Coming Home to Seashell Cottage

by Jessica Redland

  It was obvious from our conversation that there was no way Daran was ever going to move to England, and I was certainly never going to move back to Ireland.

  I knew I didn’t love him at the moment, but I still cared for him deeply and he was the father of my child. Could my feelings come back? And, if they did, would they be strong enough to bridge the distance? A long-distance relationship worked for Ben and Lebony. Could it work for Daran and me?

  As I drifted off to sleep, the last thought on my mind wasn’t whether we could make it work. It was whether I wanted it to work for Daran and me.

  52

  I switched my phone back on as I left Jimmy’s the following afternoon. I had the packing to finish before we moved the next day and I felt quite giddy with excitement at the thought of the fresh start with my new family. Especially a fresh start in Whitsborough Bay.

  A beep indicated a missed call from Ben from a little after 11 a.m. followed by a text advising me that I had a voicemail. Phew! He was still speaking to me then, then. He hadn’t been around when I’d awoken that morning and I couldn’t shake the feeling he was avoiding me.

  Crossing the car park, I dialled into my voicemail: Clare. It’s Ben. My dad’s just phoned. Auntie Kay’s been in a coach crash. It’s on the news. There are fatalities. We don’t know if… We’re hoping she’s… Oh God! I can’t bear to think about it. I’m going to Whitsborough Bay. Mum and Sarah are in bits. They need me… I’m sorry I didn’t come home till late last night. I hope you were okay. It was… It doesn’t matter. Look, call me when you get this, if you can.

  I ran across the car park, jumped into the car, attached my phone to the hands-free system with shaky hands, then sped towards the A1. As I waited impatiently at a red light, I speed-dialled Elise’s mobile. Voicemail. ‘Elise. It’s Clare. Call me on my mobile the minute you pick this up. I’m on my way to Whitsborough Bay. We need to see Sarah.’

  She rang back less than ten minutes later, panic in her voice. ‘Has something happened to Sarah?’

  ‘No. Yes. Sort of. I don’t know much. I’ve just picked up a message from Ben. Kay and Philip are in Italy on holiday, but their coach crashed and he doesn’t know whether Kay’s…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word ‘dead’. ‘… one of the survivors.’

  Elise gasped. ‘Oh my goodness. I can’t believe it. What about Philip?’

  ‘Ben didn’t say. I’m assuming they don’t know about him either.’

  ‘I only saw them a couple of days ago. They were so excited about the trip. How’s Sarah?’

  ‘Not good, by the sounds of it. I’ve just set off now. Do you want to go to Sarah’s directly or will I pick you up?’

  ‘Can you pick me up? Stevie will be here in about an hour so he can stay with Melody.’

  I hung up after making arrangements to ring her when I arrived at the hospital car park. My heart raced. Poor Ben. And poor Sarah. Ben was close to Kay, but Sarah had an exceptional bond with her auntie.

  As I headed north, I cursed myself for being so lax at keeping in contact with Sarah. She probably thought I didn’t care. I did. I just wasn’t very good at dealing with other people’s problems when I had so many of my own to sort out. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried. I’d made a couple of attempts to visit, and I’d called her on the day of Da’s funeral when I was with Ben. I hadn’t tried again, though. I should have. I’d promised Ben I would.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be pissed off at us for turning up together?’ I asked Elise, as I rang the bell at Sarah’s parents’ house.

  ‘No. I think she’ll appreciate that we’re here.’

  Ben opened the door and my throat constricted as I took in his pale face and red eyes. ‘You got my message.’

  ‘I came as soon as I heard it,’ I said, reaching my arms out to him. He hugged me, then Elise, and ushered us into the hall.

  ‘Any news?’ I asked.

  He shook his head and opened the lounge door. Sarah’s dad, Chris, was pacing up and down, talking in hushed tones on the phone. Sarah was curled up on the sofa, watching him intently. I frowned. She’d lost a lot of weight since I last saw her, and not in a good way. She actually looked quite frail. I glanced at Ben. He’d warned me something was up but he’d insisted she wasn’t ill. Had that been a cover-up?

