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‘Do you remember her name?’
Freya’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh. My. God.’
‘What is it?’
‘Her name was Wendy.’
Jolene stared at her. ‘You have got to be kidding. How can you be sure?’
‘I haven’t thought about those days out in so long. We stopped seeing her when I was around ten. But I remembered her name because I was really into reading Peter Pan at one point, and it must have stuck in my mind that she had the name from the book.’
‘You liked Peter Pan?’
‘Don’t laugh. What is weird is that I have this memory of a bedroom with bookshelves full of children’s books, among them Peter Pan.’
‘Your bedroom growing up?’
‘No, it wasn’t. This room had prints on the wall of the characters from the book.’
‘A dream then?’
‘Yes, I imagine it was.’ Freya didn’t know why she’d got on to that. She thought perhaps it was somewhere they had stayed on holiday when she was a child.
‘You know what this means, don’t you, Freya?’
‘Of course I do. I think he was having an affair with this Wendy – but that was years ago.’
Jolene nodded. ‘They’re not having an affair now.’
She felt a sense of utter relief sweep over her. ‘Maybe mum just came across some old correspondence between them, or something, and found out about the affair all these years later.’ Freya frowned. ‘That’s still not good news, is it?’
Jolene shook her head.
‘At least the young woman who answered the phone at the guest house isn’t Wendy, though.’So, my dad isn’t having a belated mid-life crisis and going after a younger woman, thought Freya.
‘What young woman?’
‘Oh, I didn’t tell you. I rang the number. A young woman answered, said it was The Guest House at Shingle Cove.’
‘Ah, probably just a receptionist.’ Jolene said.
‘I’ve got to find my mum and convince her that it was all in the past, a long time ago, and it’s over,’ Freya said, moving to get out of her seat, as though she was planning to go and find her mum straight away, even though she had no clue where she was.
Jolene leaned across and grabbed her arm. ‘But is it?’
Freya looked at her.
‘Why was this Wendy phoning your dad now?’
Freya shrugged. She had no idea.
‘Wait a minute!’ The look on Jolene’s face said something had just occurred to her.
‘What is it?’ Freya asked, resuming her seat. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Did you just say that you met this friend of your dad’s several times a year, and she had a daughter?’
Freya shrugged. ‘Yeah – so?’
