Page 82

‘Like what?’

‘Well, you’re like my other half that I’ve been waiting for to join me.’

He grinned around his bruises and his pain. ‘Hang on.’

She watched him limp to the small chest of drawers and remove something tucked beneath a few items in the top drawer.

He hobbled back and sat on the bed. ‘It was my mother’s,’ he said, opening a tiny box, shaped as a heart, its velvet rubbed off. ‘It belonged in her family, and I think it’s the only item she brought from them. I don’t know how old it is or its value. I only know that she wore it every day, whether she was washing clothes or chopping wood. It once had a lovely engraving on the side – there, you can just see it?’

‘Vine leaves?’

He nodded with a shy smile. ‘And roses, I suppose, but most of that’s gone, because her life was tough and she worked hard. I’d like you to have it. It’s all I own of her, save a few photographs. I recall she told me these stones were old mine-cut diamonds of the finest quality.’ He waited until she offered her hand, and then he slipped the slightly flattened circle of gold onto her ring finger.

Fleur touched the largest of the five diamonds that sat in a gypsy star setting deep within the gently glowing gold. She’d never been one for flashy jewellery, and she’d not worn rings previously because the claws and the raised stones created problems for her work. But this wonderful old Victorian setting and the bright warmth of the polished stones spoke to her. She too would want to wear this every day, no matter what she was doing. ‘I do love its simple elegance,’ she said, smiling at him.

‘It loves you. It looks even better on your hand than hers. Really suits you.’

She leaned in to kiss him softly, not lingering, her lips grazing against his bruised ones. ‘You know, Tom, you speak about your mother with so much tenderness, but you never mention much about your father.’

And the remark, like a key, opened some sort of locked door into their already emotionally heightened mood and Tom began to talk. By the end of it, both of them still perched on his bed, holding hands, she knew his story – all of it as best he could explain.

Tom stopped as abruptly as he’d begun and shrugged.

‘Have you ever spoken so long or so much in one go?’ Fleur marvelled, squeezing his hands.

He shook his head. ‘Must be the drugs,’ he quipped.

‘May I ask something? You can tell me to mind my own beeswax – if anyone can, you can find a polite way to do that,’ she offered, sounding uncertain.

‘Go ahead. Nothing you say could ever hurt me. I’ll tell you anything, I’ll listen to you anytime.’

Fleur grinned. ‘Let’s see how you feel after ten years of marriage, Tom Catchlove,’ she warned. ‘What I want to ask is this: how would you describe your father?’

He wasn’t expecting that, and she saw the slight surprise flash in his eyes. ‘Well, er . . . hardworking. Loud. Funny.’ He shook his head in a way that suggested he didn’t really understand what she was asking of him.

‘Your mother loved him, that’s obvious. Did you love him?’

‘Of course.’ He didn’t hesitate, now looking slightly shocked that she’d ask.

‘You see, Tom, I think I’m in the rarefied position of being able to say what I’m about to with some authority.’

‘All right.’ He frowned.

‘I am not Irma’s child, as you know. She has never loved me. She has had to tolerate me as a means to an end – the end being marrying my father and, more cynically, inheriting his business, his property, his wealth.’ She held up a finger as she sensed he was going to protest. ‘Now, I was also not biologically Mae’s child, but I never felt that . . . not once, not even when she scolded me and that was rare. Within our threesome, I knew only love and safety. So I have experienced both sides of that orphan equation. And if I’ve listened to you properly, and perhaps read beneath what you haven’t said, you essentially belonged to a poor but happy, healthy home that had love, laughter and all sorts of enrichment through your mother’s experiences and education, and it gave you the confidence you needed. You may be reticent, Tom, but you’re not shy or lacking in self-assurance or self-reliance. Tell me. Did your father ever undermine you?’

‘No, that’s not—’

‘Did he hit you?’

‘I got the belt a couple of times when I deserved it.’

‘Did he praise you?’

Tom thought about this. ‘He was proud of how I looked after Mum in his absence.’

‘And when you were together, you felt happiness?’

He nodded. ‘I always looked forward to him coming home, and I felt secure in their love for each other. Dad wasn’t affectionate like Mum, though.’