  At that moment, Sarah looked up and spotted Elise and me. She stood up. ‘What are you two doing here?’ was all she managed, before she broke down in tears.

  ‘Did you think we’d let our best friend go through something like this on her own?’ I said, giving her a hug. Elise put her arms round her too, and the three of us stood in the middle of the lounge, clinging onto one another.

  Chris put the phone down. ‘That was Adrienne from the tour operator. They’ve been able to confirm that Philip isn’t one of the fatalities, although that doesn’t mean he’s not injured. They still can’t tell us anything about Kay.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ben cried. ‘The crash happened last night. How can they not know who’s dead and who’s alive?’

  ‘Apparently, the crash site was between two hospitals, so passengers have been taken to one or the other with no particular logic. It’s chaos out there.’

  Ben sat forward in his chair. ‘So, how can they confirm the nationalities of the dead on the news, yet they can’t confirm the names?’

  ‘I don’t know, son. She’s trying her best to find out more.’

  ‘Where’s your mum?’ Elise asked Sarah.

  ‘Asleep. She was beside herself. I called your Gary and he gave her something to settle her.’

  ‘I’d better go and check on her.’ Chris left the room.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ I asked Sarah.

  She crumpled again. ‘She can’t be dead.’ Big, fat tears tumbled down her cheeks.

  I sat down beside her and held her tightly. ‘I’m sure she isn’t. She’d have been sitting next to Philip and he’s alive, which would suggest they weren’t in the part of the coach that took the greatest impact. I reckon they do know who the dead are and they’re letting those families know first. I really think that, if she’d been one of them, you’d have heard by now.’

  The doorbell rang. ‘Do you want me to get that?’ Elise asked.

  Sarah nodded.

  Elise returned moments later accompanied by a tall, slim woman with long, blonde, tousled hair, the sides of which were swept back in fishtail plaits. She looked very tanned, despite it only being late March, and was dressed for summer in a tight coral-pink T-shirt and floaty white skirt. There was something familiar about her. Oh Jesus, she had to be…

  ‘Lebony!’ Ben cried, returning from the kitchen.

  She rushed across the room, arms outstretched. ‘Oh, Ben! I’m so sorry.’

  Ben gave way to his grief as he held onto her and she stroked his back. I felt as if I was invading a very private moment but I couldn’t take my eyes off the pair of them. I had to admit that Lebony was beautiful and, seeing them together, they looked so right. I was still staring at them when they finally pulled away and Ben composed himself.

  ‘Er… This is Lebony. Lebony, this is Clare, and I think you’ve met Elise before.’

  ‘Yes, I have, and she answered the door just now. Hi, Elise. Hi, Sarah,’ Lebony said. ‘And hi to you, Clare. Ben’s told me so much about you. I feel like I know you already. I’m only sorry we’ve had to meet under these circumstances.’

  ‘It’s good to meet you too, at last,’ I said. My voice sounded strange, as though I was struggling to say the words.

  Ben sat back down on the armchair and Lebony perched on the armrest with her arm round his shoulder. We all jumped as the phone rang.

  ‘I’d better let Dad get it,’ Ben said. ‘It was quick, though. I hope that doesn’t mean bad news.’

  We could hear pacing up and down the landing, then Chris ran down the stairs and burst through the door. ‘She’s alive! She’s injured. They don’t know the details but apparently it’s not critical
. Adrienne’s going to call me back as soon as she knows more. I think I need a cup of tea after that.’

  ‘I’ll make it.’ Lebony jumped up and took drinks orders from everyone, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  Chris slumped onto the second armchair, looking exhausted but happy. ‘I can’t wait until your mum wakes up so I can tell her Kay’s safe.’ He smiled at Elise and me. ‘Thank you both for coming over. You’re such good friends. After what Sarah went through with the baby, this was the last thing she needed.’

  ‘What baby?’ I said.

  ‘Oh no!’ Chris put his hand over his mouth. ‘Didn’t you know? I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t mean to… I think I’d better see if Lebony needs any help.’ He jumped up and scuttled out of the room.

