No, you’re right,’ Patty agreed, ‘but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve thought about selling up and moving away, but this is where you grew up and where would I go? My whole life is here, so is everyone I love.’
‘Then he should go away, at least then he wouldn’t come between you and Eva.’
‘Believe me, he’s considered that. He’s right on the brink of selling his company, but how is that going to help Eva? She won’t want to leave this area any more than I do, and if Don goes without her …’ It was all too much, she didn’t have the answers and she doubted she ever would.
Livvy looked round as a set of headlights swept their beam across the curtains, and a moment later they heard the sound of a car door slamming.
‘It’ll be Dave,’ Patty said, reaching to tear off some kitchen roll. ‘Can you talk to him first while I go and try to sort myself out?’
‘It’s not Dave,’ Livvy told her. ‘I’ve got the car, so he’ll be coming on his bike.’
Their eyes went to the door as footsteps approached. Even before it opened, Patty knew who was going to come through.
Don’s face was so haggard and ashen that Patty’s heart turned inside out.
‘You’ve got a nerve coming here,’ Livvy snarled.
‘Livvy,’ Patty said softly.
Though he flinched, Don’s eyes stayed on Patty.
‘So you’ve told her and now left her on her own,’ Livvy cried in disgust. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? Have you two completely lost your minds?’ and grabbing her bag she slammed furiously out of the house.
Moments later, as her car tore across the gravel, Don said, ‘Do you want me to go after her?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ Patty answered. Then, putting a hand to her head, ‘This is turning out to be even worse than I feared.’
Going to put his arms around her, he held her tight.
‘I’m sorry. I feel I pushed you into it,’ she said.
‘Don’t say that,’ he protested, cupping her face in his hands. ‘I was the one who made the decision to tell her now, and it was the right one because we couldn’t go on the way we were.’
Not knowing any more if that was true, she said, ‘Livvy asked how it could be right if it makes us feel like this.’
He continued to gaze into her eyes. ‘I can’t answer that,’ he told her gruffly, ‘I only know that it is.’
As his mouth came to hers she was flooded with so much love and desire, pain, guilt, shame and despair that she started to break down again. ‘Oh God, what are we going to do?’ she sobbed against him. ‘Eva rang … She’s beside herself. I feel I should go to her, but how can I when I’m the one who’s devastating her life?’
‘You should talk to her,’ he said shakily, ‘but not tonight. We’ll see how she is in the morning.’
Patty nodded and tried to take a breath. ‘I – I don’t want you to go, but maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight.’
‘No, I guess not,’ he agreed. ‘I just had to see you, make sure you’re all right.’
Feeling as though she never would be again, she said, ‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought … Down to the boat, I guess.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Right now in West Bay, so not far.’
Putting a hand to his face, she said, ‘Will you be all right?’
He nodded as he turned to kiss her palm. ‘I’m worried about you, though. Can you call Coral? I don’t want to think of you here alone.’
‘I’ll try her when you’ve gone, but you’ll call me, won’t you, if it all starts to feel too much?’
‘Of course,’ he promised, ‘and likewise, you must call me.’
He kissed her again, tenderly, then deeply and passionately, holding her to him so that the entire length of her body was pressed to his. She wanted him to go on holding her and kissing her, making her feel as though their love was all that mattered, but it wasn’t and they knew it and nor would it ever be, but that still didn’t mean they could deny it.
In the end he pulled gently away and looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘I love you,’ he whispered with so much feeling that she could almost touch it.
‘I love you too,’ she breathed. ‘I just wish it didn’t have to be like this.’
‘We’ll get through it.’
‘Will we?’
Keeping his eyes on hers he said, ‘Yes, we will,’ and after kissing her again he let himself out of the door.
As she heard him drive away her heart was tearing in two. She wanted desperately to go with him, to lie with him in the small cabin of his boat and try to forget why they shouldn’t be together, in spite of knowing they never could. She wanted to turn back the clock so that tonight had never happened, or so that they’d never fallen in love, but that wasn’t possible either. It was all too late, there was no going back now that Eva had been told, and she was so afraid of going forward that she could barely even make herself move.
Sinking down at the table, she buried her face in her hands and asked herself if anything, anyone, could be worth what this was doing to them all. How could love be so cruel, not to her, but to Eva who’d already suffered so much? Why had it felt the need to sweep through their family in such a ruthless twist of fate? She hated the fact that she couldn’t control the way she felt, yet at the same time she knew in her heart that even if she was offered a way to stop loving Don she wouldn’t accept it. He meant everything to her now, everything and more. It was as though she belonged to him, that all parts of her were parts of him too. She only had to think of his face, his wonderful eyes, his hands, his strong, capable body to know that without him she w
ouldn’t want to go on.
