The Wife He Never Forgot

by Anne Fraser

  He looked at her for one slow moment. ‘I’m not going to let you give up on me, Tiggy, and I’m sure as hell not going to give up on you. We’ve been apart for too long.’

  She stumbled to her feet. ‘You’re fine now, Nick. I think it’s time you left.’

  ‘Left?’

  ‘Yes. Go back to the hotel. Go to Kate. Do whatever the hell you want to, but stay out of my life.’

  * * *

  Nick paced up and down the hotel room. He’d made a mess of it. But, then, had he really expected that it would be easy to win Tiggy back? She was right. If he was going to convince her that they were meant to be together, he needed to convince her first that he’d changed.

  But how the hell was he going to do that? A few weeks ago he’d had no one outside his work expecting anything from him. Now he had two women, both of whom were a handful. Kate he could do nothing about, except be there for her in a way he hadn’t been able to when she’d been a child, a fact that burned him up, and wait for her to learn she could rely on him. But Tiggy? How could he put that right?

  Then it came to him. Their marriage had broken down because he’d been unable to share his life with her, because he’d treated her as someone who’d needed to be protected. He’d thought he’d been doing the best for her, but hadn’t she made it clear to him that that was the very thing she couldn’t bear?

  She wasn’t the woman he’d married—she was so much more than that. She was strong, feisty and independent, and he loved her. And whatever she said, she loved him. But would she continue to love him when she knew everything there was to know about him?

  There was only one way to find out. He picked up his mobile. It was time to call in a few favours.

  * * *

  Not for the first time Tiggy wondered if she was crazy. Nick had turned up at her door and insisted that she pack for a night away. When she’d tried to protest, he’d threatened to pack for her and to throw her in the back of the car along with her belongings.

  ‘I’ve checked with the ward,’ he said. ‘You’re not due on duty for a couple of days. I promise to have you back in plenty of time for your shift. Now, let me have your passport.’

  Bewildered, Tiggy did as she was asked.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they headed north.

  ‘I want to show you the place I spent my childhood.’

  Tiggy was astounded. When they’d been married, she’d suggested several times that they visit Nick’s old home in Ireland. But Nick had always refused, saying there was nothing in Ireland he cared to revisit. Eventually she’d stopped asking.

  They took a flight to Dublin, where Nick had arranged for a hire car and from there they headed south.

  ‘You should have asked Kate if she wanted to come,’ Tiggy said. ‘I’m sure she would have been interested.’

  ‘Kate can come another time,’ Nick said. ‘Besides, she has plans for the next couple of days.’

  The grim line of his mouth told Tiggy he wasn’t pleased about something.

  ‘You two haven’t had a disagreement?’

  ‘No, not exactly. It’s just...’

  ‘Just...?’ Tiggy prompted.

  ‘Oh, hell. It’s Luke. My so-called doctor. I can’t help but notice the way he’s been looking at Kate. And I’d guess by the way she’s behaving around him, she’s not immune either.’

  Tiggy hid a smile. Who would have thought? Nick acting the part of the concerned father. Except, judging by his expression, this was no act.

  ‘So what’s the problem? Luke’s lovely, and Kate is clearly well able to take care of herself. She’s not that much younger than I was when you went after me.’

  ‘That was different,’ Nick growled.

  ‘And how exactly was it different?’

  ‘Luke can’t be taken seriously. I know stuff about his past I wish I didn’t know—stuff that makes him a bad choice for Kate. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s a womaniser. You only have to see the way the nurses behave around him to know he has a reputation.’

  This time Tiggy did laugh. ‘And you were a saint when I met you? Do I need to tell you that I was warned off you the same way you want to warn off Kate? Trust me, Nick, don’t even attempt it. Kate strikes me as a woman who can take care of herself. Just as I was,’ she added softly.

  ‘Sue was right, though, wasn’t she? Perhaps you would have been better off if we’d never met.’

  ‘Let’s not go down that road again, Nick.’ She gazed out of the window at the lush rolling hills. ‘I wouldn’t change a second of the time we had together, not even if it meant not having the pain.’

