Disappeared, page 26
67
Cerys held a cup of water for Gavin to sip. He swallowed gratefully and she sat back down on the edge of the hospital bed.
‘I want you to come home,’ he said hoarsely. ‘That’s what I came up here to say. I know you’ve been unhappy and I know it’s my fault. I wanted to tell you, I never meant for any of this. I never wanted to lose you, Cerys. I just wanted you to be happy. I worked so hard to make all of you happy and when I couldn’t—’ And he stopped suddenly.
She knew why. He didn’t know how to say it without it sounding bad, so she finished it for him. ‘You wanted me to be who I used to be again.’ She held up her hand when he started to protest. ‘No, Gavin, it’s okay, I understand. I haven’t been that woman for a long time and some of that has been because our relationship hasn’t been right. But not all of it and that’s not your fault. It took me being away to see that, and to see who I was and who I am now.’
‘Do you want to come back?’ His voice cracked. ‘You sound like you don’t.’
‘I don’t think I can because it’ll never be the same again, and I don’t want to go back to who I was there before I ran. I’ve left that behind and that’s where I want it to stay.’ She nodded slowly at him. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you or the kids in my life in some way.’
‘How?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t know, Gavin, and I don’t understand either. But now isn’t the time to work it out. You need to get better and then we can try to figure out what’s next.’
He nodded, grey-faced and exhausted already. ‘Can you stay for a while though? Please?’
She pulled up the chair closer to the bed and sat beside him while he drifted off back to sleep. She really did have no idea what would come next but what she knew now was that one end led to a beginning, no matter how unlikely that might seem. She’d learned she could make that happen. Even if it felt like a bitter end, it need not be.
She shook her head at the seeming impossibility of sorting this tangled mess out, but a flare of spirit inside told her she would. And for now, she’d sit beside Gavin while he slept. It didn’t matter how far apart they’d been from each other. They had three kids together and he’d just taken a knife to save her. Their roots were intertwined after all these years. Their branches might have grown towards different sources of light, in different directions, but, right down, in the bones of her, she knew that roots mattered more.
If it were her lying there injured and sleeping, she’d want him to sit beside her too, so here she would stay until he woke.
68
Lily rounded the corner to the coffee machine and saw a girl, younger than her, who looked so like Cerys that it made her stop in her tracks. The girl was filling two cups and glanced up at her as she approached again.
‘Cerys’s daughter, right?’
The girl nodded, startled.
‘You look like your mum,’ Lily said.
The girl put the cups down. ‘Are you Lily?’ she asked, suddenly hesitant.
‘Yes,’ she said and that crazy, sudden fire that she hadn’t felt since she stood up to Rhys in the hospital filled her belly again. ‘And you’re an idiot! You and your whole family. I need to tell you that.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ The girl looked stunned and Lily could feel herself burning with frustration.
‘It’s Katie, isn’t it? Well, Katie, I need you to understand something.’
‘Excuse me! What gives you the right to speak to me like this?’ And Katie looked cross but the girl’s eyes flinched away from Lily at the same time.
‘You had everything,’ Lily told her. ‘You had everything somebody like me ever wanted. I would have given anything to have a mum like yours. Anything! Someone always on your side, someone there for you no matter what. Because you know what, we don’t all get that! Some of us have to make do with nothing, so when we see someone like you, with so much, who doesn’t even know, who just doesn’t take care of that, it makes us mad. I just want you to think about it—’
‘Don’t you think I haven’t?’ Katie snapped back at her, drawing herself up in a way that reminded Lily again of Cerys. She had that same assertive look too that only came with the confidence of security. ‘I’ve thought about it every day since Mum disappeared. Whether it was anything I’d done. Whether I could have stopped it. Whether I should have spotted signs I just didn’t see! Me and my family have been through hell since she went so don’t you dare lecture me.’
