The Distant Shores

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘I’m sorry to drag you out on a night such as this, but he’s in a terrible state.’

  ‘A bit of wind and rain doesn’t faze me, Bessie. Stay with him and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.’

  ‘God bless you, Margot.’

  * * *

  Margot hurried to her room to retrieve her coat and hat and change out of her shoes into a pair of leather boots. She felt a familiar sense of foreboding as she made her way back down the stairs into the hall. A clenching of the stomach and a tightening of the throat. Yet, she knew she had to go to JP’s aid. She couldn’t leave poor Mrs B to deal with the drama alone. She knew very well what that was like. And a part of her wanted to go to his rescue. Needed to go, even.

  She headed out into the gale. With her head down and her woolly hat pulled low over her forehead, she fought her way to the car. It was bitterly cold and the night was as dark as ink. She put the key in the lock and climbed inside. The headlights lit up the rain and the nearby shrubs and trees that were bowed into submission by the wind. It wasn’t a night to be out, but she had no choice. Margot was not lacking in courage and there was nothing like a distress call to propel her into action. She was a woman now, not a girl. This time she had a chance to make a difference.

  She drove out of the gates and into the lane. Twigs and soggy leaves were strewn all over the tarmac and puddles glistened in the headlights and splashed loudly as she motored over them. She took care to drive slowly, keeping an eye on the trees that lined her route in case the wind tossed a branch into her path. It didn’t take her long to get to the Hunting Lodge. She parked as close to the front door as she could. Mrs B must have been waiting for her in the hall because no sooner had she stepped out of the car than the front door opened and her pale, round face appeared anxiously in the crack.

  Margot hurried inside. ‘What a terrible night!’ Mrs B exclaimed, helping her out of her coat and hat. ‘You’re soaking wet, dear.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you. Where is he?’

  ‘In the library.’

  Margot almost ran down the corridor, her heart thick in her throat with anticipation and dread. She expected to find JP slumped in his chair in a drunken stupor, but what she found was far more alarming.

  The room was a mess, as if he had taken everything within reach and thrown it onto the floor. Books, ornaments, lamps, pictures. Only the fire had been left untouched. It glowed calmly in the grate, golden and crimson flames gently lapping at the logs and ash as if it were just another quiet winter’s evening. In the middle of the room JP sat slumped on the carpet with his back against the sofa, feet outstretched, chin on chest. In his hand dangled an empty whiskey bottle.

  Margot crouched down beside him and gingerly patted his shoulder. ‘JP,’ she said, hoping to revive him. She shook him. ‘Come on, JP. Wake up.’ Mrs B now joined her. ‘What happened?’ Margot asked her.

  Mrs B’s lips pinched. ‘He had a visit from Mrs Alana, that’s what happened.’

  ‘I see. I suppose they fought.’

  ‘I don’t like to earwig, Margot, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of it.’

  Margot looked at her steadily. ‘I imagine it was about me and the book I’m writing.’

  Mrs B nodded. ‘It was, I’m afraid. Mrs Alana was very upset.’

  ‘What a pair!’ She sighed. ‘This was bound to happen. I imagine she sees his cooperation with me as a terrible betrayal. I don’t blame her. I’d be the same. You know, I’m not intending to hurt anyone in writing this book, Bessie,’ she added. ‘I don’t want to drive the family apart.’

  ‘You couldn’t make it worse than it already is,’ said Mrs B, but Margot knew that wasn’t true.

  * * *

  A gust of wind blew down the corridor and into the library as the front door was flung open and closed with a slam. Margot looked at Mrs B and frowned. But Mrs B knew who it was and wasn’t at all surprised when, a moment later, Colm came striding into the room. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded. Mrs B stood aside to let him through.

  ‘He’s passed out,’ Margot told him.

  Colm knelt beside his father and felt for his pulse. He shook his head and sighed. He did not articulate his disappointment but it was clear from the expression on his weary face that he was sorely tried. ‘Let’s see if we can get him upstairs and into bed,’ he said.

  ‘Has this happened before?’ Margot asked.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ he replied.

