‘Well,’ she said, to a stray raven that was sitting uncomfortably on the iron railings, looking as if it was wondering where its tree had gone. ‘Remember when we said we would never come back to this place? Well, I’m back, Merryn. Imagine how much you would laugh at me now if you were here. I’ll always miss you, my darling.’
The raven squawked and flew off into the sky to find another tree to roost in, and Tamsyn took one last moment to look back out towards the sea, moved by the certainty that anything could be possible if she was prepared to work hard for it, and then made her way towards The Poldore Hall Hotel to celebrate her beloved brother’s wedding and, as her youngest sister put it, get ratted.
The twins were demon dancers, and for some reason had decided that it was their Aunty Tamsyn they wanted most to dance with, perhaps because she had been preoccupied for the last few days with someone else’s baby, and finally they had her to themselves, which seemed a less terrible prospect to Tamsyn, especially after she had had four glasses of champagne.
‘We want you to twirl around and around and clap your hands,’ Joe instructed her over the noise of the band.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, I shall do no such thing,’ Tamsyn said, complying at once, following each extra outlandish dance move with the trademark mixture of defiance and obedience that they enjoyed, and discovering that she was actually quite good at the moonwalk.
‘And now hop like a kangaroo,’ Jamie told her.
‘Over my dead body,’ Tamsyn said as she did just that.
Before she knew it, Alex’s very tall ginger friend, Marcus, had swept her into his arms and was whirling her around until both of them were giggling like loons, until she caught the eye of a very tanned woman, in a very small dress, who seemed to be sharpening her talons as she watched them.
‘If that’s your wife, I think you should go to her,’ Tamsyn told Marcus breathlessly. ‘I’m too young to die.’
Chuckling to herself, Tamsyn found her way out of the party and into the cool of the foyer. She smiled as an older lady, a guest at the hotel, came in, accompanied by a cab driver who was carrying her bag for her. She made her way to an open door that led out onto a veranda and breathed in the perfect view. How could she ever have believed that anywhere else in the world could be a better place to be than this place?
‘You clocking off now?’ she heard the receptionist ask the cabby.
‘No, love, I got a pickup in half an hour, taking the vicar to the train station.’
Tamsyn turned on her heel and looked at him. He was the same cabby who had brought her here that first night.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘It’s me, do you remember? Back for my brother’s wedding?’
He blinked at her.
‘I had straight hair, and a really great case,’ she prompted him.
‘Oh yes, nice to see you,’ he said, a little uncertain as to why she was pestering him.
‘That vicar, is that Reverend Hayward, by any chance?’ Tamsyn asked him.
‘That’s the feller,’ the cabby said.
‘Only he told me to tell you he’s cancelling the cab.’
‘Well, he should phone the office. They’ll radio it through,’ he said.
‘Yes, but he didn’t. He told me to tell you,’ Tamsyn nodded emphatically. ‘“You tell that taxi driver, I don’t need that cab any more”, he said.’
‘But how did he know you’d see me to tell me?’ the cabby persisted.
‘I don’t know. Who are you, Sherlock?’ Tamsyn flung her arms wide.
‘I’ll be back here to pick him up in thirty minutes,’ the cabby told her, eyeing her warily. ‘Looks like he’s got a good reason to leg it from where I’m standing.’
‘What?’ Tamsyn asked the receptionist, who just happened to be the very same one that had seen her spectacular goodbye to Bernard. ‘I’m only trying to help the man! That cab is getting cancelled one way or another.’
The rectory already looked abandoned, and if it hadn’t been for the light in the upstairs window Tamsyn would have thought that she had somehow missed Jed. She pulled on the rather old-fashioned-looking doorbell, which didn’t seem to ring, and banged on the door a few times too for good measure, but there was no reply. Perhaps he’d snuck a look out of the window. Maybe he knew she was here and was hiding in a wardrobe, hoping she would just go away. Tamsyn paced up and down the hill four or five times while she thought through was she was going to do.
‘No, you can’t do that,’ she told herself. ‘That is mental … Yes, but time is running out,’ she answered herself. ‘What if this is your only chance to have what Alex and Ruan have?’ She paced some more. ‘There’s a really big difference between a romantic gesture and the sort of behaviour that results in a restraining order. You’re a role model now; think of Kirsten. Think of Mo, how’s she going to feel, getting to know her adopted aunty from the other side of prison bars.’ She let out a heavy sigh. ‘Oh, sod it, what have I got to lose, apart from all self-worth, dignity and possibly my freedom?’
