Summer at Tiffany's (48 page)

Cassie cried harder. Her mother's idea of high-tech was an ice dispenser on the fridge. ‘God, poor Hattie,' she wept, pressing her palms against her eyes, but the tears just overflowed through her fingers. Her son was missing at sea and Cassie knew her well enough to know that behind the brisk Pollyanna demeanour was the heart of a bunny. She looked up. ‘Where is she?'

‘Upstairs, resting. I was giving her half of one of my Valiums when you arrived. It's all too much. She has to try to relax. She's no good to anyone if she's exhausted. The poor old girl's running on fumes.'

‘What about Suzy?'

‘Arch is with her. I think they've taken Velvet in with them for the night.'

‘Right,' Cassie nodded, trying to swallow down the tears, to calm down.

‘We should get you up to bed too. Kelly and Nooks said you were up early, running around like the proverbial fly all day, and then a seven-hour drive on top of it all? It's no wonder you were giddy.'

‘I'm fine, Mum, really. I think I'll just . . . I'm just going to sit here for a bit. But you should go and check on Hats. Make sure she's OK on your medication. I bet it's superstrength, isn't it?'

Her mother smiled, but her eyes were sad. ‘It's you I should be looking after. You're my baby girl.'

‘But you must be jet-lagged out of your mind.'

Her mother squeezed her hands again. They both knew Cassie was trying to say that she wanted to be alone.

‘Well,' she said finally, ‘I suppose I am a little all over the place.' She rose to standing. ‘But I'm in the blue room, if you need me, OK?'

Cassie nodded, sniffing as she watched her walk to the door.

‘Mum?'

Her mother turned.

‘I'm so pleased you're here.'

‘Me too, darling. We'll face this together. We will.'

‘I know.'

Cassie listened numbly to the sound of her mother's footsteps retreating down the hall, fading into silence as she climbed the carpeted stairs. Cassie slumped back on the sofa, the words ‘
typhoon . . . lost contact . . . missing . . .
' buffeting her from the inside. She tried not to imagine the waves; she tried not to think of the bottles drifting off one by one, of Beau grabbing the last life jacket, of Henry being a hero to the others stuck in a cabin . . .

He wasn't even supposed to have been there! If he'd just had that meeting after the race, he'd be safe in the Arctic by now. If he hadn't run into Beau, he never would have known about this damned trip. ‘
Beau was doing a favour for a friend . . .
' Amy's words floated through her mind again, snagging somehow.

Her face crumpled, sobs wracking her in spite of her best efforts. How could she only know about his torment now? Why hadn't she
felt
it, somehow – a fear in the pit of her stomach, that something, something was wrong?

How many rings of hell had he been to while she had debated whether or not to leave him? What furies had he battled while she kissed another man and indulged herself in fantasies of reviving a long-lost love affair? Had he shouted her name in the waves even as she insisted that losing her freedom was too high a price to pay for love?

She retched, feeling sick to her core, sick with herself. She had been a fool to think she ever deserved him, that
she
would ever be the one doing the leaving. He was too good for her. She'd been lucky to get away with keeping him for as long as she had. The glint of gold caught her eye and she grabbed at the bangle with her right hand, desperately pulling at it, trying to get it off as though it scorched her skin; but no matter how hard she tugged and yanked, trying to force the precious metal past skin and bone, it remained fixed round her wrist like, Kelly had said, a handcuff, shackling her to her own ugly delusions, mocking her falseness.

She cried again, her eyes falling to a photograph on the side table: Henry aged eleven, in an Aran jumper, his bright blond hair shaggy and unkempt and falling into his eyes so that all that could really be seen of his face was his exuberant smile, Rover's paws resting on his forearm as the two of them grinned for the camera.

Cassie reached for it with her treacherous, cuffed arm, tears splashing onto the glass as she stared at the little boy who'd become the man in whose eyes she had glimpsed forever, the man she had loved, the man she had now lost.

Breakfast was a ghost of itself. Tea grew cold in the pot, croissants stale on the plates, smoke from the toaster allowed to drift, unnoticed, to the open windows.

