The Long Weekend (36 page)

Laura sipped hers more cautiously. She was wary, wondering what was to come.

Tony put down his glass and leant forward. Their table was right by the water, away from other customers, but he didn’t want to take any risks. He spoke in a low voice.

‘Obviously I don’t know if I am your father. Not for sure. But I want you to know . . . I did have an affair with your mother.’

She looked at him with mistrust.

‘So you lied to me?’

‘I panicked,’ he defended himself. ‘It’s pretty momentous, when someone appears out of the blue saying they might be your daughter.’

‘I know. I realise that. But you totally denied it. You said you barely remembered her!’ Her voice was high with indignation.

‘Can I explain?’ Tony wanted to keep things calm. ‘Please? Just listen.’

Laura put her head in one hand, then nodded her acquiescence. Tony looked out across the water for a moment. It was the same scene he saw from his own living room, but from a different perspective. From here, everything was brighter, sharper, less subtle.

‘We fell in love, your mother and I,’ he told Laura. ‘It was very wrong, but there’s not much you can do when it happens. When it hits you like an express train. We were powerless.’

‘You were married.’ Her tone was accusing. ‘She was a
pupil
.’

‘I know.’ Tony sighed. ‘But neither of those things could stop us. It was a very strange and wonderful time. Borrowed time. We both knew it couldn’t last. It was incredibly intense. Don’t worry—’ he managed a smile as he saw the expression on Laura’s face ‘—I’m not going to go into details.’

‘Please don’t,’ she said.

‘It finally came to an end when my wife became pregnant. Wendy.’ He winced. Saying Wendy’s name out loud brought her into the frame, and he was desperate to keep her out. ‘Wendy was expecting a baby, and so I finished the relationship. It was the right thing to do.’

‘You told me you were infertile,’ Laura remembered. ‘That’s a wicked lie.’

Bloody hell. The young could be so judgemental. He sighed. ‘I know.’

Laura was frowning, working things out.

‘So you mean your wife was pregnant? And then my mum must have found out she was pregnant with me?’

‘I guess so.’

‘So . . . do I have a brother? Or a sister?’ She seemed very excited by this prospect. ‘It would only be a half, but—’

‘No.’ This was the difficult bit. The bit he didn’t really want to discuss, but the bit that was key to what happened next. ‘Our baby died.’

She stared at him for a moment.

‘Oh my God.’ There was genuine remorse in her voice. ‘Oh my God – I’m so sorry.’

‘So you see, the one innocent person in all of this was Wendy. She had no idea what went on. And then . . . to lose her firstborn child. It was terrible, Laura.’

‘Didn’t you have another?’

‘No. She couldn’t. Wendy couldn’t . . .’

‘That’s so unbelievably sad.’

‘Yes.’ Tony took another fortifying slurp of vodka. He didn’t think he had ever told anyone about this part of his life before. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to acknowledge you. Because if Wendy ever found out that I had a child by someone else, it would break her heart all over again. And she doesn’t deserve that.’

‘No,’ agreed Laura. ‘No, I can understand that.’

She was turning everything over in her mind.

‘But . . . the fact remains. You must be my dad.’

‘I guess so.’

They looked across the table at each other.

‘I’d love to get to know you, Laura. You’re my daughter – let’s assume so, at least – and I treasure that. I want to know everything about you. But it’s very difficult. I can’t let you into my life. I just can’t.’

Laura looked down at the table. Tony feasted his eyes on her features, searching for signs of Marina, signs of himself, and couldn’t help wondering how much she would have shared with the baby girl he lost all those years ago. They’d be almost the same age.

He knew Wendy still did the calculations. That she would know, exactly, if he asked her, how old her daughter would have been today. Maybe she had even looked at Laura and thought
that’s about how old Rosalind would have been
. The notion almost took his breath away.

I want to know about you too.’ She looked up, squinting in the glare of the sun. ‘I want to know about the other half of me. But of course I understand. I don’t want Wendy to get hurt.’ She stirred her drink with the celery stick. ‘Dan and I might be buying a cottage here . . .’