And with her mind made up, Tamsyn used some skills she had learnt as a younger woman and broke in through Jed’s back door.
The downstairs of the house was in darkness and completely quiet. Tamsyn slipped off her shoes and padded across the polished wooden floor to the base of the stairs.
‘Hello?’ she called out softly, reasoning that a person who introduced themselves couldn’t possibly be legally accused of intruding. ‘Hello?’
Well, it was hardly her fault if he didn’t answer her then, was it?
Tension shot through her chest and shoulders as she crept up the stairs, desperately trying to rationalise exactly what it was that she was doing. What
was
she doing? What on earth did she hope to achieve by surprising Jed in this way?
She pushed open the door to his bedroom. The walls now were bare of even the few photos that had been tacked to them and the posters were gone. His desk was cleared and the bed stripped, and leaning against the wall was a large, military-style backpack. There was a change of clothes neatly folded on the bed. And in that moment, Tamsyn knew why she was behaving like such an out-and-out lunatic.
Jed could not leave Poldore, the place that had taken him to its heart and made him feel at home, because of her. She wouldn’t let him.
Walking out into the hallway, she heard the shower running in the bathroom. Taking a breath, Tamsyn knocked on the door. She knocked twice, but there was no response, and then the sound of the water stilled.
‘Hello? Is there someone there?’
‘It’s me,’ Tamsyn called through the door, ‘Tamsyn. I knocked but there was no answer, and the back door was open. Sort of.’
‘Tamsyn? I’m in the shower.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. But you’re leaving in, like, fifteen minutes and I … I have to see you. It’s OK, I’ll wait for you to come out of the shower.’
There was a silence, and then Jed said, ‘I packed my towel.’
Tamsyn pressed her hands over her mouth and closed her eyes, opening them again quickly when she discovered the image of a glistening, golden, naked vicar waiting behind them.
‘I’ll get it for you,’ she called. ‘Is it in your backpack?’
‘Yes,’ he answered, his discomfort evident in his tone.
It only took Tamsyn a few seconds to retrieve the towel.
‘Are you …?’
‘I’m behind the shower curtain,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not see-through.’
‘I once oversaw a photo shoot of twenty male models who were all naked except for their hats,’ Tamsyn told him.
‘Are you deliberately trying to make me feel inadequate?’ Jed asked her as she pushed open the door into the steam-filled room.
‘No; all I’m saying is that I have seen it all before,’ Tamsyn said, ‘lots of times. That didn’t come out quite how I wanted it to.’
Jed’s hand appeared from the other side of the shower curtain.
‘Give me the towel, please.’
‘No,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Not yet. Not until you’ve heard what I’ve got to say.’
‘Tamsyn,’ Jed said. ‘I think we’ve said everything, haven’t we?’
‘No, not everything,’ Tamsyn said. ‘I’m a Thorne, and we’ve never finished saying anything. We’re famous for being able to go on and on for as long as it takes.’
‘Tamsyn, you’re such a wonderful …’
‘Please don’t give me that speech again,’ Tamsyn took a few steps nearer to the shower. She could see the outline of his naked form on the other side of the curtain, hear his breathing.
‘This isn’t about the way I feel about you,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Even I don’t understand the way I feel about you yet, or why it is I seem to have fallen so completely in love with a man that I barely know … I expect it’s probably hormones, or food poisoning or something. I’m sure it will blow over, eventually. This is about you: Jed, don’t go. You don’t have to go, just because people know about your past now. You’re the only person who seems to think that any of that matters.’
‘This town deserves a better, stronger vicar than me.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Well, it does, but only because it’s got the best vicar it can possibly have. It’s got a person who is willing to live at the heart of a community and care about everyone in it. I wish you had been in yesterday when everyone came round to tell you how much they care about you.’
‘That sounds a bit like a lynching. Did they have torches and pitchforks?’ Jed said drily. ‘Please let me have that towel, I’m starting to get a bit cold.’
‘No, not until you tell me, honestly. Do you really want to go?’
She heard a long sigh from the other side of the curtain and took another step towards it. Now only a few inches, and a plastic sheet with ducks printed on it, separated her from him. Could he feel her longing for him she wondered, seeping into the steam that found its way through the gaps in the curtain?
