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‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘Dreadfully so...’ The tears were falling thick and fast now. ‘Not that it matters. There’s Roula...’
‘Roula?’
She shook her head. ‘Anyway, he thinks I’m a thief.’ She took a breath, because she didn’t want to hurt her father, but these were the bald facts. ‘Some earrings went missing. They were found amongst my things. A watch too...’
‘So he saw you off the island?’
‘Not at first.’ She let out a low laugh and stared at the tissue she was shredding with her incongruously still gorgeous nails. ‘He was all magnanimous and said that he forgave me. That heforgaveme, Dad—’
‘Heforgaveyou?’ her father cut in.
‘I needed him to believe in me.’
‘Mary, don’t disregard what he did. I’d kill for you to forgiveme.’
She went very still and carried on staring at her hands, but then she dared to look up and she met his misty eyes.
‘I was always so cautious...’ her father said.
She wanted to halt him. It hurt too much. But she forced herself to listen.
‘Your mother used to tease me about it,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes she told me off for being such a stickler for the rules.’ He gave a pale smile. ‘I said we should get a taxi home.’
‘You didn’t, though?’
‘No.’ There was so much regret in his voice that he didn’t even need to shake his head to emphasise it.
‘What happened?’ Mary asked, for the first time.
‘It was just a work do.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘You were upset. It was after that diving incident at school.’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t even want to go. I wish to God we never had.’
‘Mum wanted to go,’ Mary said.
‘She did.’ He gave a fond smile. ‘It turned into fun; she could always light up a room. She wanted to dance, have champagne...’
‘Mum was supposed to be driving,’ Mary said, recalling her mother picking up the car keys. ‘It was decided.’
‘Don’t...’ Her father shook his head.
She remembered scolding Costa.You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.And yet by never doing so, by never examining what had happened that night, somehow she had turned her mother into a saint. And this perfect person, her beloved mother, had been so much more than that. She had been funny, loving, mettlesome—and, yes, contrary at times. A perfectly imperfect human whom they had both loved so much.
‘Youbothmade a terrible mistake that night,’ Mary said, and she thought of Costa’s words when she’d told him about her father: ‘Poor man.’ He had shown such compassion.
Forgiveness from someone you cared about was a gift indeed, and she swore to remember that in the future.
For the first time since she was a little girl she took her father’s hand. ‘She wouldn’t want this for you, Dad.’
‘I know, and I know I’ve said it a million times, but Iamgoing to sort myself out.’
‘You will.’ She smiled. ‘I know it’s taken a long time, but I do forgive you. Both of you,’ she added.
‘It means the world to hear you say that.’
He seemed to sit a little straighter now, and Mary felt a little less adrift, for it was as if he’d become her daddy again. Mr Sensible.
