Now, years on and with Jake glaring at her across the kitchen, she wasn’t quite so sure.
“What on earth are you going on about that for? It’s ancient history,” she said, defensively.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Nice try, Mo, but don’t avoid the question. Did you or didn’t you?”
“All right, yes I did!” Mo flung down her toast and put her hands on her hips. “I ripped it up and do you know what? I’m glad I did!”
Jake’s expression didn’t flicker. “What on earth did you do that for?”
“Jesus, Jake! I don’t know. It was years ago.”
Jake gave a harsh laugh. “Come on. You’re better than that. You know exactly why you did it.”
Mo was stung by her brother’s accusing tone. “All right, then, I’ll tell you why I did it. I was sick and tired of seeing you being manipulated. Summer made it pretty damn clear that she didn’t give a toss about you or any of us when she pushed off to London. She showed her true colours then, didn’t she? She’s nothing but a hard-hearted bitch.”
“She was sixteen, Mo,” Jake said wearily. “Sixteen. A kid. Can’t you see that she was confused? She’d had Susie pushing her for years. Looking back now, I can see that I wasn’t being fair either by putting pressure on her to stay. I should have supported her, not issued an ultimatum.”
Mo, who until the arrival of Ashley Carstairs had never been confused in her life about what she wanted, snorted rudely.
“She’s been telling you some sob story, hasn’t she? God, Jake, don’t be such a sucker. You might not remember how in bits you were about it all but I do. She was utterly selfish and I hated seeing what it was doing to you. She’s certainly never looked back, has she?”
“You don’t know anything about Summer. What on earth made you think you had the right to interfere? Have you any idea what you’ve done?” Jake said. Although he didn’t raise his voice the steeliness in his tone was at odds with the laid-back brother she knew and loved – the brother whom she’d been protecting.
“I know she broke your heart, walked out on you and never looked back,” Mo shot back.
“And did you know she was having our baby?”
“What?” Mo felt her blood turn to ice in her veins.
“You heard. Summer was pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
Jake nodded. “She found out a week or so after arriving in London and she was desperate to get in touch with me. She called a couple of times but you put the phone down on her.” Striding across the kitchen, he glowered down at Mo. “So she wrote instead, but of course I never answered. You can imagine what she thought.”
Somebody had stolen Mo’s voice and all she could do was whisper. “So what happened?”
“She was sixteen, alone and frightened,” Jake said shortly. He couldn’t even look her in the eye, Mo realised. “What do you think happened? What choices did she have?”
Normally Mo’s life was full of certainties. This horse spooked at those kinds of fillers. That cross-country course was lethal if wet. Summer had betrayed Jake and, by association, Mo too. She liked life being black and white. Grey was far too complicated.
“She didn’t get rid of it, did she?” Her voice was hardly audible. If Summer had been forced to terminate the pregnancy because of her, then Mo didn’t think she could live with herself.
“She thought about it but she lost the baby – not before she’d been to hell and back first, though. Can you even begin to imagine how that must have been? She went through all that by herself, and while thinking that I’d read her letter and chosen to turn my back on her.” He passed a hand over his eyes in despair. “I can’t bear to even think about it.”
Neither could Mo. She felt sick.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I swear to God, Jake! I had no idea. I would never have done it otherwise. You know I wouldn’t!”
“You shouldn’t have done it anyway!” Jake’s voice was shaking with anger. “Christ, Mo, don’t you see what your interfering has done? I’ve spent twelve years of my life thinking that Summer didn’t want to be with me, twelve bloody years, and the same goes for her too. Twelve wasted years, Mo! We can never get that time or that child back now. Have you any idea how that feels?”
Mo’s throat tightened. “I didn’t know, Jake. I thought I was helping you.”
“Helping me?” He sounded incredulous. “Jesus Christ, Mo. That’s the kind of help I can do without. Do me a favour, will you? Don’t ever try to help me again.”
“I’m so sorry, Jake.” Mo could see her brother was devastated and to know this was her fault, however well intentioned, was more than she could stand.
“I think it’s a bit too late to be sorry, don’t you?” Jake held up his hand when she started to apologise again. “No, don’t. There’s nothing you can say that could possibly make things feel any better right now. What you forget, Mo, is that you’ve known about this for a long time. I’ve only just found this out and it’s changed absolutely everything.”
“But not us!” Mo cried now. “Nothing’s changed between us! I only did it because I cared – and I was just a kid, Jake! I was sixteen! I had no idea what was going on! I was angry and scared. I wasn’t deliberately trying to hurt anyone. Don’t look at me like that. I’m still the same person.”
But Jake held up his hands again. “I need some time to get my head around all this, because it doesn’t feel like you’re the same person. Do you understand? I have to figure this out and I need some space. Quite frankly, Mo, I can’t stand the sight of you right now.”
Mo didn’t want to hear any more. She was out of the kitchen, through the back door and tearing across the garden almost before she was aware of it. All she wanted to do was put as much distance between herself and Jake as she could before she fell into a thousand pieces. It was unbearable. One swift, hot-headed teenage decision, made in the heat of the moment all those years ago, had come back to haunt her. Even worse, that impulsive teenage gesture had hurt her beloved brother in the worst way possible.