  ‘Sarah…?’

  She started sobbing again. ‘Ben, I can’t…’

  ‘Do you want me to tell them?’

  She hugged her legs to her chest and nodded.

  ‘Shortly after getting back from Canada, Sarah discovered she was pregnant. She didn’t want to say anything till she’d had her twelve-week scan and knew the baby was okay. At about ten weeks… Is that right, Sarah?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘At about ten weeks, she started bleeding so was taken into hospital, where they discovered she had an ectopic pregnancy. She had to go in for surgery to remove the foetus, but they had to remove one of her fallopian tubes too.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ I cried. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘I couldn’t… so ashamed… my fault.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault,’ Elise said. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘No. My fault.’ An agonised sob escaped from her.

  ‘It isn’t Sarah’s fault,’ Ben said. ‘Sadly, these things do happen. However, Sarah and Nick wanted to spend a few years together before they started a family. She was a bit upset to discover she was pregnant so soon. When she started bleeding, she blamed herself for not wanting the baby, and now she can’t seem to stop blaming herself.’

  I took Sarah’s hand in mine. ‘You can’t blame yourself, but I know how easy it is. At first, I blamed myself for Shannon dying because I thought God was mad at me for taking Daran away from the priesthood.’

  ‘I might never be able to have children,’ she whimpered.

  ‘I thought Ben said they only removed one tube.’

  ‘They found some scarring on the other one. They’re running tests at the moment.’

  Sarah blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you both, but I couldn’t be around babies and talk of babies. I know it’s selfish but—’

  ‘When you visited me in hospital before Melody was born and Clare was there…?’ Elise asked.

  Sarah nodded. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I thought I’d be okay, but I’d just found out that morning and I was booked in for my op that afternoon.’

  No wonder she’d acted so strangely. What must have been running through her mind, seeing Elise and me all excited about Luke and about Melody’s impending arrival, when she knew she was losing her baby? ‘I wish you’d told us.’

  ‘Yeah, like you told me about Daran and Shannon, and Elise told me about her pregnancy and having the hots for Stevie?’

  Awkward.

  ‘Do you know what I think?’ Ben said. ‘I think you should all go for a long walk and talk. Really talk. Get all your secrets out in the open and start supporting each other through some of the shit you’re going through right now, because I know that you, Clare, need your friends around you to help you through the latest revelations.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’ Elise asked.

  ‘What hasn’t happened?’ I sighed. ‘I hate to say it, but Saint Ben is right. Who fancies a walk along the beach?’

  Elise and Clare muttered their agreement. ‘You’ll call me if there’s any more news?’ Sarah asked, looking at Ben. ‘And will you tell Nick where we are when he gets back from walking Hobnob?’

  ‘I will.’ He stood up. ‘Dad! Lebony! It’s safe to return.’

  ‘We need absolute and complete honesty,’ I said, as we piled out of my car and crossed the road, ready for a walk round The Headland to North Bay. ‘It’s going to hurt at times, but I think that the only way we can get this friendship back on track – bearing in mind that the dynamics have changed and it’s a three-way friendship now instead of two pairs – is if we explore how we’ve all felt over the past year, when we’ve encountered certain hurdles or discovered certain secrets. Is everyone up for it?’

  I don’t think I’d ever talked so much in my life. Or listened so intently. We got it all out in the open, exploring the friendship shifts, the secrets, the lies, the misunderstandings and the lack of communication. We laughed, we cried, we had awkward moments where one or the other could happily have run off down the beach, but we got through it.

  I’d thought before that being in our early thirties automatically made us ‘mature adults’ but it didn’t – it was the harsh realities of life that had been thrown at us all over the past couple of months and talking about how we’d struggled to deal with them, that had matured us.

  Despite me setting the ‘ground rules’ about absolute honesty, I didn’t breathe a word about Ben. There was nothing to tell, after all. If I told them about that kiss, who would it benefit? It had been a stupid dare which hadn’t meant a thing and it wasn’t worth the risk of word getting back to Lebony and damaging her relationship with Ben. Some things were better off being kept secret.

