‘If he went to the trouble of finding you that beautiful ring, and asking us for your hand then I know he’ll come round. Don’t cry, darlin’.’ Mari was close to tears herself.
‘Will he? If I hadn’t interfered and kept secrets… If I’d just talked to him we’d be engaged, but now he’s on airplane mode above the Atlantic and he won’t be back in Stratford ’til Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait that long to see him.’
‘Have you spoken at all yet?’ Kelsey knew Mari was holding it together but there was a distinct wobble in her voice.
‘No, he texted when he was about to board the plane, saying he needed time to think. Think about what? I don’t know. His dad being Wagstaff? Or proposing to me? And now I’ve got to break it to Blythe. She has grandkids too, surely they deserve to know they’ve a secret uncle, right? Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Why don’t you sleep on it and go and talk to her in the morning, tell the truth, and Blythe can decide what’s best for her own family.’
After a lot more consoling Mari finally wished her daughter goodnight, and Kelsey lay down, still dressed, upon her little white bed, clutching the velvet box which had until this afternoon contained all Jonathan’s hopes and dreams for their future life together.
He’d wanted her for his wife, and she’d been too self-absorbed to know it was coming.If onlyshe’d been focusing on Jonathan’s feelings like he always had hers in mind; instead she’d been distracted by the idea of him reuniting with a wayward, uncaring father who had never even held him as a baby, when in reality he already had a loving dad.
Deep down, she knew Jonathan was right. The search for Wagstaffhadbeen about her all along. She didn’t have any dads at all, and the idea of being presented with two had overwhelmed her.Imagine that, she’d thought.Two fathers to love! Two dads to adore him!Her judgement had been thrown off by her own desires and her overactive imagination, and now Jonathan was hurt, betrayed… and gone.
She cried herself to sleep that night, her phone and the engagement ring clasped in her hands.
The sapphires shone in the light from Blythe’s pink tasselled standard lamp as the actress inspected the ring.
‘Nothing? You’ve got no advice for me?’ said Kelsey, her eyes red from crying away a sleepless night.
‘No, dear.’ Blythe shook her head with the smiling air of a mystic sage about her.
‘But, you’re so good with advice normally; “wow your bloke”, “grab the spotlight”, but now you’ve got nothing?’
‘Never, ever pluck your eyebrows?’ Blythe asked solemnly.
‘Thanks.’ Kelsey slumped on the little stool at Blythe’s feet.
‘Always moisturise your neck?’ Failing to get a rise out of her young friend, Blythe took a different tack. She motioned for Kelsey to lean close to her and gently pulled her head onto her lap. ‘You don’t need advice, darling. You simply need a bit of cherishing.’ She raked her fingers across the baby hairs around Kelsey’s temple.
‘Oh, I’ve spoiled everything. Then there’s Mirren. I was the one that told her to go hunting for clues and then last night when she’d told us all what she’d found I chucked her out!’
‘You should have asked me in the first place,’ Blythe said.
Kelsey tensed as the thought struck her. ‘You didn’t look very surprised just now when I told you Wagstaff is Jonathan’s dad.’
‘I wasn’t. I knew the minute I saw him on Christmas Eve. Like twins, they were. I thought I’d had one too many gin jam scones and finally flipped my wig. There he was, John Wagstaff, standing in mysalon, transformed from his baggy old self into the handsome boy he used to be.’
‘I’m sorry. I should never have let that happen. I know that you used to know him, back then, and that he spoiled your career by falling off the stage drunk and… obviously what happened with your baby and everything.’
Blythe stopped stroking her hair. Kelsey raised her head abruptly and made panicked goldfish mouths at the older woman. ‘I mean, I figured out what happened and I… at least I thought I’d figured it out… you must have gotsucha fright, suddenly confronted with your son’s half-brother…’
‘Lorcan’s half-brother?’ Blythe wrinkled her brow.
‘Lorcan? Is that your son’s name?’
‘Yes, but he’s not Jonathan’s half-brother or any other relation.’
‘You and Wagstaff… you weren’t…?’
‘Good lord and all his ministering angels, no! What a notion. Wagstaff was handsome and impressive in his own way, but an utter philanderer and a cad. I wouldnever!’
‘Oh!’ Kelsey was sitting bolt upright on the floor.
Blythe huffed a laughing breath and pointed a finger towards the kitchen. ‘Get the kettle on. We’ve some tangled webs to unweave.’
Blythe joined Kelsey at the table, dragging her walking frame as she moved, her hand clasping a photograph against the grey rubber handles.
