Page 112 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Now it was my turn to receive a stony look from Carl Talbot. “How many bloody people around this table know what’s going on?”

Flynn senior ignored his son’s bark of a question.

“Why are you trashing your marriage to Mum?” probed Carl Talbot. He slid Lily a spiteful stare. “You and Mum were always so happy together, although she did tell me about the other women you had while you were married and she turned a blind eye to it.”

Flynn senior’s mouth ground into a taught line. He hesitated, his fingers lingering above his shirt sleeves. Lily reached over and stroked his arm in an act of encouragement.

With growing resolve, Flynn senior’s fingers began to roll up his shirt sleeves. Beside me, Flynn reached for my hand and we sat, our fingers locked together in supportive unity.

Flynn senior addressed Carl. “So, this is a sign of a happy marriage, is it?”

Under the dripping chandelier light, Flynn senior’s swathe of pitted, abused skin on his arms screamed out.

Carl’s pale blue gaze became stricken with horror.

“Your mother did this,” stated Flynn senior. “Sometimes it was with a cigarette. Other times with a dripping candle. Then at other times, when she couldn’t be bothered to go to the trouble of either of those, she would hit me with anything that came to hand.”

Lily’s crumpled expression tugged at my chest.

Diana swallowed.

“Your mother would accuse me of all sorts of terrible things and then attack me”,” said Flynn senior, training his full attention on his son. “She would say I was ignoring her or that I was being condescending to her; that I was stealing money from her but it wasn’t true. None of it. I think she grew jealous of the attention I got and that stoked her temper.” Flynn senior then flashed his grandson a look. “I felt ashamed.”

Carl looked stricken.

Flynn senior addressed his reeling son. “I know she never laid a finger on you, but I wasn’t prepared to take the chance. That’s why my intention was for you to live with me and Lily at Merry Wood.”

Beside me, I could see Flynn give a brief nod that he understood. He swallowed a ball of emotion and stroked my fingers.

Flynn senior looked softly at Lily beside him. “If it hadn’t been for falling in love with this lady at the time, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Carl cleared his throat. He looked like he was struggling to speak. “So let me get this straight. You’re telling me that my mother did that to you?”

“Yes. She did.”

Flynn senior rolled his sleeved back down over his offending wounds. “I hoped she might stop. I convinced myself she would, but her violent outbursts just got worse. That was until she got the opportunity to go to Africa.”

Flynn senior delivered a small smile to Lily beside him. “But by that time, I had met and fallen in love with Lily.”

Lily looked across at me, her eyes softening in her lined but gentle expression. “Was that when you wrote the letter that Leonie found?”

I took my cue and removed the letter from my bag and passed it up the table to Flynn senior.

He took it reverently in his hands, his attention grazing over it. “Yes. My God, after all these years…” Lily shook her head as she watched Flynn senior holding it. “I have no idea what it says.”

She gave me an apologetic look. “Leonie tried to return it to me on the day she discovered it in Merry Wood, but I was so stubborn and I wouldn’t open the door to her.”

Flynn senior’s jaw dropped. “But I thought you read it at the time.”

“I never even knew that letter existed until you told me about it,” clarified Lily. “Like you said, Bernard must have found it and given it to Astrid.”

There were meaningful glances exchanged all around the table. Lily’s expression cleared with realisation. “They must have concealed it; conspired together to keep us apart.”

Lily drank in Flynn senior’s features beside her. “I was so hurt, so stunned at the time that you didn’t tell me first, Flynn. Now I know why.”

Diana’s fascination was evident. “So, what happened? Why didn’t you go to the police about the abuse?”

Flynn senior shook his head of thick silvery hair. “I was stupid, my dear. I felt ashamed. Domestic abuse wasn’t taken seriously in those days; not like it is now. And can you imagine how abuse against a husband, perpetrated by a wife would have been treated back then? Who would have believed me? I went away to Africa with Astrid as you no doubt know, but she fell back into her old ways while we were there.”