And knowing that was how Eva would be feeling right now was almost killing her.
She was afraid of sitting here alone, but she wouldn’t call Coral because she didn’t deserve the luxury of comfort, were comfort even possible, and she knew it wasn’t. She only deserved the hell she was going through, and would continue to go through for months, even years to come. Maybe for the rest of her life. Would it even be a life without Eva?
Starting as the telephone rang, she picked it up and said a quiet hello.
‘Don just called,’ Coral told her. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
As she hung up Patty broke down uncontrollably. Perhaps in times of need everyone should have someone, whether they deserved it or not.
Eva was standing in the kitchen, staring through the wall of sliding windows out to the stars. It would be a lovely day tomorrow, she was thinking. Cold, crisp, but sunny. In the distance the moon, looking proud and secretive in its impenetrable backdrop of night, was throwing its showy reflection over the sea, while closer to home, just beyond the patio, her little paddling of ducks was waddling off to bed for the night. She wondered what would happen to them when she’d gone, who’d take care of them and Rosie and Elvis, who’d been shooed into their den a while ago. Then there were the horses she’d rescued, her beautiful home, her shop, her charities – who would see to them all? She didn’t want to leave, but if Don was serious about what he’d told her – and she knew he’d never put her through this if he weren’t – how could she stay? She wouldn’t be able to stand being so close to him and Patty, no longer a part of their lives yet knowing they were there, just down the road, sometimes running into them, missing them, hating them and still loving them so much that every time she saw them it would tear her apart. She wondered where they were now, if they were together, talking about her and trying to decide what to do next. Maybe they already knew; maybe they had it all worked out and it would be they who ended up leaving Dorset, not her.
Finding that prospect almost as hard as the thought of her own departure, she tried to push it from her mind. She’d find out in the fullness of time, and knowing she was going to be as helpless to stop them then, as she was now, almost brought her to her knees in heartbroken despair.
Before – and since – her eruption on the phone to Patty she’d drunk several glasses of wine, but to no avail, because nothing was blotting out her dread of what tomorrow might bring. It was looming there so large and terrifying that she could already feel it crushing her. How was she going to find the courage to deal with this, the strength to hold herself together when she wasn’t even sure how she was going to make it through the night? She wanted Don back so badly, so desperately that her whole body was shaking with the power of it. She needed his arms, his comfort, his love in a way that seemed to fill her up and weigh her down and turn her inside out. But she had to deal with this alone, because he was no longer here for her to lean on, and Patty, her rock, her sister, her best friend, her mother … Patty meant everything to her, the whole world, so how was she going to cope without her?
‘Eva? Are you all right?’
Starting, Eva turned around and felt a bolt of confusion mix with her surprise. ‘Jasmine,’ she said, using her fingers to dry her cheeks. ‘I didn’t hear you coming in.’ It was Friday night. She’d forgotten Jasmine was coming. ‘I’m sorry, I …’ She didn’t know what to say. How could she explain her tears? What should she tell her? She was Don’s daughter, not hers, so wasn’t it for him to do the explaining? Except Jasmine was here and looking worried, and Eva could already feel herself clinging to the connection to Don.
‘I’m fine,’ Eva managed, as she came to the table, but she wasn’t because she was already falling apart again.
‘What is it?’ Jasmine cried, her face turning white. ‘Oh my God, it’s Dad, isn’t it? Something’s happened to him.’
‘No, no, he’s fine,’ Eva said, realising Jasmine needed that reassurance. What else was she supposed to say? Was he expecting her to pretend for his daughter who’d detested her until last week, who was probably plotting something terrible for her shop, who’d no doubt gloat when she found out the truth?
Looking Jasmine in the eye she said, defiantly, ‘You’ll probably be happy to hear that he’s left me.’
Jasmine flinched as her mouth fell open.
‘It seems you were right,’ Eva told her, ‘he was – is – having an affair and I, in my ivory tower, was too blind, too focused on myself, to notice.’
Jasmine went on staring, looking horrified and even, oddly, afraid.
‘Well, don’t you feel happy?’ Eva challenged, snatching up an empty glass and trying to drink. ‘It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it, to prove your mother right, that he wasn’t to be trusted. Well, apparently he’s not.’
To her amazement, and shame, Jasmine started to cry.
‘It’s not what I wanted,’ Jasmine sobbed. ‘I’m sorry I ever said that.’ Then, ‘I should go, sorry,’ and turning around she started for the conservatory, but her way was blocked by Livvy coming in.
