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‘No, never.’ She knew she never would either. So there had been no point in keeping her heart open for Jonah Wells.
Dagmara smiled at her, a wise, sympathetic curve of her lips. ‘Shay, I’m sure you have thought over the years that there must have been much more going on in that young man’s mind than you knew about, for him to have done what he did.’
‘Yes, Dagmara, but I can’t work out what it was. I know…’ – Shay pressed her fist into her heart – ‘Iknowthat what I remember is the absolute truth. I’m not my mum remembering eating ice creams with Omar Sharif when it never happened.’
Dagmara was silent, thoughtful. She had to be careful what she said next, let out just a little of what she knew. Her old friend had left her with a burden that was already too heavy to bear, secrets that weren’t hers to keep.
‘What if I told you that… that your mother regretted leaving Millspring. That she acted only out of love for you.’
‘I know she did.’ A sigh came out of the very deepest place in Shay. ‘I don’t blame her, Dagmara.’
‘She didn’t want you to get hurt any more,’ said Dagmara.
‘I was just whisked away though, and she tried to plaster over it and I let her think she had, but she hadn’t.’
Dagmara remained silent, but she knew that Mr Sharif’s skip had made Roberta face the things she had run from: and even in her confused and muddled brain she’d had to finally admit that some truths could never entirely be covered by lies. They would fight and claw and bleed andleak and do everything they could to find their way to the surface, however long it took.
‘I’d better go,’ said Shay. ‘I’m sorry, none of this was meant to come out.’
‘I think it was ready to come out,’ replied Dagmara.
Chapter 18
Shay sat beside her father, gently holding his hand as she clipped his fingernails, then filed them so there were no rough edges. Harry had been a plumber and his hands were roughened but he’d used industrial-strength hand cream to try and undo some of the damage and he hated dirty fingernails with a passion. He said it was because they reminded him of his father’s unkempt hands, and they had been cruel, unkind hands to him.
‘I have some news, Dad,’ said Shay and then took a breath. ‘Mum died. I know you’d want to be told.’ She looked at him: if ever there was a time when he would manifest a response, it would be now – but there was nothing. Shay swallowed hard, not sure why his lack of reaction upset her so much when she could expect nothing else. ‘I did think about not telling you for a while. I know that whatever has gone on between you in the past, you’d still be upset. You were together a long time, weren’t you?’
She’d wondered a lot since her mum had died about what had really kept her parents together for so long. She knew that her mum had forgiven her dad for his infidelities, butwhat was it that he tried to find in other women that he didn’t get from his wife? Shay hadn’t felt it her place to ask, and now she’d never know.
When they moved from Millspring, both Harry and Roberta had worked as a single unit to support her, heal her. Their new home in Merriment Close was full of warmth and it had made her realise, only by comparison, that it hadn’t quite been like that when they lived in the Old Rectory. But then she’d left home to be married to Bruce and her parents had stayed with each other for another eighteen years before finally splitting. Who knew what the glue was in people’s marriages? Take Les and Morton, there had to be more than the wild sex. Or was it just that the other sorts of glue that bound people together pretended too well to be love.
‘She’s going to be wearing a very vivid, violet suit,’ Shay went on. ‘Do you remember her wardrobe, Dad? There wasn’t a black or navy thing in it. I wonder if that’s where Courtney gets it from.’ She hadn’t thought about it before, but it made perfect sense, if such things can be passed on through generations. Maybe that’s how her children had been gifted their artistic talents, from some throwback ancestor. The Italian one, maybe.
‘Do you remember when she had that animal-print suit and the matching shoes, Dad, and you said she shouldn’t go out in public like that in case someone thought she’d escaped from a zoo and shot her.’ She chuckled and then it somehow segued into sadness because her dad wasn’t laughing along with her. They’d both ached from the pains in their stomachs when he’d said it all those years ago, the humour exacerbated by Roberta standing there with her arms akimbo, face frozen, waiting for them to stop. She’d never hear the boom of his laugh again, see the smile thatwas so wide it almost reached his big ears. Her daddy was here and he was gone, the worst sort of paradox.
There was a small knock at the door then and Shay scrabbled to compose herself before it opened.
‘Is it okay to come in?’ It was Barbara.
‘Of course,’ said Shay; her father’s wife didn’t need her permission.
‘Hello, my darling,’ said Barbara, leaning over Harry, giving him a kiss, stroking his hair back tenderly before taking a seat at the other side of the bed and addressing Shay. ‘Oh, you’re doing his nails, that’s lovely. My hands aren’t very good these days or I’d have done them for him.’ She held out her hand which was lumpy and twisted from arthritis. ‘I used to play the piano every day but no more, sadly,’ she added.
She’d aged since the last time Shay had seen her, when they’d brought her father here all those months ago. Her face was a portrait of tiredness and helplessness underneath the make-up but she was smartly dressed and her blonde hair styled. Her father’s fashion sense had sharpened being with her, though strangely it never had being with her mother.
‘I shan’t be long,’ said Shay. ‘I don’t want to leave any sharp bits.’
‘I used to massage his hands, he loved it,’ replied Barbara with a smile, before remembering who she was talking to and twittering an apology.
‘You don’t need to say sorry, Barbara. You’re his wife.’
‘Well you’re his daughter and you don’t need to rush off on my account,’ came the reply. ‘He’ll be enjoying you being here telling him your news.’
‘Maybe not my news today. I just came to tell him that Mum died.’
‘Oh Shay, I am so sorry.’ Barbara’s response was immediate and genuine. ‘That’s so sad. I know Harry would be heartbroken about that.’
‘I didn’t know if I should tell him,’ replied Shay, touched by Barbara’s words. ‘It didn’t seem right to and it didn’t seem right not to either.’
