They collected sandwiches, a couple of cakes and some coffee from Millie Vanilla’s and found a spot on the harbour. There was a niche in the wall with a bench, sheltered from the breeze lifting off the sea and in the sun. A few tourists ambled past and the odd dog walker but, apart from the gulls wheeling overhead in a cotton-wool clouded sky, they were alone.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ Patrick observed.
‘I’ve been running with Emma. Quite enjoy it.’ His presence was still making her mute with shyness. She took a bite of her ham and mustard, squinting in the sun at the coastline on the opposite side of the bay. The October light was peerlessly clear.
‘I’d love you whatever you look like. You do know that, don’t you, Amy? My darlin’ girl.’
Amy put the sandwich down in shock. She swivelled to look at him properly for the first time. ‘You – you love me?’
‘Loved you from the first time I saw you chair the book group. The way you adore books and writers. Your stubbornness in getting some of the members to love reading as much as you do. I love the way you battle your natural reserve to get them in order. Like herding cats, I’ve always thought.’ He picked up her hand. ‘I love your goodness and honesty, your endless enthusiasm for that bookshop of yours.’
Amy’s jaw dropped open. She didn’t recognize this portrait of herself. ‘Is that how you see me?’ she breathed.
‘Ah and sure, that’s why I love you the most.’ Patrick’s eyes twinkled sea-blue. ‘You don’t know any of this about yourself.’ His expression closed. ‘But I know you and Lee have history. To my mind, he’s a bastard, so he is, for doing what he did. But if he’s what you want, then so be it. I’ll say my piece and get out of your life.’
‘He’s not, he’s not what I want,’ she said, tripping over her words in her haste to tell him. ‘Patrick, I don’t want him. I never want to see him again. Ever. He’s out of my life and I told him so on the night of the Slime Run. He only came back to Berecombe as he’s messed up in the navy.’
‘So there’s hope for me?’
‘More than hope!’ She flung herself at him, scattering sandwiches to the delight of a gull. It flew down and stole one. Amy and Patrick didn’t notice a thing. They were too busy kissing.
Patrick broke away first, breathing hard. ‘Never met a girl who could kiss like you.’ He ran a hand through her hair, gazing at her, wonderingly. ‘Better stop though. Remember I had some things to tell you? Are you ready?’
Amy nodded. ‘But first I want to say whatever it is won’t make a difference to us, to how I feel.’
He gave her a shuttered look. ‘Don’t be too sure about that. Eat your lunch while I talk.’ Suddenly he appeared nervous. ‘Can you eat one-handed? I need to hold the other one and I need to hold on tight.’
The gull returned, looked disappointed there was no more discarded food, cackled madly and soared high into the sky over the sea. Amy watched its flight, its legs tucked tidily against its fat belly. She returned her attention to Patrick. Now she was nervous too. ‘Of course,’ she said quietly, knowing she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing.
‘Ah sure, I don’t know where to start.’
‘At the beginning?’
He gave her a quick look, amused. ‘Right then. But I warn you, some bits aren’t pretty.’ He took a breath and launched in. ‘I met Sinead at university. Fell in love, made her my wife by the time we turned twenty-one. My mother loved her, her mother adored me. We married within the church.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Both virgins, can you believe? We married for better or worse, for life and, as I said those words before the Father, I believed in them, in God, in the everlasting afterlife. I was a good Catholic boy, y’ see. Brought up by a strict Catholic mammy. And I believed Sinead was the love of my life.’
‘What happened?’ Amy asked in a strangled whisper.
Patrick’s lips twisted. ‘She died.’
Amy gasped.
‘We had seven fine years. She got a job at the university for a while. I started writing. Got lucky. Got the first book published the year after we married. We didn’t have much, to be sure, but we were as happy as a body had the right.’
He stared out over the harbour. The tide was out and the boats moored there were keeled over at crazy, drunken angles. Amy was sure he wasn’t seeing any of them. She wondered, with a pang of jealousy, what Sinead had looked like.
‘When she was diagnosed, we moved back to Portmarnock to help out her Mum with the B&B she runs. Would commute back into Dublin for the chemo. I got close to Sinead’s mother. Still am. Still go to see her now and again. The good Lord didn’t even grant my darlin’ Sinead an easy death.’ He looked down, close to tears. Taking in a ragged breath, he said, ‘At least we were with her when she went. And, even at the very end and the poor girl was bloated with drugs and ravaged with pain, her spirit shone out. I’ve never met a finer, braver woman.’
There was silence, filled only by the cheep of a wagtail and the distant laugh of a child. Amy took in a lungful of salty, seaweedy air and waited for him to continue. There was more, she was sure of it.
She was right.
‘When she went, so did my faith. How could I believe in a God who would let a woman like Sinead suffer and die as she did? It made no sense and nothing anyone said to me did.’ He laughed, hard and short. ‘Turned out, this was the thing that my mammy couldn’t bear. She could watch a beautiful, talented, good woman like Sinead die without reaching her twenty-eighth birthday but she couldn’t face a son defecting from the faith. She never talked to me again.’ His hand tightened around Amy’s. He blew out a breath. ‘And I never talked to her again. And then she died and I didn’t go to the funeral.’
‘Oh.’
‘The truth was, I wasn’t invited. The evil cow put it in her will that I wasn’t to attend. I suppose I could have turned up but I didn’t want to put my sisters through it. Didn’t want to make a scene. Besides, it would mean going back to the church Sinead and I married in. And, call me a coward if you like but I couldn’t face that. Couldn’t face any of it.’
He shrugged carelessly but Amy sensed the pain behind it. The latest book had been autobiographic after all. She should have guessed. It radiated truthfulness. ‘You’ve got sisters?’ she asked inconsequentially.
‘Three. All older.’ He managed a weak smile.’ Could say that’s why I always get on with women best.’
‘Do you, are you…?’ Amy floundered.
‘Do we get on? Ah sure, it’s fine now. I don’t see them half as much as I’d like now I’m living in England but we’re making friends again.’ Again, the hold on her hand tightened. ‘I’d like you to meet them.’
‘I’d like that too,’ she said faintly.
‘I left the auld country the same year Sinead died. Came over to Exeter first, Joel Dillon got me some creative writing tutoring. When the books took off, I wanted out of the city so I came to Berecombe. Rent a house up on the hill. Belongs to Mike Love and Isadora Bart. Theatre folk. Do you know them? Friends of Millie’s, so I understand.’
Amy shook her head.
‘Well, the house is perched right up on the cliff. Amazing views and peace and quiet to write. Should be perfect.’
‘Should be?’
‘Only I can’t write. You see there’s this woman I can’t get out of my mind. She’s got hair like honey and eyes like the sky.’ He turned fully to her. ‘Amy, I didn’t think I’d ever love another woman but I love you. Do you think you could love me back, just a little?’