Cassie hadn't slept – in fact, she hadn't even been up to her room. Her overnight bag was still in the hall, and her clothes were so rumpled from a night on the sofa, her body so inert, it was like she'd been trampled by cows. It didn't appear anyone had slept, except for Velvet, and they all sat round the kitchen table, staring into the woodgrain like it held answers that would unlock the riddle of where, quite literally, in the world Henry was now.

Sighs issued from Archie like gales as he stood boiling the kettle for the sixth time without ever remembering to pour, much less to drink. Suzy was trying, in a tiny voice, to cajole Velvet into eating mango with a bib on; Hattie and Edie were still upstairs.

‘Please try to have some tea,' Kelly said, setting a fresh, steaming cup in front of her. (Archie had wandered into the garden and was standing staring out to sea, the kettle forgotten again.)

Cassie blinked a ‘no', her eyelids so puffy and raw they barely needed to move at all.

‘Maybe coffee?' Anouk tried, earning herself an arched eyebrow from Kelly.

‘I . . . can't.' She felt sick, wretched, disgusted. She felt more things than she could consciously process.

The room fell silent again, Kelly and Anouk uncomfortably aware of the frozen sea that separated Cassie and Suzy as they sat, oblivious to each other across the table, each wrapped up in their own pain.

‘How about a walk?' Kelly tried. ‘Some fresh air would do you all good.'

This time, no one bothered to answer and Kelly got up, a pained expression on her face, as she gave Anouk a tiny, imperceptible shrug.

‘Well, have a shower at least,' Anouk implored, doubtless being driven to the edge of reason that Cassie wasn't in fresh, matching lingerie. ‘Put on some clean clothes.' She reached for Cassie's hand, tugging at it gently until Cassie got up wordlessly and followed after like an obedient puppy.

She stood under the water that Anouk got running for her, only coming out when Anouk turned it off and wrapped her in a towel, drying her hair lightly before laying out clean clothes on the bed.

When she came back downstairs forty minutes later, she was clean, but not revived. Nothing had changed. They were still waiting.

Archie was no longer in the garden. There was a void where he'd been standing by the hedge and she went to fill it, her eyes on the thin stretch of blue that ran across the horizon like a ribbon on a birthday cake. What had it done with him, that malevolent body of water? Was it tossing him like a cork on the froth of its waves? Had it pulled him down to the murky depths where blue turned to black?

Her gaze swung round the ellipse until it came to the tiny church's steeple, which punctured the sky like a nail, a sudden blip of activity on a heart monitor that was flatlining. Her feet began to move towards it, one in front of the other over the grass. She climbed over the stile as if on automatic, her hand trailing over the prickles and thorns of the brambly hedgerow, welcoming the pinpricks of pain, grateful she could feel that, at least.

Ahead, she could see two figures rushing up the path, back towards the house. The smaller one was faltering, stumbling, arms outstretched as if to break a fall.

Cassie stopped, waiting for them to reach her.

‘I just . . .' Gem's eyes were as red as her own, her face as pale as a moon. ‘It's off. I've told the vicar.'

‘I'm sorry,' Cassie said quietly. In truth, the wedding had completely slipped her mind, but of course, how could it have gone ahead in these circumstances? She remembered, too, another wedding that had slipped her mind as she realized that, right now, hundreds of miles north of here, Gil was moving on. Just like that, their marriage was being erased, overwritten by a new one, a new hope, as if it had never existed at all.

Her eyes slid over to Luke, silent as a shadow, behind Gem.

‘It's because of the timing,' Gem said.

‘Yes.'

Gem stared at her shivering in the warmth. ‘I have to see Aunt Hats.'

Cassie watched her go.

‘I'd better stay with her. She's in pieces,' Luke murmured. ‘She didn't want this. It was Laird's decision.'

‘Oh.' She didn't know what to say. Speaking felt like an effort too far. It was almost more than she could manage just to breathe and move when all her efforts were going into trying not to feel. ‘Where's Amber?'

‘Sleeping.'

Cassie didn't reply. Wasn't Amber supposed to be Gem's friend? Her bridesmaid?

‘She needs a lot of sleep,' he added, his voice an apologetic mumble.