Lily was about to retort, and then she thought of that moment at the Christmas Fair in Beaumaris, that moment when she knew Cerys had a family wanting her home for Christmas. And she’d ignored that to keep Cerys for herself.
Her anger burned away as suddenly as it had arrived. She wasn’t really good at righteous fury. And actually, was it anger anyway? Or was it jealousy now Katie was back on the scene? With a sullen nod of acknowledgement to Katie that she’d back off, she knew the answer to her own question and it wasn’t pretty. ‘She just wants to be loved like she loves you, like she matters,’ she mumbled at Katie.
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. ‘And she is loved. I just didn’t see how she was struggling. She hid it well, you know.’
‘I’m sorry I shouted,’ Lily said. ‘I’m not like you – I’m not smart and I’m not good at this stuff but your mum saved me. She showed me everything I’d missed all my life and helped me turn it round. I owe her big time. So now I need to fix things for her.’
‘And that’s what this is about?’ Katie asked. ‘Well, thanks, but I already worked out for myself how dumb I’ve been not to see how bad things had got.’
Lily passed her the cups of coffee. ‘I wish she was my mum.’
Katie took them, her face relaxing in sympathy. ‘Oh, I don’t know – maybe you got your wish after all. I know my mother, you see, and I think she might actually have found a second daughter now.’ And she left Lily standing by the machine as she carried the cups carefully down the corridor.
When Katie entered her dad’s room, balancing the cups carefully. Gavin was still asleep but Matt had arrived and was slumped in a chair looking tired from the journey. Cerys went to give him her cup but Katie shook her head and handed over hers instead. ‘I’ll get another in a minute. I met your friend Lily at the coffee machine.’
‘Oh?’
Katie smiled. ‘She clearly thinks a lot of you. She read me the riot act.’
‘Lily did?’ Cerys looked incredulous. ‘She’s usually very quiet!’
‘She wanted to make sure I wasn’t stupid enough to lose you again.’ Katie put her arms round her mother. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve regretted so much every day since you left that I didn’t see what you were going through. You deserve better and I do blame myself for not being around more when I did know how much you missed me. I did know and I was being selfish. But it was never because I don’t love you. Never that.’ She shook her head at herself. ‘I just wanted—’
Cerys pressed her finger on Katie’s lips. ‘I know what you wanted. And it’s nothing I didn’t want too at your age. Don’t blame yourself that I didn’t tell you how I felt either. If I’d been more honest, if I’d said what I wanted, then maybe it would have been better all round. I think I’ve learned that while I’ve been here.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I met someone who taught me that sometimes it’s best to be blunt and get what you feel out there.’
She hugged her daughter back, closing her eyes tightly so the tears of relief that she could do this again wouldn’t escape, because her middle child looked frankly horrified by all the female emotion on display and he wouldn’t cope with all this much longer. She looked up over Katie’s head buried in her shoulder and dredged up a smile for Matt.
‘I wasn’t there either when I should have been,’ he said in a hurried way. ‘Sorry.’ And then as an afterthought. ‘Love you. Obviously.’
And she knew, because Gavin had told her earlier, that her eldest son was beavering away at the family business, holding it all together so she had a quality of life to come back to. And she knew better now how love showed itself in different ways. She’d been too lost in herself to see that, but with that black drowning tar cleared, she could realise that again and rejoice in the different ways her kids loved her.
Because they did. And even though it hadn’t been enough then, it was now.
You couldn’t control how someone else loved you. You couldn’t make it the way you loved them yourself. You could only appreciate them for what they were and accept the gift they gave you.
And actually, she was okay with that. She really was. Finally.
69
Lily was just leaving the hospital when a white-faced Angharad stumbled over to her, her belly so large now that she was struggling to walk. ‘Oh my God, I’ve found you,’ she said and grabbed Lily’s hands in hers. ‘I’m so sorry, are they all okay? Oh God, I’m so sorry! I heard the news about Cerys and Rhys being attacked – it’s on the radio and all around the island now. Well, you know what it’s like here, I heard first thing that morning from my neighbour whose cousin rang her because she heard from …’ She shook her head in confusion, ‘… someone, I can’t remember who now. I shut the salon up for a week as soon as I heard – I knew you’d be needed over here. Are you okay? Are they okay?’