  Nick didn’t reply but his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  * * *

  Some time later Nick stopped the car at the top of a field just past a small village. The sun was sinking in the sky but at this time of year there were a couple of hours yet before it got dark.

  ‘You lived in a field?’ Tiggy asked with a smile. Without waiting for him to reply, she opened the door and stepped out of the car. The air was like liquid oxygen after London and she breathed deeply. In the distance smoke curled from a farmhouse chimney and in the fields nearby a flock of sheep grazed contentedly.

  ‘That was where I was brought up.’ Nick pointed to the farmhouse.

  ‘But it’s beautiful!’ she said honestly. ‘How can anyone not love it here?’

  Nick shook his head. ‘You see what you want to see : an idyllic-looking farmhouse that you imagine is filled with love and laughter. It wasn’t like that for me.’ He took her by the hand. ‘Come with me.’

  She let him lead her down a narrow track. ‘We owned the farmhouse. When my father died, Mum and I tried to carry on. I was eight. It didn’t matter at first that I couldn’t really help as there were others to do the outside work—farmworkers my father employed. We could have managed—if my mother hadn’t fallen to pieces.’

  He stopped by a flat rock and without saying anything they sat down.

  ‘What happened?’ Tiggy asked.

  ‘She started drinking. She became depressed. To be honest, I don’t know which came first. All I know is that the mother I loved turned into someone I didn’t recognise. I would come home from school to find that she hadn’t shopped, let alone cooked. It was obvious that she’d spent most of the day in bed. I got to know the smell of mints pretty well.’

  Tiggy closed her eyes. She could see Nick as a boy. Worse, she could feel that child’s anger, bewilderment and hurt.

  ‘I tried to look after her and the farm. Eventually the men who helped on the farm drifted away. I suspect Mum stopped paying them. One or two of their wives came to try and talk some sense into her but it was no use. I kept on trying. I cleaned and cooked as best I could—if you call tins of beans and bowls of cereal cooking. I milked the cows, cleaned out the barns, but it was no use. There was too much for a boy to do. I knew there wouldn’t be enough hay to feed the cows in the winter but I also knew there was no money to buy any.

  ‘I tried to speak to Mum. I begged her to get help. I pleaded, I shouted, I told her Dad would be ashamed to see the farm in such a state, but nothing got through to her.’

  ‘Didn’t the school try to help?’

  ‘They tried to talk to me. I was falling behind with my schoolwork and falling asleep at my desk. But I wouldn’t tell them about Mum. I was scared they would take me away. I kept on hoping that one day she would get up and be the mother she’d been before.’

  He stared off into the distance and Tiggy reached for his hand.

  ‘In the end we had to sell all the livestock. But still we struggled on. Until finally the bank foreclosed. We had to sell. And at a knock-down price. I persuaded Mum to keep the barn—that building over there.’ He pointed to a ramshackle building about a hundred metres from the farmhouse. ‘There was just about enough left over from the sale to make it habitable.’

  Tiggy blinked. The building he was pointing to was tiny. Surely it wasn’t big enough
for two people to live in it?

  ‘I fixed it up as best I could and we managed. Somehow. Then, when I was sixteen, Mum died.’

  He swallowed.

  ‘Oh, Nick. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’

  ‘Because I was ashamed. I couldn’t save the farm and I couldn’t save my mother. I began to wonder if there was anything I could do.’

  ‘You were a child!’

  ‘I didn’t feel like a child. I felt I had let them down. Mum and Dad. Dad would have expected me to look after Mum.’

  ‘What did you do then?’ Tiggy asked.

  ‘I could have gone into care, but I didn’t want that and as I was sixteen they couldn’t make me. I made up my mind I would be a doctor. Perhaps then I could do some good. My grades in school were rubbish but I had two years left to sit exams that would get me into university. When I wasn’t at school I spent every spare minute at the library.’