Cassie bit her lip. She felt a sudden wave of anger to think that Amber could be so peacefully, so indulgently sleeping her way through this living nightmare.

‘It's not just the timing,' Luke said, bringing her back to the moment, back to him. ‘He thinks she's not ready.' He looked at her closely as he said it, as though the statement was also a question. For her.

She ignored it. ‘Where is he now?'

‘Laird? Giving her space. His brother landed in Newquay this morning, so he went to pick him up and I think they're spending the day over there. I wouldn't like to be him, having to explain that the journey was for nothing.'

When Cassie didn't reply, he carried on. ‘Anyway, he reckons it'll be better all round if he's not in the way for a while.'

‘Probably,' she murmured, looking back at him, aiming the double meaning at him this time.

‘Cass.'

The word was like a red balloon that had escaped a child, bobbing untethered, trying to rise.

She looked at him and saw the same apprehension in his eyes that she had seen last night. She understood it now; she knew he had realized – even before she was told the news last night – that this changed everything. He couldn't know that she had already made her decision anyway, that the very sight, sound and smell of him, intoxicating though he was, wasn't her home. She had known it with utter certainty when she'd walked into the room. He was an interloper in her life, a pleasing and sexy diversion, but distraction was all he offered. Henry was nourishment. He fed her soul. He made her a better version of herself, bigger in every way.

His mouth opened, his speech – pleas – ready, but she shook her head, looking back out to sea. Their silence would have to say it all. Words, actions, chemistry, history – they weren't enough. He wasn't enough; he wasn't Henry. Even if she couldn't have Henry, she didn't want
him
.

‘You need to take this off,' she said quietly, holding up her arm. The bangle dangled from her wrist – beautiful but dead.

He stared at it. ‘But it's yours.'

‘I don't want it.' Her words were flat, the rejection absolute.

He recoiled as though she'd slapped him. ‘Well, I can't. I don't have the screwdriver here. On me.' He patted his jeans pockets as if to show her.

She forced herself to hold his gaze, even though the look in his eyes sliced at her like a swinging scythe. She knew she had to do this. ‘Later, then. Bring it to the house before you leave.'

His mouth parted at the order that, strictly speaking, wasn't hers to give.

‘Cass, look, I know you're hurt – it's terrible not knowing about Henry – but don't you think you—'

‘No.' She blinked at him, knowing exactly what he was saying – that the news coming her way might be the worst, that Henry was never coming back. Why throw away everything they could have for something she might never be able to have? He didn't see that she could never forgive herself for what they had done in these past hours. That they may have had a complicated past, but even if she
had
still wanted him, their future was already too tainted to navigate, bound as it was now in the jet threads of this nightmare. She would choose to be alone over ever being with him. ‘It's not going to work, Luke.'

‘But the other night, you felt it too – I know you did; you said so yourself.'

‘You said what I wanted to hear. You want me to just ignore my fears, to run away from my life, from
myself
. But I have to face up to my past. There's no way around it. I can't keep pretending it didn't happen or it didn't matter, I am who I am because of it.'

‘And I love you just the way you are, Cass. I always have.' He took a step towards her, desperation in his movements. ‘The girl in front of me – that's all I've ever wanted.'

But Cassie took a step back, holding up her arm so that the bangle glinted in the sun. ‘This isn't love, Luke. This isn't freedom. It's denial, it's possession. You just want back what you lost – your ego needs—'

‘No.' He shook his head, his jaw clenched. ‘You're upset; you're not thinking straight. See, I
knew
this would happen. I knew it'd send you off spinning back to him, that you'd feel some kind of . . . duty.'

She laughed suddenly, like he'd told a joke. ‘Duty? Being with
him
?' The smile faded from her face as a vision of Henry – windswept and tanned, his roguish smile lopsided, his grey-blue eyes soft as he stared at her – swam before her eyes. ‘I should be so lucky ever to stand by his side again,' she murmured. ‘To say that I was his . . .' Her fingers found the Tiffany solitaire and she brought the ring to her lips, her eyes closing as she kissed it with almost reverential tenderness. She had to believe . . .