‘Really?’

‘Well, it’s early days . . . but we thought that instead of buying a flat in London, we’d get somewhere to escape to. Rent it out as a holiday let to make some money.’

They looked at each other for a moment, scanning for similarities.

I’ve got a daughter, thought Tony. Someone is going to carry on my genes.

I’ve got a dad, thought Laura. At last I can find out who I am.

‘We’d be able to see each other if you do buy a house here,’ he said finally. ‘As long as we’re careful.’

Laura looked across the terrace to see Dan walking towards them. She held out her hand, drew him to her.

‘Tony, this is Dan. Dan – this is my dad.’ Her heart gave a little jump. She had never said those words before in her life.

Dan grinned easily and sat down. ‘How’s it going?’

It was a rhetorical question. Dan never invaded anyone’s privacy. But Tony replied nevertheless.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Really . . . good.’

Dan looked at Laura. ‘I put an offer in on the cottage. Told them we’d need some time to get the money together. They’re going to let us know.’

Tony finished his Bloody Mary. ‘I feel like I should order champagne,’ he said. ‘It’s not every day I meet my daughter. But . . .’

He gave a shrug. Someone would see. Someone would mention it to Wendy.

‘It’s okay,’ said Laura. ‘I understand.’

Tony stood up. ‘And I need to go. I was only supposed to be popping out for the paper.’

Laura stood up too. They looked at each other, awkward for a moment, then she gave him a quick hug.

‘I’ll email you,’ she said.

And then he left, turning and raising his hand in a gesture of farewell that to any onlooker said everything, but nothing.

Colin watched as Chelsey walked back through the dining room, arms laden with a Sunday paper and magazine. His pulse rate rose. He felt strangely proud of her, and he was flooded with hope for her future. She was such a vulnerable little thing. He prayed that everything was going to work out.

‘Alison, this is Chelsey,’ he said as she plonked the newspaper on the table in front of him.

Alison smiled and leant towards her. ‘Hello, Chelsey.’

Chelsey didn’t miss a beat. She gave Alison a cursory glance, followed by a bright smile.

‘Hi,’ she said, before sliding on to the banquette next to Colin. She flipped a pink and sparkly magazine on to the table in front of her, tucked her hair behind her ears and began to read.

Colin looked around the dining room. He supposed everyone thought they were a normal family unit. Although perhaps not, if they’d seen him in the dining room with Karen the night before. Maybe they were all wondering what the story was. Trying to figure out which of the women was his wife. Either way, he didn’t care. Everyone had secrets. Some darker than others.

He turned to Alison.

‘Chelsey and I were planning to go to the beach today, if you want to come.’

Alison nodded. ‘That sounds lovely.’

‘And we also thought we’d stay on here for another couple of days.’

It might be easier, he thought, if Chelsey and Alison got to know each other on neutral territory, while he sorted out the legal side of things

Alison looked doubtful. ‘I haven’t brought anything with me. No change of clothes or toiletries. I even had to buy a toothbrush from the Spar.’

Colin shrugged her objection away.

‘We can pick some stuff up in town. There’s some nice shops.’

Chelsey glanced up from her magazine. She looked puzzled.

‘Are you his wife, then?’

She’d obviously been turning things over in her mind.

Colin looked awkward.

‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘I’m Mrs Turner. But you can call me Alison, if you like.’

Chelsey considered this offer, then shrugged. ‘Okay,’ she replied, and went back to her magazine.

Colin and Alison looked at each other.

‘I’ll have to phone and cancel my tennis match for tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I won’t be very popular, I don’t suppose . . .’

Trevor and Monique had set off on
The Blonde Bombshell
after an early breakfast. They wanted to take the boat further round the bay and explore some of the other towns on the Cornish coast. They’d moored in a tiny little harbour and got out the Sunday papers and a bottle of wine. The boat rocked gently in the water as they sat in peaceful companionship. In an hour or so they would head for shore and find somewhere for lunch.