Lily released her hands and patted Angharad’s arm in confusion. ‘They’re all going to be fine. Cerys’s husband is still in there but he’s pulling through well. Should you be here though? You look like you’re going to give birth any day now. Shouldn’t you be resting? Or have you come in for an appointment?’
‘No, I came to find you.’ Angharad burst into loud, noisy tears. ‘I need to apologise for what I’ve done. I thought it was for the best but I was wrong.’
A horrible realisation began to strike Lily. ‘Angharad, what did you do?’
The hairdresser’s face was streaming with tears, tracks of mascara running down her face. ‘It was me who told your husband where you were. I didn’t realise. I thought I was doing something good. I saw him on the news, you see, doing an appeal.’
‘Oh, Angharad! Why didn’t you speak to me?’
‘Oh, God, Lily, I wish I had. But he was so convincing about being worried for his little girl, and scared for you. And I have to be honest, love – when I realised it was you he was looking for, and I knew that you were pretending your little one was a boy … well, it made me uncomfortable to talk to you about it.’ She held her hands up in apology. ‘It made me suspicious, okay, and I just wanted him to know you were both safe. I didn’t tell him more than that. I don’t know how he found you. I didn’t even go to the police. He was outside his office on the news so I rang there – I saw the name on the sign.’
‘He’ll have traced the phone,’ Lily said with a sigh. ‘He’s not what he seems, Angharad, and he knows some nasty people. And he’d only have to trace it to Beaumaris and then ask a few questions in the shops, and he’d have found me.’
‘I had no idea, love. I am so sorry, please believe me. You never talked about him and I didn’t know what kind of man he was or I would never have done it. And all of this is my fault. I mean, I understand now why you were trying so hard to hide from him. I’m sure I’d do the same to keep my kids safe. I feel terrible.’
Lily caught her arms. ‘Look, it’s okay. You shouldn’t be rushing around and getting upset like this in your condition. There’s been enough trouble caused by Danny and I don’t want this hurting your baby. Please!’
Her face crumpled again as she clutched once more at Lily’s hands. ‘Okay, but I’m going home right now and ringing the flower shop to make up some bouquets to say sorry to you all.’
Lily smiled. ‘Angharad, that’s lovely but you don’t have to do anything more to apologise to me. I know how easy it is to be taken in by Danny, believe me. And you’ve given me so much already with that job—’
‘And that job is yours, don’t you worry! But I will get the flowers. I need to, you see. I have to do something.’
Lily smiled. There was no point arguing with her in this mood and if it calmed her down – and, well, Cerys would like it because after all it was Gavin who’d been on the worst end of all this. ‘Daffodils are Cerys’s favourite,’ she said as she hugged Angharad. ‘Now you just take care of that baby.’
70
Cerys arrived at the hospital mid-morning after tending the sheep to find Gavin being checked over ready for discharge later. She took a deep breath. This was the moment they’d been waiting for after all, but a week on from him being injured and she still wasn’t ready and there was no plan for what they would do now.
‘I was wondering,’ Gavin asked tentatively, ‘if I could stay with you for a few days and see what it’s like up there.’
She wasn’t sure where he was going with this but she could see he was trying to meet her where she was on safe ground, so she nodded. ‘Yes, probably a good idea not to travel too far at the moment and some fresh air will do you good. The weather forecast is good for the next few days too and it’s beautiful up there right now. The daffodils are coming out, like little bundles of hope.’
‘That’s my Cerys,’ he said wistfully, ‘right there. I’ve missed her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You always saw things I didn’t. I loved that about you. You saw daffodils and saw hope. I just saw yellow flowers. Being with you made me see the world differently, made it a better place.’
