Page 65 of The Sunrise Sisterhood

‘I do appreciate you, I promise,’ Clare said meekly. ‘But I can look after myself; Mum always said that needing others was a slippery slope.’

Liz shook her head fondly. ‘It’s OK to need people. Even your mum needed people. She needed me, she needed you. She even needed your father on occasion.’

‘Dad?’ Clare looked shocked.

Liz nodded. ‘They still spoke regularly. Met up for the odd lunch.’

Clare’s eyes were wide. ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’

‘Because you’d have hoped it was a sign of them getting back together and your mother would never have entertained that. Children are very black and white in their thought processes, and there are many shades in between for relationships.’

‘At least fifty.’

Liz laughed under her breath. ‘I do love you, Clare Marriott.’

Clare smiled. ‘Love you too, fairy godmother. I would have liked Mum to have met someone. Thirty years was a long time to be on her own.’

‘Your mother had plenty of admirers,’ Liz confessed, wondering how much to tell her daughter. ‘There were one or two who I thought had potential and I said she should introduce them to you. Your approval would have been the litmus test for the relationship. But she would always chicken out in the end. I think she doubted her own judgement of character and, by then, she’d drummed it into you so firmly about the importance of being self-sufficient that admitting to her beloved daughter that she’d met someone seemed to her to be a sign of weakness.’

‘That’s sad.’

Liz gave her god-daughter a knowing look. ‘It is sad. But it would be even sadder if you made the same mistake.’

Clare closed her eyes and groaned lightly. ‘Ivy’s got such a small team behind her. It’s really brought it home to me today how her safety hangs by a thread, and that thread is held by me. What if it snaps, what if I let her down?’

Liz picked up her hand and kissed it. ‘You won’t let her down and if anything should happen to you, then you have people in your life who’ll be there for her. Me, for example.’ Which was another reason why she needed to get her act together, she thought.

‘I haven’t even had Ivy christened. I’ve always had you as my godmother, it isn’t right that I haven’t given Ivy the same privilege.’

Liz loved the idea of being classed as a privilege. ‘I can help you to organise it, if you like?’

Clare wrinkled her nose. ‘The last religious service I went to was Mum’s funeral. I don’t think I can face that sort of formality again yet.’

‘I understand,’ said Liz. ‘There’s no hurry. The important thing now is for you to get better. Something I heard recently stuck with me: illness begins with “I”, wellness begins with “we”. I think there might be something in that.’

Clare yawned. ‘I like that.’

‘Try to sleep.’ Liz stood and kissed Clare’s cheek. ‘Yell if you need anything.’

‘That applies to you too, Liz,’ said Clare.

‘Yelling?’ she teased, as she reached the bedroom door.

‘Wellness.’ Clare held her gaze intently. ‘Cutting back on your drinking, that’s your wellness. Starting with “we”.’

‘Thank you, darling.’ Liz’s throat burned with the effort of not crying. She was a silly fool; telling Clare off for not letting others in when she was guilty of doing the same thing. ‘I’ll leave you to get some sleep. Goodnight. I love you.’

‘Love you too,’ Clare said sleepily.

It was love she needed, Liz thought, closing the door softly, not sex, as they were joking about earlier. Someone to share her everyday with. Someone to wrap an arm around her in the dead of night when she woke from a dream, someone to plan happy things with. That’s what her life needed: someone to be her person. The summer would end, and the girls would go home, and her house would be silent again. Which meant she needed to get a move on and do something about it. There was no time to waste.

Chapter Eighteen

Liz

Early the following morning, Liz crept out of Clemency House so as not to wake the girls. The sun had only just risen and the lilac sky was streaked with peach and apricot. It was too early to go and fetch the equipment they’d left at the party, but that was fine, she needed some time to think, to get her thoughts in order. Skye and Clare had been kind to her last night, but that didn’t stop her feeling ashamed of her behaviour. If yesterday had been a day of storm clouds and rain, today signified a fresh start and a chance to find her silver lining. She was determined to do better.

There were a million and one places in Salcombe which held happy memories for her. The terrace of Cliff House where she had celebrated her eighteenth birthday, or the alley by the Ferry Inn where she’d had her first proper kiss with Matthew Babington, (the one and only kiss; he’d kissed like a fish gasping for air), or maybe North Sands beach where she’d learned to swim in the gentle shallow waters of the bay, her feet kicking wildly as her mum shouted words of encouragement. There was even that day all those years ago at the Crab Shed, when Mike had taken her for lunch to cheer her up after Jonathan had left her.