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Chapter 26
To Annabelle, as she sat on the bus taking her and the children to Brighton’s city centre, it was almost as though the holiday in Rest Bay had never taken place. She’d been back not quite a week yet, but already everything about it was fading into the background. Everything except for her feelings for Ron. They were still very much in evidence, and he was the last thing she thought about before she went to sleep and the first thing she thought about when she opened her eyes.
She was delighted for him and absolutely thrilled to bits that he’d come into some money, and from the sound of it the amount was enough to buy a small property on the south coast if that was what he wanted to do. But it made her situation even more poignant.
Beverley had popped over to visit May since Annabelle’s parents had come back from their own holiday, and she’d said that Ron had no immediate plans to move out. He was, however, looking, but Beverley seemed to think he was a bit half-hearted about it. Or that might have been wishful thinking on her aunt’s part, because Beverley had confided to Annabel that she loved having Ron about the house, and now that he didn’t feel he was a burden and living off her charity he was even more of a pleasure to have around.
Annabelle ushered her children off the bus, her head still full of Ron, and headed towards Churchill Square shopping centre. She was on the hunt for school uniforms and PE kits, and she was armed with a list of essentials that had been sent to her from the primary school that the children were due to attend in a few days’ time.
It would be Jake’s last year in primary and she felt a little sad to think that he would be going to secondary school the following September. He was growing up so fast. They both were. Jake, especially, seemed to have matured since their holiday in Rest Bay. He was calmer and more measured, less likely to fly off the handle and get in a strop.
Annabelle could tell that he still wasn’t totally happy with the situation, but she’d had a couple of heart to hearts with him, where she’d encouraged him to express his feelings about his father and about what had happened. He was still incredibly upset, and he still hadn’t forgiven Troy and possibly never would, but Annabelle was doing her best to ensure that he continued to have some contact with his dad, albeit by WhatsApp. She had finally given in and bought him a mobile phone, purely so that he could keep in contact with his friends and his dad back in Australia, because she didn’t want him to feel totally cut off and isolated. She hoped that once he started school and began making new friends, they would become his priority, but for the moment she was happy to do anything to try and ease the transition for him.
Annabelle had spoken to Kate a couple of times too, to thank her for allowing them to gate crash the holiday, and also to apologise for the way it had ended. She’d already apologised profusely, numerous times, but she still felt it wasn’t enough. Beverley had told Annabelle she was being daft, and that she hadn’t had so much excitement in years (“well, not since last Christmas when Kate had done a bunk for a few days” Beverley had said) but Annabelle wasn’t convinced. Kate had also told her not to be so silly and that she was well used to dramas, having two teenage girls and the mother-in-law from hell, but Annabelle still felt awful. That final day in Rest Bay would be forever etched on her mind.
As she led her children towards the shop that the school had recommended, Annabelle thought back to the events after Ron had been given the news about Louise and the money.
After Kate had told him to phone Louise, he’d re-joined the family in the lounge after a nail-biting half an hour, when everyone had milled around waiting for him to return. Correction: the adults had milled, the children had lost interest and wandered off to do something more exciting. Ellis and Portia went out, and the three younger children disappeared off to the basement. It was only the grown-ups who were interested in what Ron had to say after he’d finished speaking to his ex-wife.
He had walked slowly back into the living area, looking incredibly dazed and totally shellshocked, and Beverley had questioned him remorselessly, demanding to know what Louise had said to him and what Ron had said to her. Eventually Kate had taken pity on him and, as the morning was trundling steadily towards lunchtime, she’d suggested that they make some sandwiches and spend their final afternoon on the beach, which was what they had done. They had taken all the usual paraphernalia – buckets, spades, nets, a football, a frisbee and some kites that had been acquired throughout the course of the holiday, plus a cool box, some blankets, towels and two folding chairs for the oldest members of the family – and had staked a claim on a dry strip of sand near the rocks.
Annabelle and Kate had joined in with some of the games, but neither of them had been very keen on rock pooling, so they’d left it to Ron and Brett to take the children for a final dibble in the pools, while they relaxed.
After checking that Helen and Beverley weren’t listening, Kate had quietly said to Annabelle, ‘Ron asked me where Troy was.’
Annabelle had raised her eyebrows. ‘He did? I wonder why he didn’t ask me?’
‘I don’t know, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say he was worried about making waves. Apparently, one of the reasons he left last night was because he wanted to make it easier for you to decide to go back to Australia.’