  53

  I lay on my back on the sofa in the semi-darkness of Sarah’s parents’ lounge. Sarah had insisted on staying there that night in case there was more news, given that we’d heard nothing since before our walk. Nick had joined us for a takeaway, then gone home to tend to their dog and cats. He offered me their spare bed but I insisted I was happy with a sofa and a duvet. Elise returned to the hospital and, as far as I knew, Lebony and Ben were upstairs.

  That had been one hell of a conversation on the beach. A long-overdue one. Christ, we’d been through a lot recently. I felt like a right cow for not taking Ben seriously when he’d suggested – several times – that there was a reason for Sarah not being in touch. There certainly had been. I should listen to Ben more. He spoke so much sense.

  Ben. I pictured Lebony and him clinging onto each other when she’d arrived. Tightly. Tenderly. She wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d seen photos, of course, so I knew what she physically looked like, but I hadn’t been prepared for her personality. She was so bubbly, so helpful, so damn friendly. She’d heard all about what I’d done for Luke and said I was an inspiration for leaving my job and taking him on without question.

  I’ll admit that I wanted to dislike her. I knew that Sarah had mixed feelings about the woman; she liked her as a person but hated her for spending so much time away from Ben. I wanted to hate her too. But I couldn’t. Why did I want to hate her? Out of support for Sarah? It had to be. Ben was just a friend, so what difference did it make to me who he chose as a girlfriend? If he wanted to see someone who lived overseas for forty-eight weeks of the year, that was his decision and he could live with the consequences. Sod all to do with me.

  I kicked off my duvet and padded barefoot through the dining room and into the kitchen, gently closing the doors behind me. I made a strong black coffee, then turned all the lights off except the one on the cooker hood. The clock on the oven informed me it was 04:12. Far too early for the glare of spotlights. I sat at the small, round table, blowing on my coffee and reflecting on the events of the previous day.

  I heard a slight noise upstairs and suddenly my mind was in overdrive, imagining Ben and Lebony on the bed together, kissing, undressing each other, caressing… Only, it wasn’t Lebony I was picturing with Ben anymore – it was me. Why was I picturing that?

  The door from the hall opened and a dark figure stepped into the kitchen. I don’t know who was more shocked, but I was the only one holding a cup of coffee. And then I
wasn’t.

  ‘Shit! I’ll get a cloth.’ Ben dived towards the sink and I numbly looked down at the dark liquid trickling off the edge of the table onto the tiled floor. How had that happened?

  ‘Did it scald you?’ he asked, wringing out a cloth.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Ben knelt down beside me. ‘I think you might be okay, but just in case…’

  He gently placed the cloth on my bare legs, his hand grazing against my thigh. A shiver of something zipped up and down my body and I jumped.

  ‘Does it hurt? Sorry,’ Ben said, completely misinterpreting my reaction.

  ‘Coffee wasn’t that hot,’ I muttered, very aware that the coffee might not have been hot, but I certainly felt hot with Ben so close to me, touching my legs.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He finished wiping my legs and feet, while I sat helplessly like a small child being cleaned up after a nasty tumble.

  Ben sat down beside me when he’d finished. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you’d be asleep, which is why I came through the other door.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind.’

  He nodded. ‘Tell me about it. Tough day, eh?’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Sarah. I should’ve got in touch.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you why but it wasn’t my news to share.’

  ‘I know. And I respect you for that. We’ve had a full confession session. We should have been honest with each other right from the start. In fact, I can look back on pretty much everything in my life and say that I should have told the truth from day one – Daran, the baby, the rape, my past. Elise should have told Sarah about the baby, and Sarah should have told us about what she was going through. Even though the timing was challenging with all those pieces of news, they should have been shared, because the short-term discomfort would have been a lot better than the hurt that’s been caused by the secrets. I don’t think anyone should have secrets anymore.’ I sighed. ‘Hindsight’s a great thing, so it is. Anyway, everything’s sorted now. We’re all friends again.’