The day held a melancholy note of finality, much as Emily tried to pretend it wasn’t the last time they’d eat lunch together, the last walk on the beach with sand spilling through their toes and the soothing whoosh of the ocean at their backs, the last road trip arguing over music choices, Kate’s feet propped on the dashboard.
She waited, lounging against a bench outside the shop while Kate went in to buy ice creams. The car park thronged around her with sun-weary people heading home after a long day at the beach. Towels and buckets and spades and other seaside debris were juggled and spilled; recalcitrant toddlers evaded grasping hands to run ahead on chubby, determined legs; a group of mooching teenage boys in baggy shorts carried a football and jostled each other, and a gaggle of girls with glossy hair and spindly legs pretended not to notice them, as they flipped their hair and laughed and passed their phones around; elderly couples sauntered along in wide-brimmed sun hats and slacks, bearing deckchairs and hampers and old-school beach paraphernalia. Emily watched this little slice of the world go by for a moment. She wished there were words to change Kate’s mind. She racked her brain for them but she couldn’t get past I’m sorry which clearly was inadequate. It came back, she thought, to Kate’s inability to accept anyone or anything that was imperfect. Including herself. In this, as in so much else, Lily had a great deal to answer for.
Or maybe it was just enough that Emily had kissed her best friend’s boyfriend, which everyone knew was a cardinal sin, and she deserved to be cast out of Kate’s life for it.
Picking at the remnants of her nail polish, she sighed and dialled her brother’s number.
Noah answered quickly. ‘Hey Em. Where are you?’
‘We’re at Sandyhills. We had lunch in Kipford and walked round the shore to Rockcliffe, then on here. Have you heard from Dan?’
‘Nope.’
‘Me neither. I wish the baby would hurry up. I’m so excited to meet it.’ This was only half the truth; she hoped it wouldn’t come yet, because the baby’s arrival meant Kate’s departure. And, also, a baby would be real and incontrovertible change in the way the bump had not; Emily was afraid of all those disquieting feelings she’d experienced around Abby and her growing pregnancy, scared of how they might come rushing to the fore and prevent her loving the child, show her most hideous face to the world. Jealousy had got her into such trouble before …
‘So, the stove arrived at the shop fine.’
‘Great, thank you, Noah. I’m sorry for dumping that on you as well. And I didn’t even think about the farm.’ She had been so preoccupied with making Kate linger just long enough to listen. For all the good it had done.
‘It’s fine, Niall from Stoneburn Farm came over to look after the place today. He and Dan had it all arranged. I’ll head over and give him a hand with milking, but …’ Emily could almost hear her brother’s casual, teenagey shrug. ‘It’s all under control.’
‘And Lena: is she OK? I thought she seemed off this morning.’
‘Yeah. She’s all right. I know what you mean, though. But we had lunch together and went for a walk this afternoon. It was nice. I don’t usually spend time just me and her. Is Kate OK?’
Emily watched Kate negotiate the steps from the shop and gracefully dodge the folk in her way, ice creams already dripping down one hand. ‘She’s fine. We’re on a pilgrimage of sorts. Revisiting all the old places we haven’t been back to yet. It’s nice.’ She was aware she sounded flat and hoped Noah wasn’t perspicacious enough to pick up on it. ‘If you’re OK holding the fort at Bluebell Bank, we might not be home until late.’ She thought about telling Noah the truth, but he’d be sure to take Kate’s side and he was too young to be balanced. Or maybe her sin really was that offensive and she’d just have to accept people’s condemnation for it for ever more. It would become part of her and it would define her.
Emily quickly took hold of her maudlin thoughts and gave herself a mental shake.
There was a casual pride in Noah’s voice at being left in charge. ‘No worries,’ he said. ‘I might catch up with Becca later on.’
‘I don’t think you should leave Lena alone,’ Emily objected, filled with a dull sense of foreboding she couldn’t quite explain. ‘Without Bracken she seems so lost.’
‘I won’t be gone long, Em. Don’t worry. Lena will be fine for an hour.’
‘OK. Maybe by the time we get home there will be baby news.’
‘I guess we’ll all go up to the hospital tomorrow to visit. Dan gave in and called Mum and Dad earlier and they’ve phoned me, like, five times this afternoon. They’re practically bursting.’
‘It’s a big deal,’ Emily said. ‘First grandchild.’
‘Yeah, I guess. I don’t see what all the fuss is about babies.’
‘Wait until you meet this one. I bet you’re smitten immediately. I can see you as a doting uncle.’
‘Hmm,’ Noah said doubtfully. ‘You think having a kid will mellow Dan out a bit? He and I still aren’t speaking.’