Clearly surprised to see Jasmine, Livvy moved on past her and went straight to wrap Eva in her arms. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she sobbed as Eva sobbed too. ‘It’s horrible. I just can’t believe it.’
‘Nor can I,’ Eva told her, ‘but it’s happening and I don’t know what to do.’
‘We’ll sort it out,’ Livvy promised rashly. ‘I don’t know how yet, but we will.’
As they continued to hold one another, united in their grief, Jasmine stood awkwardly by, unsure how to help, until her eyes alighted on Eva’s glass and going to fetch more wine from the fridge, and another glass, she poured them both a drink. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as Livvy turned round. ‘Have I done the wrong thing?’
‘No, no, it’s what we need,’ Livvy told her, and picking up the glasses she passed one to Eva, while Jasmine watched and seemed at a loss for what else to do.
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated in the end, ‘I feel as though it’s my fault.’
‘How can it be your fault?’ Livvy demanded, sounding sharper than she’d intended.
Jasmine looked at her helplessly. ‘I don’t know, I guess because he’s my dad.’
‘Did you really know he was having an affair?’ Eva asked her. ‘Is that why you kept saying it, because you already knew?’
‘I wasn’t definite,’ Jasmine admitted, her face turning hot, ‘but I thought – I thought something might be going on.’
‘Why?’ Livvy prompted. ‘How come you saw it when the rest of us didn’t?’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ Jasmine explained, ‘but a few times I heard him talking to someone on his mobile phone, and the way he kept his voice low, or rang off quickly when he realised I was there …’ She looked suddenly anxious, almost afraid, as if she really did think they were going to blame her. ‘I didn’t want it to be true, I swear, I didn’t, and I still don’t know who it is …’
‘It’s my mother,’ Livvy broke in shrilly.
As Eva’s eyes closed, Jasmine’s jaw went slack.
‘Are you sure?’ Jasmine mumbled, looking at Eva.
‘Yes, we’re sure,’ Livvy stated. ‘It’s where he is now. I just left him there.’
Eva turned away, and realising her mistake Livvy quickly wrapped her in her arms again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, squeezing hard. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘It’s all right,’ Eva told her. ‘Where else would you expect him to be?’ She looked at Jasmine, and seeing how confused and upset she was, she said, ‘Why don’t you have some wine too?’
Going to fetch another glass, Livvy filled it and passed it to Jasmine.
‘If you think there’s anything I can do?’ Jasmine offered. ‘I mean, I can talk to him if you like …’
Pulling out a chair Eva sat down at the table, feeling another wave of shock and pain as she remembered it was where she’d been sittin
g when Don had told her he was leaving. Had that really happened, and only an hour ago? It seemed like a lifetime, another world, a dream.
Livvy and Jasmine sat down too, and for a while nobody spoke, afraid of saying the wrong thing and somehow making matters worse, if that were in any way possible.
Finally Livvy said, ‘Where are Rosie and Elvis?’
‘In their den,’ Eva answered. ‘You can let them out if you like.’
Going through the small passage that led to the odd couple’s inner sanctum, Livvy pushed open the door and was almost bowled over as they rushed to get to Eva.
‘Hello,’ Eva smiled, tears welling in her eyes as she patted their daft heads. ‘Horrid me, did I shut you away?’
Rosie’s soft nose went into her hand to give her a lick, while Elvis nudged her with his snout. After he’d done it for the fourth time, while jerking himself towards the bar, they all managed a laugh as, taking the hint, Jasmine went to fetch an apple from the fruit bowl and a chew for Rosie from the cupboard.
Still watching the odds munching away, Livvy said, ‘I called Dave on the way here to let him know I’d be staying the night, if you want me to.’
Eva smiled. ‘Thanks, but you don’t have to.’
‘I know, but I thought … Actually, Don rang me as I got here. He asked me to stay. He doesn’t want you to be on your own tonight.’
Wanting to run from the words, or scream at him that he should be here himself, not asking her niece to fill his place, Eva’s eyes went to Jasmine. ‘You can stay too, if you like,’ she said, ‘but I can’t promise you’re going to like what I have to say about your father.’
‘It’s OK, I don’t feel as though I like him very much myself at the moment,’ Jasmine replied.
Hating the reason for Jasmine’s words, Eva looked down at her hands and saw how badly they were shaking. The horror of it, the dread, the pain were coming over her again. He’d gone. He wasn’t coming back. Patty could no longer be in her life. She felt so alone, and afraid – so foolish, angry and filled with vengeance. She wanted to do something terrible to both of them, or to herself to punish them …