After a while, Trevor looked up to see Monique standing on the port side of the boat. She was looking at her bloody phone again. He put down his paper and came over to her.

‘There’s no signal here, love.’

‘I know.’ She looked down at the phone. It was positively prehistoric by today’s standards, clumsy and big. ‘But I’ve been thinking . . .’

‘What is it?’

‘I think we’ve come to a turning point in our lives. We’ve got exciting times ahead. I can feel it in my bones.’

‘Definitely,’ Trevor agreed.

‘If I’m going to make something of this, I’ve got to accept . . .’ She paused, struggling to find the right words. ‘I’ve got to accept that Jamie isn’t going to come back. I’ve got to stop hoping.’

Trevor could hardly bear to look at the pain that came into her eyes; the way her mouth drooped with grief, just as it had the day they had discovered Jamie had gone. He put an arm around her.

‘You should stop torturing yourself,’ he agreed. ‘You check that thing ten, twenty, a hundred times a day, just in case.’

The phone was symbolic. A talisman. But its hold over Monique had become disproportionate.

‘I just want him to know I’m here.’ Her anguish cut through him. ‘I’m his mum. I just want him to know . . .’

‘He knows, love. He knows that you’re always here for him.’

Trevor had no way of knowing this was true. He had no more idea than she did what Jamie’s state of mind was, but it didn’t cost him anything to reassure her.

Monique was running her fingers over the screen.

‘It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. The last thing I look at before I go to sleep. I know there’s never going to be a message. But I can’t help looking. Just in case.’

Trevor wanted to rip the phone out of her hands and throw it over the edge of the boat. But it had to come from her. Intervention wouldn’t help. It was a step she had to take on her own.

‘He’ll always be able to find us if he wants to,’ he told her. ‘But you should stop torturing yourself.’

‘I know . . .’

‘This is your life, Monique,’ he told her. ‘We don’t get another chance. You need to start living it again. We’ve got so much we can do. I’m so proud of you, and I know you can do great things. But you can’t live like this any more. You have to move on. I know it’s tough, babe.’

Tears glistened on her cheeks. He wanted to wipe them away. He never wanted her to cry again. He couldn’t believe a human being could have so many tears inside them.

The sea stretched endlessly before them, nothing else between them and the horizon. The phone barely made a splash as she dropped it in. Who knew how deep the water was here? Hundreds of feet. How long, Trevor wondered, before it finally settled on the sea bed, burying itself in the sand, where it would stay silent for ever?

He held Monique tight, her slight body shaking with sobs. He wanted to squeeze all his love into her, enough love to fill the gaping hole he knew was still there.

‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘It’s okay . . .’

Sixteen

B
runch morphed seamlessly into Sunday lunch, with barely any time to make the transition. Guests lingering over their pancakes were urged out as politely as possible so the dining room could be laid up again. The chalkboard went up with Sunday’s special: roast rib of beef. They could have booked the restaurant three times over, as optimistic passers-by flooded in to see if there was a table available.

By three o’clock, Claire was exhausted. She wasn’t officially supposed to be working in the restaurant, but she liked to oversee it when they were at full capacity. That was the difference between a well-run place and a bad one, how they coped when they were stretched, and an extra pair of eyes could mean a happy customer rather than a disgruntled one.

Things were calmer now. Guests were drinking coffee or finishing their wine. Claire came back out to the reception area, worried that it had been somewhat neglected. There was a young mum fast asleep on the sofa. Claire had seen her and her husband at lunch doing battle with their young baby. Little Plum, at nine months, had the entire restaurant in the palm of her tiny, shrimp-like hand as soon as she arrived. A vision of pink loveliness with a riot of white-blonde curls, dressed in a broderie anglaise blouse and OshKosh dungarees, she had the staff at her beck and call. Her exhausted parents were nevertheless doting. Now her mother was in a postprandial slumber, a copy of
Country Life
open on her lap.