‘All that won’t matter once the baby is born,’ Emily said, playing confidence in this unborn baby’s role as peacemaker, righter of all wrongs, hoping she too would set eyes on it and be smitten, cured of her covetousness. Kate reached her, brandishing two cones and licking ice cream from her thumb. ‘Gotta go, Noah. See you later.’
‘Yeah, later, Ems.’
‘Everything all right?’ Kate swirled strawberry ice cream into a point with her tongue, catching the drips.
Emily tasted hers and nodded. ‘Fine. Noah’s pretending to be all laid-back about everything, but I can tell he’s happy being left in charge. And excited about the baby, though he won’t admit it.’
‘I’m excited about the baby too,’ Kate replied. ‘Though I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of Dan as a dad, can you?’
‘My nutty big brother? Of course not.’ Emily cast Kate an uncertain glance. ‘It is weird for you? I mean, if I found out Joe was married and having a kid …’
‘No, no. Nothing like that. Dan and I were never properly together. I mean, I’ll always care about him, but …’
‘But Abby doesn’t have to be worried.’
Kate stared. ‘No, Em. I told you, of course not.’
‘Didn’t it even cross your mind? I mean, love makes us do crazy things sometimes, doesn’t it?’ They began walking along the wooden decking back towards the sand. It was past five now and the beach was emptying: people heading back to holiday cottages and caravans for their tea. Emily liked the beach best in the evening. The sand was soft and cool; she kicked off her shoes and carried them in one hand, and Kate did the same, dangling her flip-flops. ‘So, we’ll stop at the chippie in Kirkcudbright on our way home? We’ll have worked up an appetite by the time we’ve walked back to the car.’
‘Sounds good, Em.’
Kate demolished the last of her ice cream in a bite and crunched the cone. There was a vague Luke-ache somewhere deep in her belly and now a hollow sort of feeling about Dan. ‘I suppose,’ she said, since Emily had been scrupulously honest with her about Luke – even the bits Kate didn’t really want to hear. ‘I suppose the thought crossed my mind. I mean, I always half thought of Dan as mine.’
‘He was yours. He’d have done anything for you. He didn’t stop pining for you until he met Abs. I didn’t know that was what was wrong with him of course, but it makes sense now. I knew he had a massive crush on you when we were kids but I never realised you reciprocated. He was a mess when you left’
‘Oh don’t say that.’ Kate didn’t like the responsibility of other people’s feelings. Far better to think that she had been easily forgotten when she slipped out of the Cotton orbit for all those years.
She thought of Luke again – her mind circling back to him. She’d have to call him and tie up loose ends. That was one thing: she wouldn’t flee leaving any uncertainty behind her. Regret, perhaps, but not uncertainty.
She’d tell him that it was over. Properly, definitively, for ever. She’d tell him she didn’t know where she was supposed to be and there was so much unfinished business between her and Lily …
No, she wouldn’t use her mother as an excuse; it might give him reason to hope. She’d tell him she didn’t love him.
But again, no; that would be a lie and she couldn’t leave on an untruth. She had feelings for him but it would never work because she couldn’t get past what happened with Emily. That was the truth.
Or, her feelings were the fond, old-flame sort and their relationship was best relegated to the realm of reminiscing. Not exactly true, but plausible.
She groaned inwardly; she hadn’t got a clue what she was going to tell him.
Then there were other loose ends to be tied: Dan, Lena, Noah.
Dan would be lost in new baby euphoria and would barely notice her departure, surely? She’d duck out of his life and leave him to be happy. What had happened between them – or not happened, or almost happened, she wasn’t sure – was a blip, a moment. The memory of old feelings tainting the present. A fleeting what-if. She was supremely glad it hadn’t amounted to more than that.
Noah she would stay in touch with, but she’d swear him to secrecy. She wanted to be there for him as he navigated the difficult choices ahead of him, and none of the Cottons really understood him.
Lena she would bid goodbye fondly, wondering if the other woman really knew who she was at all. It might be easier if she didn’t. It would be the most poignant farewell of the lot because it would be the last time she would ever see Lena.
But, wait; that implied she was keeping some part of her open to the possibility of a return to the rest of the Cottons at some point in the future. She needed to shut that down immediately and accept that when she left she left for good. A fresh start, reinventing herself again. She was good at that. Was the sense of freedom she felt liberating, or just terrifying? She couldn’t quite decide.
And then Lily. Maybe.
Choices. The summer was running out on her too fast. It was July and she’d expected to have another month at least; lately she’d even wondered if she’d be tempted into staying longer. Not now.
She had promised Emily she would stay for the bookshop launch but she wasn’t beholden to her promises any more.
For the briefest second she allowed herself to slip into a daydream of Luke, the two of them creating something wonderful and new together, despite the odds of distance and history so stacked against them. And she and Emily working side by side in the bookshop. Then she firmly shook her head to dispel the dream.