‘No,’ Jed said. ‘I don’t want to go, of course I don’t. But life isn’t about what you want. It’s about what’s right.’
‘It’s also about what’s right for you – and this place is the best thing for you,’ Tamsyn said. ‘You’ve been happy here – and well. And Jed, if you’re leaving because you’re worried that I am going to harass you constantly with my schoolgirl crush, then …’ Tamsyn grimaced on her side of the curtain. ‘Well, I know the fact that I’ve just broken into your house and am currently holding you hostage, naked in your shower, doesn’t look good, but I promise I won’t do that again. In fact, if it means you’ll stay, I will go. I can find somewhere else to make wedding dresses. Gretna Green, maybe. Alaska.’
Jed said something from behind the curtain that Tamsyn didn’t catch.
‘Pardon?’ she said.
‘I said, I don’t want you to go. Please don’t go.’
‘But I know that what happened between us makes you uncomfortable, and I don’t want to ruin things for you. I know you don’t have those sorts of feeling for me, and it’s OK, it’s not the first time a man hasn’t fancied me. I don’t even blame you. I’ve looked like a knackered toilet brush for most of my visit here, and …’
‘Tamsyn, shut up.’ Jed pulled aside the shower curtain, just enough to reveal his face, and muscular shoulders beaded with water, shining like jewels on his skin.
‘Sorry,’ she managed to say.
‘I do like you,’ he said. ‘I do desire you, I do want you, I do think about that kiss, all of the time. I do. But how can we be together? You’re you and I’m me, and we don’t fit, Tamsyn.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ she said, taking a step closer to him. Her hand trembled as she reached out and touched his cheek. ‘I seem to remember our lips fitting together pretty well, and I remember how our bodies filled in all the spaces between us. It felt pretty much like a perfect fit.’
Jed closed his eyes, his hand that wasn’t securing his modesty covering hers. ‘Tamsyn, don’t.’
‘I can’t help it, though,’ her voice was thick with emotion. ‘I don’t even know why.’ She stood on her tiptoes, resting one of her palms against his damp shoulder, looking into his silver eyes, and kissed him, not gently, or demurely, but with all the hunger and longing that seemed to be building like a flood behind a dam, in her chest. And for a few wonderful, heady, perfect seconds Jed kissed her back, before breaking the kiss.
‘Please, don’t,’ he whispered.
‘Why not?’ Tamsyn asked him. ‘You are allowed to be happy, you know; you are allowed to have someone.’
‘But could I have you?’ Jed took his hand from hers. ‘You don’t even believe in God, Tamsyn.’
‘I-I believe in you,’ she replied hotly. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘Even so, can you really see yourself at my side for the rest of your life? Can you see yourself as a vicar’s wife, hosting the fairs, and being at every service? Don’t you see, Tamsyn? That’s the reason I can’t let myself fall for you. Because when I do, it will be for ever, and I can’t lose you. So if you can’t promise me you’re for ever, right now, right here, then please, just go.’
Tamsyn took a step back from him: everything he had just said was everything she had wanted to hear, and yet … for ever seemed like a very long time. The last time Tamsyn had decided to dedicate her life to something she had once been just as passionate and committed to, she’d discovered she’d been making a mistake. What if loving Jed meant messing up the life he had here, the life he loved so much? And she didn’t suppose his bosses would take too kindly to the vicar’s wife being an agnostic with more faith in the benefits of a good lipstick than the Man Upstairs.
‘Don’t leave Poldore,’ Tamsyn said, handing him the towel. ‘Please don’t go. This place needs you. Promise me that you won’t leave.’
‘Does that mean you can’t promise me for ever?’ Jed asked her.
‘I’m not sure that I know how to.’ The words caught in Tamsyn’s throat. ‘Are you staying?’
‘I’m staying,’ Jed said. ‘I’m staying for you, because maybe one day I hope you will look at me, and you will think that for ever is possible.’
Sadly, Tamsyn handed him the towel and left the room, walking into the cool air of the bedroom. She heard Jed coming out from the bathroom, heard his bare feet on the floorboards behind her and closed her eyes, and he put his arms around her. Turning to face him, she buried her face in his neck.
‘So if I can’t believe in God, and you can’t believe that love is enough, then I suppose this has to be goodbye, doesn’t it? But just between us, being this way. Not to the town, not to your life.’