  ‘Not like this,’ Mrs B added softly. ‘I’ve never seen him this distressed before. It’s as if he suddenly lost the will.’

  Colm knew what had sent him to the very bottom of the bottle. He gave Mrs B a knowing look. She smiled back with understanding and compassion – a smile that held within it all the love and loyalty she had felt for him ever since his boyhood. A smile that, while everything else in his life had been swept up in the turmoil of his parents’ marriage, had remained constant.

  ‘Are you feeling strong, Margot?’

  ‘I’ll give it a go,’ she answered.

  They put JP’s arms over their shoulders and half-dragged, half-carried him up the stairs. With the force of movement he awoke, but the drink had filled his head with fog. He tried to speak, but the words were incoherent and slurred. At least he tried to walk, which was a help as Colm and Margot struggled to get him to his bedroom.

  Once he was lying on the bed, Margot left Mrs B and Colm to remove his soiled clothes and get him beneath the covers. She went downstairs and began tidying up the library. A sick feeling churned in the pit of her stomach, like a puddle of tar that had begun to bubble. It was as if it had always been there beneath a skin of denial, like a dormant volcano just waiting for something to trigger an eruption. Here she was, once again trying to save someone who most likely couldn’t be saved, and making someone else’s problems her own.

  Margot began to cry as she slowly put back the books in the bookcase and the ornaments on the tables. The fire had died down to embers that glowed comfortingly in the grate. She put another log on and watched for a while as it smoked and crackled and finally caught fire. It was there that Colm found her, staring sorrowfully into the flames, fighting a horrible sense of déjà vu. ‘Thanks for coming, Margot,’ he said, running his eyes over the room with a helpless, sinking feeling. How could he mend someone who was so broken?

  Margot wiped her eyes and turned to face him. ‘He’s not okay, is he?’ she said.

  ‘It’s not your problem. Why don’t you go back to the hotel? I’ll clear this up with Mrs B. You’ve done enough.’

  ‘No, I’ll help. I’ve got nothing else to do. Besides, I feel somewhat invested in your father.’

  ‘You’re not invested in him at all. He probably shouldn’t have been so quick to invite you into his home. I’m not really sure why he did. My mother’s gone mad.’

  ‘I thought so. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘It was inevitable.’ He didn’t add that she had made him promise he wouldn’t see Margot.

  Mrs B appeared looking pale. ‘It’s the worst I’ve ever seen him,’ she said, eyes damp with sadness. She lifted a lamp off the carpet and replaced it on the table. She looked about for the shade. ‘I don’t know what to do. It’s so painful watching him self-destruct, knowing the man he used to be.’

  Margot closed her eyes for a second. This would be the moment to walk away, she thought. Colm had told her to leave them to it. A wise person would do as she was told. It really wasn’t her problem. But something inside her prevented her from abandoning JP. ‘I tell you what you do,’ she said firmly, hands on hips, taking the plunge from which there would be no turning back. ‘You get every bottle of alcohol in the house and pour it down the sink. Then you tell him the truth about what alcohol has done to him, and shame him. And most importantly,’ she added gently, ‘you give him something to get well for.’

  ‘He has nothing,’ Mrs B said despairingly.

  ‘He doesn’t have nothing,’ Colm replied, lifting h
is chin. ‘He has me.’

  Margot put a hand to her lips and felt tears welling again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. She turned away and found some broken china on the floor that needed clearing up.

  ‘Would you make us some tea, Mrs B,’ Colm asked. Mrs B nodded with understanding and quietly left the room. ‘Are you all right, Margot?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘My father had me,’ she told him squarely. ‘Only me.’

  Colm walked over and relieved her of the broken china. ‘Come and sit down. We can clear this up later.’ He watched her wipe her nose on the back of her hand. ‘If I had a handkerchief I’d give it to you.’

  Margot smiled. ‘If you had a handkerchief I wouldn’t take it because I much prefer my sleeve.’ He chuckled at her joke and went and settled into his father’s armchair. Margot sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of the fire. For a moment they sat in silence, listening to the soothing sizzle of the fire, wondering how to proceed.