  He smiled. ‘At least it was warm there. I managed to get a job at the local hospital as a night porter when I was seventeen, although I made myself a year older on my application. At nights when I wasn’t working I was in the hospital library, learning anything and everything I could find in medical textbooks. One advantage: I learned to do without sleep. I passed my exams—all A stars—and applied to medical school. Edinburgh accepted me.

  ‘It was still impossible financially so I joined the army as a cadet as a way of funding myself through medical school. Turned out it was the best decision of my life. I loved the army. After my chaotic upbringing I liked the order: the way meals were at certain times; the way there was a time and a place for everything. And years of working on the farm had left me strong and so I thrived on the physical challenges of being in the army.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I knew I had come home.’

  * * *

  It explained so much, but why hadn’t he told her this before? She would never have given up on him had she known.

  ‘Would you like to see the barn?’ he asked.

  ‘Won’t the owners object?’

  ‘I checked. They’re away for a few days but they said to help myself. They use the barn as a self-catering rental during the summer.’

  They walked hand in hand down the track until they came to the door of the house. Nick bent and retrieved the key from under a stone. He grinned and suddenly the sadness left his eyes. ‘Exactly where I used to leave it.’

  He unlocked the door and stepped aside to allow Tiggy to go in before him. The little house was dark, the only light coming from two small windows, and it took her eyes a few moments to adjust. There was an open fireplace in one thick wall with a couple of chairs in front of it, a small kitchen to the side and a double bed against the other wall, taking up most of the remainder of the space. Cosy for a weekend retreat, but for two people to live?

  ‘There was a sofa where the chairs are now,’ Nick said. ‘It doubled up as my bed. Until Mum died. ‘

  He glanced around the room. ‘Mum had her bed where this one is now and I put up a curtain for her so she could have some privacy. As it was only a single, it left some space for my desk.’

  He pointed to the fireplace. ‘Mum did have her good days, especially in the beginning. Sometimes we used to toast marshmallows over the fire and she would tell me about her childhood. She came from Belfast. Sadly her parents wanted nothing to do with her when she married a man from the south.’ He rubbed his hand across his forehead. ‘I think that’s enough reminiscing for a moment. How do you feel about staying here tonight? I could light a fire.’

  ‘Can you bear to stay here with all its memories?’

  He breathed deeply. ‘You know, Tiggy, I’m glad I came. All my life I’ve been dreaming of this house, and those dreams haven’t been pleasant. But it doesn’t look anything like it used to.’

  Tiggy couldn’t bear it any longer. She crossed over to Nick and wound her arms around his neck.

  ‘Come, my darling,’ she said. ‘I think we should lay these ghosts to rest for once and for all.’

  Later, when they’d had their fill of one another and were lying in each other’s arms, Tiggy looked up at Nick. Whatever she tried to tell herself, she knew she was where she needed to be.

  * * *

  The morning sun and the smell of frying bacon woke Tiggy to a new day.

  Nick, wearing only a pair of jeans, was at the cooker, fighting with the bacon, which appeared ready to go up in smoke. Tiggy leaped from the bed, rescued the bacon and retrieved the toast, which was threatening to go the same way. ‘You know, for a man with a hero’s reputation you’re pretty useless in the kitchen. I’m surprised you didn’t starve as a boy!’

  Nick stood back. ‘Give me complicated surgery any time.’

  After breakfast they tidied the house and left the key under the stone. On their way back to the airport, Nick pulled up alongside a church on the outskirts of a village.

  ‘This is where I was christened,’ he said. ‘And where my parents are buried.’

  ‘Shall we see if we can find their graves?’ Tiggy asked.

  ‘I know exactly where they are.’

  He led her through the gate and to the side of the church, before coming to stop in front of a simple stone engraved with the names and dates of Eleanor and Jack Casey.

  ‘I couldn’t afford a separate stone for my mother at the time,’ Nick said softly.

  Tiggy reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘You did everything you could for her. It wasn’t within your power to save her.’

  ‘I know. At least, I know that now.’

  ‘Shall we go inside?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘If you like. There’s not much to see.’

  The church was small but had the most exquisite stained-glass windows. It was more beautiful to Tiggy than any cathedral. She sat in the front pew and let the peace wash over her.