*
It was mostly dark. The harbour gleamed blackly in the lights. The car was cosy and the atmosphere soporific; Kate was full of fish and chips and fresh air, and she felt close to falling asleep, curled up in her seat while the radio played a meandering song, loose and acoustic. Emily’s eyes were open, but she was deep in thought, staring unseeingly into the distance.
At least you didn’t have children together. Kate’s words again.
She focused now on the dark shapes of boats bobbing in the harbour, trying to breathe, remembering the pale blue lines on the plastic strip, her heart’s wild leap of joy and Joe’s wide-eyed horror. A festival: long summer nights, music, dancing, cheap beer.
She turned to Kate. ‘I want to tell you something.’ Her voice was close to Kate’s ear. She curled herself towards Kate, mirroring her.
‘Mmm,’ Kate murmured, drowsy.
‘I want you to understand what made me run away and marry him. I know you’ve always wondered.’
‘It confused me,’ Kate admitted sleepily, her eyelids batting open with slow, heavy blinks. ‘Especially only a few months after An—’ She checked herself. ‘After he was unfaithful.’
‘It was simple. He asked me. I felt wanted, worthwhile. And … there was a baby. I was pregnant. I suppose I got carried away by this crazy idea of a family.’
Kate listened to the echoing depths of her silence. It throbbed like a heartbeat. Then her fingers wrapped around Emily’s. She stared at Emily, curled like a comma, foetal, vulnerable, and saw, for a split second, a completely different Emily: someone’s mother. ‘What happened?’ she whispered, in awe.
Emily’s smile was fleeting. ‘My dream lasted only hours. Until I told him. He wanted me to get rid of it. I refused. Days of arguments and recriminations; Joe said he just wanted to be married to me, wanted our lives to be carefree and fun. He didn’t want to be encumbered. And then … I lost the baby anyway.’
She remembered the aftermath: feeling bloodless and boneless and so terribly tired, unable to care for anything, least of all herself. She remembered a clinging fog of nothingness, where nothing mattered and she had just enough self-preservation to cling to Joe.
‘Do you see, Kate? I wasn’t acting entirely without thought when I married him. I was thinking of our baby. Our future.’ A baby who would be a person by now. A person who might have changed everything.
‘Em,’ Kate began.
‘You don’t have to feel sorry for me.’
‘But—’
‘I didn’t tell you to make you feel sorry for me, or so you would stay. I told you because I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us. And because I had to say the words to someone before Dan and Abby’s baby comes.’ She felt the surge of tears like the expectant swell of an orchestra before crescendo, felt them flow unfettered, releasing her from the terrible, long spell of silence, washing away the last vestiges of Joe and all her pent-up feelings of unworthiness. ‘I’ve been so terribly envious,’ she gasped through her sobs. ‘Every time I look at Abby I feel wretched, but I don’t want to feel that way. I want to love her baby. I want to be free of this.’
‘Oh, Em.’ Kate wrapped her arms around Emily and held her tightly. It felt like Emily’s sobs were too much for her, too much for the confines of the car to contain. They shuddered together with the violence of them.
Eventually, Emily quieted. She pulled out of Kate’s embrace and smiled wanly. Now the words were out she did indeed feel free. All those months of tight smiles and pretence and feeling like a horrible person for resenting Abby’s every twinge and tired smile.
She turned the key in the ignition. ‘We should go.’
‘I’ll drive,’ Kate said.
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not, but you will be. You’re strong, Em. But also completely mad. I don’t know how or why you kept all that to yourself. You must have felt like screaming half the time.’
‘Pretty much. But I unloaded enough on you whenever you walked through the door of my bookshop. I couldn’t land all that on you as well. I thought if I pretended it wasn’t real, the feelings would go away.’
They switched seats without getting out of the car, crawling over and under one another, tangling limbs. ‘And how did that work out for you?’
Emily grinned. ‘Not so well.’
‘Would you consider getting help? Counselling or something.’
Emily raised an eyebrow. ‘Would you?’
Kate smirked. ‘Fair point.’ She reversed Jasper out of the parking space. ‘Shall we go back? We can’t hang around all night on the off chance of a phone call from the hospital. Likely if the baby comes during the night they won’t want you to visit until the morning anyway.’
‘Us,’ Emily said.
‘What?’
‘Us, not me.’
Kate tried to imagine visiting the hospital, witnessing the intimacy between the three of them, thought of how close she and Dan had come to ruin … ‘No,’ she said, furrowing her brow. ‘I don’t think so.’
Emily was watching her closely. ‘You’re allowed to say it, you know.’
‘Say what?’
‘That you still have feelings for him. That it’s hard to see him happy with Abby.’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think I am allowed to say that. I don’t think I’m even allowed to think it.’ She cast a fleeting look at Emily in the passenger seat and in that second they seemed equally broken.