‘Yes,’ she said, finally. ‘She spoke to me.’
‘Before she spoke to me, before she told me she was leaving?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Tamsyn nodded. ‘A long time before. She had been thinking about leaving for ages. She loved you, Ruan, but she loved life, and she wanted so much of it. More of it than you could give her in Poldore. That was how she felt back then, on that day. She knew she had to tell you.’
Ruan was silent for a long moment, his fists clenched at his side, and Tamsyn felt something small and painful tearing inside her. She’d thought, she’d hoped that the pain of what had happened had faded for him now, that it wouldn’t matter so much, but obviously it did.
‘Look, now isn’t the time to think about Merryn,’ she said. ‘It won’t change anything.’
She stood, gathering up armfuls of dresses.
‘Don’t do this now,’ she said. ‘Alex loves you, so much. I barely know her, but it’s written all over her. And you didn’t love Merryn the way you love Alex. I see you two together and it makes me think … well, it makes me have faith. You two together, you make me believe.’
Tamsyn thought of Jed as she said the words, and the thought was followed by the strangest sensation, one that was almost like sadness and almost like joy and a sudden longing to be in the same room as him.
‘I know how much I love Alex,’ Ruan said. ‘I don’t need you to tell me that. I’d tear the world apart for her, and put it back together again, but … don’t you see, Tamsyn, in all the years since Merryn went, I’ve never known. I’ve never really understood what happened, and I know you know, otherwise … you wouldn’t have said what you said to me at her funeral; you wouldn’t have been so cruel. I’m begging you to tell me everything because I have to know. I have to know why I lost Merryn, because …’
‘Um.’ There was a cough, and Alex stood in the doorway. ‘I heard you were back, and I … well, I’d missed you.’
‘Alex,’ Ruan said. ‘That didn’t sound like – I wasn’t—’
‘OK. Well, I’ll be … somewhere else.’ She turned on her heel and fled, running down the narrow flight of stairs.
Ruan buried his head in his hands, and made a noise that was something between a growl and a groan and consisted of pure anguish. She had to tell him, Tamsyn knew.
‘She’s going to think I don’t love her,’ Ruan said. ‘She’s going to think she’s second best!’
‘And is she?’ Tamsyn asked him.
‘No, no, not at all. The way I feel about her, it’s the real thing. I thought I loved Merryn, I
did
love her. But not enough to want to let her go, to want her to be truly happy. I thought we were sorted for good: business, house and each other. That’s what I thought. I thought that we had each other, and that was enough. I loved her, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for Alex. But I have to know what went wrong so I don’t make the same mistake again, not with Alex.’
‘Then you need to go and make her believe that now,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Because if she’s calling off the wedding, then I don’t have to start dress designing and I might even get some sleep tonight.’
‘She’s not calling off the wedding,’ Ruan said.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Tamsyn asked him.
He thought for a moment, and then ran down the stairs after Alex.
Tamsyn bowed her head, pressing her lips against the top of Mo’s head and inhaling at the same time. It was funny how babies had this scent that made you feel as if everything in the world was worth the trouble of getting up in the morning, or in the middle of the night, or not actually going to sleep at all.
Castle House’s long dining room, with its impressive sixteenth-century windows that looked out over the town and then to the sea beyond, was one of the few original parts of the building, and a peaceful place. As Tamsyn stood there, waiting for Mo to do the decent thing and bring up some wind, she had a wonderful sensation of anticipation, the way that she always felt just before she was about to embark on creating something. It was a fleeting moment of perfect happiness, those rare few seconds of certainty that she had found her vocation in life. That was, of course, unless the bride told the groom where to shove his explanations, and then her vocation could be shelved again for the time being.
It was still light outside, but the threat of rain hung in a fully charged sky. The weather forecast had said there would be no more deluges, at least not for the foreseeable future, but it had warned of electrical storms, a sort of aftermath of the rain that had preceded it. And on the horizon Tamsyn could see lightning crackle with sudden flares and flashes over the ocean. She hoped it wasn’t a sign. Tamsyn had never normally been the sort of person who believed in signs; she believed that everything happened as a result of a random chain of events, but there was something about her stay in Poldore that felt, well, fateful.