  Nick sat next to her. ‘Maybe one day we can renew our vows here? Start over again?’

  She imagined Nick as a baby, being christened at the altar, being brought up on the farm as happy as a pig in clover, then his life going so badly wrong. She could understand him now. She could even understand why their marriage hadn’t survived. But a little piece of her still wondered if it was too late for them.

  ‘With a baby?’ she asked tentatively. ‘In time?’

  Nick took her by the hands. ‘I’m not sure I can be the kind of father I want to be, and I still need to get my head around the fact I already have a daughter.’ He folded his fingers around hers. ‘But if it’s what you want...’

  His reply wasn’t good enough. She needed him to want this baby as much as she did.

  ‘Let’s wait and see, Nick.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A FEW DAYS after they returned to London, Tiggy received a phone call from Alice.

  ‘Please, can you take them for the night?’ she begged as soon as pleasantries were over. ‘Charlie’s on long haul and my mother’s feeling poorly. I would take the twins with me but you know what a handful they can be. Your mother has something on she can’t get out of and your dad finds it difficult to cope with them on his own. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I know you have a lot on your plate, what with Nick and everything.’ She dropped her voice. ‘How’s that going, by the way?’

  ‘Of course I’ll take the twins,’ Tiggy reassured her, ignoring the question. The truth was she didn’t know how she and Nick were doing. Since they’d returned from Ireland they’d resumed their earlier routine without returning to the topic of the future. ‘I haven’t seen Chrissie and Melody for ages. I’ve missed them.’

  ‘You’ve probably forgotten what a handful they can be,’ Alice replied dryly. ‘But thanks, Tiggy. I owe you.’

  They arranged that Alice would drop the girls off on her way to her mother’s in an hour.

  Nick wandered into the kitchen to wash his hands. He’d bought an old Harley-Davidson and was restoring it. He’d go mad, he’d said, if he didn’t have something to do. Although he’d
passed his medical, he was still on leave until he’d been assessed by the army doctors. He looked so sexy in his T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, his faded jeans and a smear of grease up one arm.

  ‘You don’t fancy holding the tools for me while I work?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry. No can do. Twin invasion on the horizon.’

  ‘Perhaps they could hold the tools?’

  Tiggy laughed. ‘Nick, they’re four years old!’

  Nick wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. ‘Do we have time to slip upstairs before they arrive?’

  ‘We most certainly do not.’ But when Nick continued trailing kisses down her neck, her knees went weak. ‘Perhaps if we’re quick?’

  They only just managed to shower and dress before the twins arrived. The little girls ran into the house like two miniature tornadoes. ‘Aunty Tiggy! Uncle Nick! We want to go to Hamleys. Mummy says if we ask nicely you might take us. Please say yes!’

  Tiggy sighed. A visit to the toy superstore wasn’t her first choice of a day out. But when the girls looked at Nick with their butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth expressions, he immediately agreed.

  ‘What is Hamleys anyway?’ he asked Tiggy as the girls did a victory dance around the kitchen.

  ‘Looks like you’re about to find out.’

  Nick looked through the kitchen window, towards his bike, which was waiting in the driveway. A tortured look crossed his face. ‘I guess the bike can wait. Lead me to this place—whatever it is.’

  * * *

  ‘It’s a toy store!’ Nick said, sounding aghast as Tiggy hurried inside after the excited twins. He whistled under his breath. ‘Good God, it’s the size of a multi-storey car park.’

  Melody and Chrissie were tugging at Tiggy’s arms. ‘Come on, Aunty Tiggy,’ Melody pleaded. ‘I want to see the doll’s house.’

  Chrissie’s mouth settled into a line that didn’t bode well. ‘I want to see the fairy-tale stuff.’

  Tiggy turned to a still shell-shocked-looking Nick. ‘I don’t suppose...’

  Nick sent her the ghost of a smile. ‘I’ll take one, you take the other.’ He picked Chrissie up and tossed her into the air. She sent him a look that would have cowed lesser men. ‘Please, put me down, Uncle Nick. I’m not a baby.’