  ‘So that’s why you care so much about my father. Because your own father was an alcoholic,’ he said at last, choosing his words carefully in case she should want to close the subject.

  She nodded and, instead of keeping it to herself as she always did, she found herself telling him everything. Perhaps it was the fire that drew it out of her, or maybe it was Colm and the way he put his head on one side and really listened. Few have the ability to listen. Whichever it was, Margot began to talk. ‘My father was an alcoholic for most of my life,’ she told him. ‘I was fourteen when he died. It was me who found him one morning when I was about to head off to school. He’d died in his sleep. It was the gin that took him. It was always going to be the gin. My mother had long given up on him and left to live in Paris with her lover, a sleazy musician seven years her junior. Dad and I were alone. I tried to save him.’ She stared into the flames and sighed. ‘But you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.’ She turned and looked at Colm. Her eyes were shiny and full of hurt. ‘JP reminds me very much of him. Dad wasn’t a mean drunk. Sure, he had his moments, but on the whole he was a pathetic drunk. He’d just subside in his chair like your father does. It’s pitiful and sad and such a waste. I constantly emptied bottles into the sink but he was clever at hiding them. I’d find them in the strangest places. He even floated them in the loo cisterns. I mean, it was crazy. When I wasn’t trying to save him I was at school, falling behind in my work and finding it hard to make friends because I could never invite anyone home. I was ashamed of him and felt somehow tarnished because of him.’ She chuckled bitterly. ‘So, I made up stories. I told people he was an amazing father. That he spoiled me and indulged me, that we were like two peas in a pod, but the truth was he cared more for his gin than he did for me. In the end, I don’t think he saw me at all. I was a nuisance. The obstacle to his pleasure. The villain. And all I wanted was for him to be well, like other people’s dads.’

  ‘What was his profession?’

  ‘He was a journalist and a good one too. He had a column on a national newspaper and was highly respected. For a long time he was what you’d call a functioning alcoholic, rather like JP. But then it just took him over. The minute I saw your father I knew exactly what he was. I thought I could detach, research the book and not get involved. But I can’t turn my back on a man who needs help like he does. Like my father did. I couldn’t save Dad, but perhaps I can save JP.’ She laughed bitterly, knowing how ridiculous that sounded. Saving JP wouldn’t bring her father back.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s possible, Margot,’ Colm said gently. ‘It’s a noble thing to want to do, but I don’t think he’s capable of turning his life around now.’

  Margot swivelled round to face him, her gaze suddenly blazing with passion. ‘You see, that’s where you’re wrong. In the last few weeks there’s been such a transformation. He’s been out riding, he’s been in the garden. He’s been taking an interest in life and liking the person he was becoming. It was all going so well. You can’t pretend that the other evening, when we played rabbits, he wasn’t his old self again.’

  ‘That’s true. I did notice. There was certainly a change in the way he and I were getting along.’

  ‘Then your mother arrived on the scene and, while I don’t know what she said to him, I have a pretty good idea. He’s now hating himself so much and feeling guilty, that all the progress he’s been making has been lost in one terrible binge. But he’s never stopped drinking, Colm. Not for a moment. I think it’s time you told him what he is and forced him to quit. There’s no halfway for an alcoholic. I know that from experience. It’s either all or nothing. It has to be nothing.’