It had been a busy couple of hours since Ruan had unwittingly put his foot in it with Alex, and Tamsyn hadn’t had a moment to catch up with either of them. The second she had come down to the dining room with her armfuls of old dresses, Jeff Dangerfield had been waiting for her to talk to the TV crew. A very orange young woman, with bright pink lipstick, had greeted her as she walked into the room, after Jed had taken Mo, whom Tess insisted wasn’t to make an appearance on TV.
‘Here she is, the hero of the hour,’ the woman smiled, offering Tamsyn a surprisingly limp handshake. ‘I’m Natalie Nixon.’
‘I’m not really a hero,’ Tamsyn said.
‘Yes you are, and just before we start, I wanted to let you know that the national news has picked this story up. It’s got that feel-good factor amid all the terrible doom and gloom, so you’ll be on the
News at Ten
!’
‘The feel-good factor?’ The phrase made Tamsyn feel deeply uncomfortable. ‘I thought this was about making an appeal to a mother who’s just given up her baby? I don’t suppose she feels very good.’
‘Well, it’s the coverage that might just reunite her with her child,’ Natalie said happily. ‘So we’ll just do a little bit about how and when you found her, and about the dog, if you don’t mind. We tried to get the dog to come and be in shot, but he seems a bit grumpy.’ She pulled the corners of her mouth down into an exaggerated pout, and then laughed. ‘Maybe we should have talked to his agent first! Anyway, people love an animal-hero story, so we’ll take some shots of him when he’s not looking and cut them in later. And if you could say how, if you’d been a moment later, she would probably have been horribly crushed to death, and then you can tell me any message you’ve got for the mother, got it?’
Tamsyn had wanted to turn around and run back out of the room, and go and join Buoy in his silent protest against a manipulative media, but this would probably be her only chance to try and reach out to Mo’s mother, even if she did happen to be the young girl who was hovering in the corridor outside, peering at what was going on from within the small group of strays who’d gathered to watch. Besides, it seemed like Natalie Nixon was in a hurry to get to her next appointment, where she would be interviewing an old lady who’d found a World War Two mine washed up in her garden. She answered Natalie’s rapid-fire questions as best she could, all the time thinking that she should probably have changed out of Cordelia’s little chiffon dress printed with a skull-and-crossbones pattern, and the safety-pin leggings, although into what she had no idea, and wondering if, on her debut appearance on national television, she would look mostly like an ageing and exhausted goth. Before she knew it, Natalie was nodding very seriously at her and saying, ‘And what message do you want give to little Mo’s missing – feared dead – mother?’
Tamsyn looked at Natalie, and then rather warily at the camera, and then back again at Natalie, and realised she didn’t know what to say. So she looked at the camera again and imagined Mo’s cross, crumpled little face and thought of the angry young woman she had been once, the girl who’d just lost her dad and didn’t understand why, the girl who just wanted to run away and forget. And she tried to talk to her. ‘Please, please get in touch,’ she said into the lens. ‘You probably think that life is just too difficult and that you can’t cope, and that it’s too late to go back. But I promise you, there are so many people who want to help you. Who want to make sure that you are well, and give you any care you might need. Most of all we want you and Mo together. Mo is just the nickname I gave her; she’s waiting for you to come and tell her what she is really called. Because only you know … and it’s never too late. It’s never too late to start again and make things right.’ Tamsyn hesitated for a moment and then looked back at Natalie.
‘Is that OK?’
‘That was amazing,’ Natalie said, with heartfelt sincerity. ‘But could you just do it again? Kevin said the sound was off.’
Tamsyn had been very glad to see the back of Natalie Nixon and her film crew. And after receiving word that the wedding wasn’t off, she found that working alone, or almost alone, in Sue’s dining room was the happiest and most content she had felt in a long time, a really long time, in fact. Even before she came to Poldore for the wedding. It had been an age since she had been the mistress of her own creative urges. Bernard guarded the creative control of his label so carefully, that during the time she’d spent working for him she had become adept in knowing exactly what he wanted a finished design to look like, which wasn’t something she begrudged. It was always the way of the apprentice. You had to learn from the master, pay your dues, wait for it to be your moment to spread your wings and fly free. Although it did rather feel like she’d been waiting a long time.
