‘I think she’s painted herself into a corner, playing the part of the spiky, angry older sister for so long that she doesn’t know how to reinvent herself.’
‘I wish she’d try; we’re sisters!’
‘I know that. I think she’s actually very sensitive, and in hiding that, she can come across as a bit brusque.’
‘A bit?’ Merrin laughed, before plucking up courage to ask the question that would not stay quiet in her brain, rattling around until she gave voice to it. ‘Have you . . . have you seen Digby?’
She heard her friend’s slow intake of breath, as if she were deciding whether or not to come clean. ‘Yes. Once.’
Merrin sat up in the bed and pulled the pillow behind her, curling her toes inside her nightdress to warm them. This was how it worked: any snippet about him, a crumb of detail, was enough to reel her in like a fish on a hook – a fish that knew the bait was toxic, but was lured by a force of temptation too strong to resist.
‘Where?’ Her heart hammered in its desire for detail.
‘He was up at Reunion Point.’
Our place! She felt both gladdened and saddened by the fact that he couldn’t fail to think of her up there. But to what end?
‘Me and Ruby and Jarv went up for a picnic. Well, not a picnic exactly.’ Bella backtracked, as if aware of an unspoken sensitivity. ‘You know, just to . . . just to get pissed.’ She sounded flustered.
‘Well, that sounds like a good idea.’ Sarcasm wrapped her words. ‘To get pissed on a clifftop. I mean, if you have to do it at all, then Reunion Point with the rocks below and a sheer drop is probably the best place.’
‘I don’t get that pissed!’ Her friend laughed. ‘Those two, however . . .’ She let this trail and Merrin noted the use of the words ‘those two’ and felt a strange jolt of misplaced envy that her friend and her sister were having fun together, which of course she knew they would, and she wanted them to. But it was as if she had never been there, confirmation that life carried on regardless.
‘If you say so. Anyway, come on, tell me about Digby.’ To say his name out loud was not as painful as it once had been. If anything caused her immense sorrow, it was the memory of the night he had proposed, when, with wine and love sloshing in her veins, she had lain on her narrow mattress, kicking her heels with excitement, unable to believe that she had found true love and that her life was going to be rosy. Ruby had thrown a pillow at her face to make her shut up.
‘Was he with anyone?’
‘No.’
Aware that she had been holding her breath, she exhaled. This fact brought instant relief, although why it mattered to her that he was alone was frustrating. The thought of him with another girl was more than she could cope with. Instantly she pictured the posh girls who made up his gang.
‘Did he say anything to you?’
Infuriatingly, Bella took her time. ‘He said something like . . . “Sometimes you don’t have an easy choice,” or some such bollocks, I can’t remember exactly. I might have had some cider. Quite a lot of cider, thinking about it.’
‘So what did you say when he said that?’ Merrin did her best to disguise her extreme interest. Not that she wanted him back or even hoped for reconciliation, not at all, but still she wanted to know, as if the exchange might finally throw some light into the corners of her mind that were very much in the dark when it came to understanding what had happened. She hoped Bella had said something that left him in no doubt that she was not bitter or hurt and was in fact thriving in his absence. It felt important that he think it, even if it wasn’t strictly true.
‘I didn’t say anything, but Ruby told him that he was a prick and that if he ever spoke to any of us again she’d smash his face in.’
‘Of course she did.’ Merrin slumped down under the duvet and closed her eyes, hating the level of emotion that still hovered near the surface. And angry at herself that it was all based on no more than a fake emotion like unconditional love – how stupid must she have been to fall for the dream he peddled?
‘Are you crying?’ Bella asked across the divide as Merrin turned on her side and closed her eyes. ‘It sounds like you are.’
‘No.’
‘Yeah, you are, darling, and I don’t want you to cry.’
‘I can’t help it.’
‘Well, you need to help it. You need to stop letting anything he did or said ruin things for you. You’ve already banished yourself to a castle and I bet you’re letting it stop you finding a prince.’
‘I don’t want a bloody prince!’
‘Oh, come on, you must have met someone in the last year who you thought was nice? Good-looking? Funny?’
Unbidden, the image of Miguel Rochas filled her mind and she opened her eyes. He was undoubtedly all three, but whether he was the kind of person she would take a risk on, as her mum suggested, was another question altogether.
‘Maybe . . . but I doubt he’d be interested in an old misery guts like me.’
‘You’re not a misery guts. You’ve just been sad and you’ve needed time. And now you’ve had some time. Now what you need is a good kick up the arse. And to decide to let yourself live! So what if life isn’t what you thought it would be. Is it ever? And what does it matter if you’ve taken a wrong turn? You’ve got to get on with it, Merry! Get out there! This ain’t a rehearsal.’
‘I know that. And I’m better than I was. Much better. I can get through a day without wanting to hide and I can even think about him without crying, so, progress.’
‘I just miss you, Merry. We all do. Well, apart from old Ma Mortimer, who swans around the place with her sweet smile like butter wouldn’t melt.’
‘I can’t stand the thought of seeing her or him.’ Go home, dear, go home to your family . . .
‘You’ll have to at some point.’
‘Not if I don’t come home.’
‘Brilliant, Merrin Mercy, that’s the answer – never come home! What a thing to say!’ Bella tutted.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to. But can you imagine what it would be like to see him? When for him it’s like I never existed? Like I might have dreamt the whole thing? To have him go from loving me so completely and grabbing my hand, not wanting to say goodbye for the night because he couldn’t stand the idea of being apart from me, to . . . nothing! I’ll never understand it, not really.’ She closed her eyes to calm her thoughts; getting worked up was easy and served nothing positive.
‘Me neither.’ Bella gave a humph of laughter. ‘But you gotta let it go!’
‘Easy said. But it’s like grief, and yet I can’t legitimately grieve because he’s not dead, he just doesn’t want me.’ It didn’t get any easier saying it out loud, yet she was also glad of the opportunity to do so. Glancing at the window, she felt her gut shrink at the prospect that one day she might be within bumping-into distance of a Mortimer. Whether it be Loretta, Guthrie or Digby himself, she knew she wouldn’t know what to say or how to act. The thought was enough to make the breath stutter in her throat with embarrassment. Far better to stay where she was and keep busy.