  Mrs B appeared with a tray of tea. She’d deliberately taken her time so that the two of them could talk. She put the tray down. ‘Now so, I have something to tell the pair of you. ’Tis bottled up inside me long enough and needs to come out. Me poor auld mother always said that it is better to have an empty house than a dirty lodger.’ Mrs B took off her pinafore and folded her hands in front of her stomach and twiddled her thumbs. Colm and Margot looked at her in surprise, wondering what secret she was about to reveal. Then her pale eyes settled on Margot and softened. ‘Lord Deverill is very fond of you, Miss Hart. I don’t want to speak out of turn, but ever since you came to meet him in January he’s looked forward to your visits like a childeen at Christmas.’ Margot’s face flowered into a smile as she recalled how much trouble he had taken to make her feel welcome. How he was drawn out of himself by this new visitor who brought light and warmth and compassion and, most importantly, companionship. ‘The fire always had to be lit in the games room whether you were coming or not,’ she told her. ‘He had a horror of you getting cold. He wanted you to be comfortable and to feel at home. He used to pester me to make cakes and buy biscuits and to draw the curtains early to keep out the draught. God help us, if you only knew what he was like before, you’d realize what a change you made to him. Glory be to God, his face always lights up like the Fastnet Lighthouse when you arrive, and when you don’t come, he wanders around in a trance like a cork on the ocean. I could go as far to say that without realizing it he’s a bit in love with you, but I don’t think it’s a romantic type of love. I think it’s because you’re sunny and kind and you are interested in him. You’re the only person who has listened to him in years and God knows he has had a lot of misfortune and tragedy. As me poor auld mother said, we all have our own cross and our own Calvary. And no, Master Colm, I don’t count myself as I’m like a piece of furniture,’ she added, turning to him. ‘If anyone can get him to give up the drink, it’s you, Miss Hart. The heart is crossways in me in case he goes off on another bender. After this one, I doubt if he would survive and to tell you the truth, I don’t know how I would survive without him either.’

  Margot was astonished. She had no idea JP had grown so fond of her. A small spark of hope ignited in her heart and the sick feeling in her stomach subsided. ‘We can club together, the three of us, and help him,’ she said excitedly. She looked at Colm. His expression was full of doubt. ‘It won’t go in the book, I promise,’ she reassured him. ‘You have to trust me.’

  He sighed, giving up all resistance. ‘Very well, I have no choice but to trust you, Margot. Please don’t let me down.’

  * * *

  Colm sent Mrs B to bed and he and Margot remained, tidying up the room and dispensing of every trace of alcohol that they could find in the house. They emptied the decanters into the sink and carried the bottles of whiskey, wine and other spirits in boxes to Colm’s car, battling the wind and rain as the storm showed no sign of abating. It was midnight when they finished. The library was almost completely restored to its original neatness, apart from the odd shattered ornament and broken glass that could not be mended. A good vacuum would give it its final polish. By now the fire had dimmed in the grate, only the embers glowed quietly as the final pieces of charred wood were gradually reduced to ash. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ said Colm. He looked weary and anxious as he escor
ted her down the corridor to the front door. ‘I’m going to stay over, so that I’m here in the morning when Dad wakes up. You’re welcome to stay if you like. There are plenty of bedrooms. It’s not a night to be on the road.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine. It’s only a short drive to the castle and my car is tougher than it looks.’ She put a hand on his arm, moved suddenly by the raw emotion in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Colm.’

  He knew now that she meant it. ‘It’s a real help to have your support, Margot.’ He sighed. ‘Since Mum and my sisters left for America, I’ve had to deal with Dad on my own and it hasn’t been easy.’

  ‘Well, you’re not on your own now. You have me.’ She smiled sympathetically.

  His eyes lingered on her face. They seemed to be delving inside her. She did not look away. She had revealed too much of herself tonight to be coy now. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I misjudged you,’ he said softly. ‘I realize now how wrong I was.’

  ‘I understand why you did, Colm,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t think about your family when I set out on my project. But I’m thinking about them now.’

  He nodded. ‘I know you are.’

  He pulled her into a fierce embrace. She hadn’t expected him to and for a second she felt as if a line had been crossed. They were no longer journalist and subject, but two people united by a common pain. Two people who needed each other. Margot closed her eyes. It felt good to have his arms around her, to give up her resistance and yield. She was too tired to resist tonight. Colm held her close for a long moment and Margot realized how very tired she was, not because of lack of sleep or even because of exhausted emotion, but because of holding on to the armour plating she’d wrapped around her heart. She realized too that he needed this embrace as much as she did. She put her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. She had told him everything. She had nothing left to hide.

  Then his lips found hers and he kissed her. He hadn’t planned to and she hadn’t expected it. But it felt warm and arousing and, as the kiss deepened, Colm’s anxiety lifted and Margot no longer felt tired. It felt natural to hold each other like this, to kiss each other like this, as if they had been destined to come together in this way since their very first meeting.