‘Hello.’ Alex appeared in the doorway, Buoy at her side. ‘Sue said you needed to see me?’
‘I do,’ Tamsyn said. ‘At least, I hope I do. My brother has explained himself to you, I understand?’
‘He …’ Alex faltered. ‘Well, he tried, and I want to understand, it’s just …’
‘It’s your time, and you thought that all he should be thinking about is you,’ Tamsyn finished for her matter-of-factly.
‘Yes, but that sounds awfully selfish, doesn’t it?’ Alex said unhappily, sitting down. ‘I think I’ve turned into a total “me, me, me” merchant, since I got engaged.’
Tamsyn’s laughter was genuine. ‘Oh darling, you have to come and visit me in Paris. You are positively Mother Teresa in comparison to some of the people I know.’
‘You think so?’ Alex looked dubious.
‘I do, and the thing is, he was only asking me about Merryn for your sake. Merryn was my best friend, you see. I knew more about her and what she was thinking than he did, especially at the end. You know how it is, women talk to each other, really talk. I think he’s just trying to understand what happened, and …’ Tamsyn hesitated, ‘the day we stood around her empty grave, I blamed him. I told him it was all his fault that she drowned. That he smothered her, trapped her, cornered her, and that she had no option but to run away from him, that he drove her to head out to sea in a boat that was too small, without any safety gears. I told him, in front of everyone, that he sent Merryn to her death, that it was his fault that he had lost her, that I had lost her.’
‘Oh my God,’ Alex said quietly, not in anger but as if she finally understood. ‘He said you two had fallen out, but he never said why. Not even Cordelia or your mum said anything. I suppose I thought he’d tell me when he was ready.’
‘I was hurt and sad and …’ Tamsyn couldn’t express the other words that crowded against the roof of her mouth, fighting to be spoken. ‘I lashed out at him, and because Ruan is Ruan, he took it to heart. It’s not an excuse, it’s not even a reason – it was just the way it happened. And I owe him an apology. More than that: an explanation. I’ve been putting it off, hiding from it, because I suppose so much of my life is so far away from here, and so far away from Merryn. When I think about her, it isn’t as if she is some lost soul. I think of her living the life she dreamt of, seeing the world, kissing all the boys, having the time of her life. Facing up to that day means I have to face up to having lost her, and … I’ve been too much of a coward to want to do that. I will talk to Ruan, I will make things right between us, I promise. But until I do, please know that that man loves you, with all of his heart and soul.’
Alex nodded. ‘I know you’re right. But it still hurts. I don’t want him to have loved anyone else. Even someone he loved before he ever met me, and that’s so stupid, isn’t it?’
Tamsyn thought for a moment, rubbing her cheek against Mo’s.
‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t really understand love.’
She thought of Bernard, whom she hadn’t thought of for days. Was that love? What did it mean to fall in love with someone. How did you know? She knew when she was near him: her heart raced, her body tingled, every moment they were working together was full of expectation and anticipation about the moments when they would not be working. But she also knew that as soon as she wasn’t in a room with Bernard, he didn’t think about her, unless it was to give her an order. Yes, the phone lines had been down and her mobile didn’t have a signal, but she knew that if she were able to miraculously check her voicemail, there would be no messages from him, or at least none that weren’t work-related. When they were together, it seemed like the whole universe was centred round the two of them, but when they were apart, those feelings didn’t linger. Could that be love? Was love the same for everyone?
‘I thought I was in love, before Ruan,’ Alex said. ‘With this guy Marcus. I thought I loved him for years and years, and I did, but in a brotherly sort of way, as it turned out. I just didn’t know enough to know what it was I was feeling. He’s married now. I’m a little bit scared of his wife, but they’re good together. Anyway, they’re supposed to be arriving with my dad and his partner tomorrow. Marcus is going to be an usher. I’m worried about him being an usher. He thinks it’s funny to rugby-tackle people he has never met. What if he rugby-tackles Ruan’s mum, or Jed? Oh my God, what if he rugby-tackles Jed? He would so do that. I need to phone his scary wife and make sure she terrifies him into behaving. I think I can get her to do that if I promise to sit her next to Riley Rivers at the reception.’