Mo didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive herself.
Chapter 32
Jules couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever felt quite as drained as she did right now. Her daily walks with Danny definitely left her breathless and with her legs aching as though she was coming down with flu. Since she’d been living by the sea and taking in all the fresh salty air, she’d often found that her eyelids had felt weighed down, but this profound exhaustion was something else entirely. By the time she’d made the climb back up to the rectory Jules was struggling even to summon enough energy to unlock the front door. She’d known she was unfit but this was ridiculous! Why, even filling the kettle was a task of Herculean proportions.
While she waited for the kettle to boil, Jules slumped at the kitchen table and contemplated opening the biscuit tin to rummage for a chocolate digestive or two, but the effort of crossing the room to fetch it was too much like hard work. It was also a strange development that she was feeling a lot less inclined to snack on Hobnobs and shortbread these days. Was it just her imagination, Jules wondered as she tested the waistband of her jeans, or were her clothes starting to feel just a little bit looser lately too? If so, maybe Danny Tremaine could have a whole new career as a personal trainer to look forward to; in next to no time he had achieved what endless slimming clubs and miracle supplements had failed to do.
Now that the kettle had boiled, Jules dragged herself to the worktop and sloshed the hot water onto a tea bag. With the tea brewing, she leaned against the counter and gazed thoughtfully out of the window. How many rectories came with a view like this? Jules asked herself. If she stared at it all day she didn’t think she would ever get bored. The sea was never the same from one minute to the next and the village below her was a moving picture as people and vehicles wiggled their way through the narrow streets. She’d only been here a short while but already Polwenna Bay felt like home. From the beady-eyed seagulls always on the
scrounge for leftovers or dive-bombing for ice creams, to the people she was coming to know and care about, Jules knew she’d been right to listen to that small firm voice that had insisted that coming here was the right thing to do. Whether it had been intuition, fate or God really hadn’t mattered to Jules initially – and nor had the shocked expressions of her fellow young vicars, all of whom had been surprised at Jules jumping at the idea of a rural parish, even if she had become increasingly convinced that she was being called by God to go there. One of the other vicars had even suggested that she might be bored…
Now, standing by the window and watching BBC Cornwall packing away their broadcast equipment, while down on the quayside people still huddled in groups and discussed the events of the morning, Jules laughed out loud. Bored? Hardly. Nothing in all her years of training had prepared her for life in a small seaside parish. Particularly with the speed and the drama of Penhalligan Girl’s disappearance, the responsibility of having the entire community looking to her for comfort and support had been heavier than Jules could have ever imagined. Her role as the vicar of Polwenna Bay had been thrown into sharp relief. There was much more to it than fighting Sheila Keverne over the brass-cleaning rota or striving to make her sermons more exciting, and Jules had found herself thrust right into the centre of the action. People had wanted prayers and reassurance and answers – and who else did they turn to for these things, even in the multimedia age, but their vicar? Today Jules had really felt a part of their community: their pain had been her pain and their joy her joy. The relief of seeing the two boys brought home safe and sound had been overwhelming. Talk about an answer to prayer, Jules thought as she splashed milk into the mug. Still, she was willing to bet that it was the first time anyone from Polwenna Bay had seen Ashley Carstairs in quite that light!
The local property developer was quite a mystery. Generally he seemed about as popular in the village as the Ebola virus, and from what Jules could see Ashley tended to spend most of his time searching for ways to upset as many people as possible and flashing his money about. He wanted everything done yesterday and seemed in a constant race against time. Jules frowned; she couldn’t help thinking that Ashley worked a little too hard to cultivate his cavalier image. It certainly didn’t tally with the quiet man she often saw sitting in St Wenn’s – and neither did today’s heroic rescue of the Penhalligan brothers. There was far more to Ashley Carstairs than met the eye; of that Jules was certain.
Mug in hand, Jules was just about to wander into the churchyard to soak up the sunshine and doze for a minute in the warmth, when there was a knock on the front door. Sending up a quick plea to her boss upstairs that this wasn’t Sheila Keverne demanding an apology for the short-notice cancellation of today’s service in favour of prayers at the quayside, Jules abandoned her drink and went to answer it.
Opening the door, Jules thought that on reflection she would have preferred Sheila Keverne. Although they had never been introduced formally, she instantly recognised Tara Tremaine.
“I need to speak to you, Vicar,” Tara said. “Is it a good time?”
Jules’s first thought was for Danny. Why was Tara looking for a priest? Had there been a problem? Had he done something awful? Please Lord, no, anything but that.
“Is Danny OK?” Jules demanded as her heart screwed itself up into a tight ball. All sorts of horrible scenarios danced across her vision. “Has something happened?”
“Danny’s fine,” Tara replied calmly. She held out a slender hand which Jules shook politely, wincing at the contrast of Tara’s slim manicured fingers with her own stubby digits with their short and practical nails. “Actually I ought to say that he’s as fine as he’ll ever be.”
Jules stared at her. The relief was overwhelming.
“I hope this isn’t inconvenient? I can imagine you’ve been flat out this morning.” Tara dropped Jules’s hand and stepped back, her hazel eyes narrowing. “You look very pale. Maybe I should go?”