‘Whatever gave him the idea that I wanted to go back?’ Annabelle had been shocked he’d even considered that she might.
‘Troy probably,’ Kate had said. ‘I think Jake might have been the clincher. The poor lad. Will he be all right?’ Kate had turned her worried gaze to Annabelle.
Annabelle had sighed. ‘I hope so. I really wish he hadn’t heard me and his dad arguing. Ever since Troy walked out, I’ve been the bad guy in Jake’s eyes, despite the fact that his father went to live with another woman. He seemed to think it was my fault, and that I’d kicked Troy out. I hadn’t, although I would have done if he hadn’t had left. But not once did I bad-mouth Troy to him. He loves his dad, that’s to be expected, but I must admit, I did get mighty fed up of being bad Mama, when Troy could do no wrong. I should have foreseen something like this.’
‘What, Troy flying all the way from Australia to land on your doorstep? I don’t see how you could have done,’ Kate had pointed out.
‘I suppose not.’ Annabelle had sighed again, and her fingers had played with the edge of the blanket, smoothing the fringed ends, over and over. ‘I just hate to see Jake so unhappy, you know? Izzie, too. I could cheerfully string Troy up for what he did. The divorce was bad enough, but they were getting over it and coming to terms with the fact that their father wasn’t living in the same house as them. They weren’t happy only seeing him now and again, when it suitedhimof course, and not when the kids really needed him, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about that, and they were kind of coming to accept it, but then the house was repossessed…’
‘It must have been awful. I don’t know how you coped,’ Kate had said, leaning towards her and putting her hand over Annabelle’s to give it a squeeze. ‘There is one thing, though… In a way, I’m kind of glad, because if you hadn’t come back to the UK to live, we never would have got to know one another.’
Annabelle had smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose there is that. I’m glad, too.’
She was smiling now because she felt as though she’d rediscovered her family. When she had been living on the other side of the world, her family had really only consisted of her mum and dad. More distant relations such as Aunt Beverley, Kate, and her nephew and nieces had been little more than Christmas and birthday cards, and the occasional titbit of news passed on by her mum. Annabelle didn’t actually speak to any of them.
But since the holiday, she was on the phone to Kate or to Beverley every other day, or they called her. Kate tended to message more, or forward her silly memes, whereas Beverley was more old-fashioned and preferred to pick up the landline – which brought Annabelle’s thoughts circling back to Ron again.
She missed him desperately and wished she could talk to him, but she didn’t know what to say. Ever since she’d discovered that Ron had come into some money, and a substantial amount to boot, she felt disconnected from him. She knew he’d felt it too, because he’d gone out of his way to avoid her during that last afternoon and evening in Rest Bay. A couple of times she’d caught his eye and quickly looked away, and when she’d glanced back, he’d been looking at anywhere other than her.
She knew she was being silly, but she couldn’t help how she felt. Part of what had initially drawn them together – ignoring the fact that she fancied the pants off him and found him incredibly sexy – was that they were in the same boat, more or less. He, too, was living in someone else’s house and didn’t have a place of his own, and neither did he have much in the way of a job. So somehow the scales were balanced when it came to their respective situations.
But now things had changed quite dramatically for him. Ron was able to afford to buy a property if he wanted, and he could support himself, whereas her situation hadn’t changed in the slightest.
Not only that, the last thing she wanted was for him to feel that she regarded him as a meal ticket. She didn’t want him to think she was only interested in him because he had come into some money. She would have loved to have resumed where they’d left off before Troy had turned up and spoilt everything, but she didn’t feel she could. Ron seemed to have lost interest in her, but even if he hadn’t, she didn’t want to restart their relationship when she didn’t have anything to offer. She’d be a liability, having no job and two children to support.
Then there were her children’s feelings to consider. Although Jake claimed that he didn’t want anything to do with his father, neither would he want his mum to put another man in his dad’s place. Annabelle felt it was too soon to jump into another relationship, especially after what had taken place in Rest Bay. Jake might be maturing, but he was still a child, and he was still having to deal with a new situation and new emotions.
She thought back to their final evening of the holiday. The whole family had gone out for a meal at the local pizzeria. On the surface everyone had been happy and lighthearted, but she could sense waves of disquiet coming from Jake, and Izzie was unusually subdued. Annabelle and Ron had deliberately avoided eye contact with each other, which also made for a bit of an atmosphere, and Annabelle was fairly certain the rest of the family must have been aware of it.