She nodded, remembering that girl he’d met, the woman she had been before the blackness came and swallowed her up. But she was up and swimming free again, and that’s where she was going to stay. She didn’t always know how but she was going to do it. ‘Yes, come back with me and stay.’
She made up the guest room at the farmhouse. She’d left Dilys’s room untouched for now. She’d hesitated for a few minutes about where to put Gavin but he was still in a lot of discomfort so logically having his own bed was best for recovery and it saved the awkwardness of them being together when that time and that decision just hadn’t come around yet.
They had an awkward supper around the kitchen table. Katie had wanted to stay but Matt had stern words and told her to get out of the way and give them space for a few days so she’d driven home on the pretext of collecting Dad’s stuff.
The time apart hadn’t made it any easier for them to make small talk and Gavin focused on eating his food. But then he always had. Had never understood dinner table conversation and lingering over a meal. Eat and get on, that was his way. She wondered if she disliked that about him or accepted it as one of his idiosyncrasies. She really wasn’t sure. But what she was sure of now was that her opinion mattered and was not to be pushed aside as if her views didn’t count as long as the kids were okay.
She was past that now. She watched him eat. It seemed insignificant perhaps, such a small thing, but it was important to her to know how she felt. To analyse those feelings and not suppress them.
He irritated her by not lingering and chatting. She could feel that emotion. But what to do about it? What to do? She drummed her fingers on the table in thought.
He looked up, startled. She smiled to herself, because her thoughts mattered now.
In the back of her mind, she heard Dilys chuckle approvingly.
‘I always regretted that we didn’t chat over meals,’ she said. ‘In a Continental way. Katie used to, so I got over it, and then she left and it went back to silent meals again.’
‘I’m not good at small talk,’ he said and for once there was no defensive tone to his response, just a sadness.
‘I know,’ she said. And perhaps it didn’t matter so much. Perhaps it wasn’t a deal-breaker.
‘But I don’t mind you talking,’ he said. ‘Just because I don’t, it doesn’t mean I don’t listen.’
And that was a shock. Oh, how much time had they wasted because they’d never had this conversation before? The death of a thousand tiny cuts to their marriage, but how many were real and how many imagined? Truly, perception was all relative. There was no absolute reality in the space that lay between people.
‘I missed your cooking,’ he said suddenly. ‘Not someone to cook – not that – but your cooking, the way you made things. Because it’s how we like our chicken roasted, and even how you always do carrots in batons. All those things. They were us. You made them our things – everything you did, the way you did them and nobody else could do in the same way. Nobody else would ever be you.’
And she smiled because it was absolutely typical of Gavin to express himself through his stomach. And she felt a surge of warmth and affection at both the familiarity of that, and the complete simplicity of the mind he had sometimes. It might drive other women to distraction, but she had loved that about him – his lack of complexity.
‘And then you were gone and nothing felt right then. It was like my whole life was gone. And that’s right – it was.’ He stopped, struggling for words to express himself. ‘Because you are my whole life.’ And then he clammed up again, confused about how to manage the emotion welling up as he spoke.
She was touched, despite his clumsiness – or perhaps because of it. The fluency of his words didn’t matter; it was what lay beneath that counted. There was no subtlety to Gavin. He would say it himself – a simple man of simple tastes. Her dad had approved of that – ‘a good lad, no ponciness about him,’ she recalled him saying the day she’d told him she was going to marry Gavin. Ponciness was a great weakness in her father’s eyes. She laughed aloud at the thought.
‘What?’ Gavin said, still looking at her in a confused way.
‘My dad always liked you,’ she said, and she got up and cleared the plates away. She turned the radio on so there was no pressure to fill the silence themselves.
As she washed up, Gavin pulled up a stool beside her to take the weight off his injured leg and wordlessly began to dry the plates. Branches apart, but roots connected. Was it enough? Maybe.