“It’s certainly been hectic, but no, it’s not a bad time at all,” Jules assured her visitor, doing her best to click into vicar mode rather than gawp at this woman who’d been the cause of so much of her friend’s heartache. “How can I help?”
Tara shrugged. “I don’t know if you can. It’s just that I know you and Dan are… close?”
Jules felt a flush creep up her neck. There was something about the way Tara said this that made her, however innocent, feel horribly guilty.
“We walk on the cliffs together,” she said carefully. “He’s been very kind to me by showing me all the best routes.”
Tara gave her a sideways look. “I’m not sure kind is a word I’d apply to Danny these days.”
Jules chose to ignore the dig. “He’s been through a lot. You both have.”
Tara laughed bitterly. “That’s an understatement, but I won’t bore you with the ins and outs. Besides, Dan’s probably told you all about it anyway, hasn’t he? He won’t talk to me but it seems he’s more than happy to speak to you.”
Actually Danny hadn’t said much about his ex at all lately, but Issie certainly didn’t hold her contempt back. Even some of Morgan’s innocent comments had helped Jules build a rather unflattering mental picture of Tara, which didn’t really tie in with this unhappy woman standing before her. Jules was cross with herself for judging.
“Look, I’m sorry if I sound jealous,” Tara added while Jules struggled to find the right words, “but if I do sound that way, then I suppose it’s because I am. My husband, the man I’ve been with since I was fifteen, couldn’t talk to me. He totally shut me out, in every way. In the end it was impossible to live with him. He drove me away, Vicar. Can you imagine how that felt? Yes, I’ve left him – but he gave me a bloody big shove.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been very painful,” Jules said, and Tara inclined her head in agreement.
“It broke my heart. He wouldn’t reach out to me at all. Did you know that when he was in rehabilitation he refused to see me?”
Jules didn’t know this but she wasn’t surprised to hear it. Danny was hugely proud and independent; he would hate anyone to see him vulnerable, or feel obliged to help him, especially his wife.
“I went there every day for a month and every day I had to go away,” Tara continued. “The staff must have thought I was such a loser.” She shrugged. “Not that they said so, of course, but that was definitely how it felt to me. I wasn’t needed. They offered me counselling but what was the point? I wasn’t the one who’d given up, was I? I knew the truth. Dan didn’t want me anywhere near him and he still doesn’t. I belong to the old life and every time he looks at me I remind him of how things used to be.”
“I don’t think that’s true—”
“You don’t know enough to comment,” Tara cut through Jules’s protest. “I promise you that’s exactly how it is. So forgive me if I say that when I heard he was spending time with you and telling you everything, I was jealous and hurt too. Nothing I’ve been able to say or do has helped him or stopped him drinking. In fact I’ve probably made it worse by threatening to take Morgan away unless he quits. But you’ve made a huge difference in just the short time you’ve known him.” She paused, her eyes flickering over Jules’s body, probably comparing it to her own slim frame and feeling even more confused. “What’s your secret? Why you and not me?”
Jules suddenly had a sense that she was being weighed, measured and found rather lacking. There was no sexual threat here, was what Jules guessed her visitor was thinking; Danny really had just been going for a walk. So what on earth did this plump vicar have that she didn’t? Jules didn’t blame her visitor for making such a sweeping assumption. Tara was one of those delicate, doll-like women whom nature blesses with perfect features, a taut flat tummy and hair that never seems to frizz or straggle. She was the antithesis of Jules, who daily waged – and lost – the Battles of both the Frizz and the Bulge. In contrast to the baggy jeans and hoody that Jules had opted for today, Tara was dress
ed in a Breton tee-shirt and skinny jeans that exaggerated her long slim legs. Jules knew she’d have looked like Billy Smart’s Big Top in that stripy shirt, and she’d have struggled to get jeans like that over one ankle. There was no doubt about it; Tara Tremaine was a very attractive woman.
No wonder Danny had been heartbroken to think she would leave him, but to learn now that Tara was hurting too put a very different complexion on things. This was a married couple and marriage was a sacrament. Danny shouldn’t be spending his free time with another woman when his wife needed him, still loved him even. From what Tara was telling her, this marriage was very far from over. With sadness tightening her throat Jules knew that as a vicar, and as a decent person, it was her responsibility and her duty to help make things right between them – even if doing so squashed flat the tiny shoots of happiness that, like hyacinth bulbs planted and placed in the dark, had been growing in her heart. Their walks had quickly become one of the highlights of her life in Polwenna Bay, but if these were at the expense of Danny’s marriage then they came at a price too high to pay. As a vicar Jules knew that the needs of her flock must always come above her own. That was the example set to her by Jesus and she strove every day to follow it.
This wasn’t always easy though…
“Danny doesn’t talk about himself very much,” Jules said gently. “But whenever he has done I guess it’s because I’m a vicar.” She touched her dog collar and smiled. “This makes me easy to approach and it comes with a whole plethora of assumptions and understandings. Call it confession, if you like – even if that’s the other team!”
[Polwenna Bay 01.0] Runaway Summer Page 37