There was a knock on the door. This in itself was unusual, as every regular visitor knew the door was unlocked and you only had to open it and pop your head inside to call out your arrival.
‘Might be someone dropping off another card.’ Bella went to the door.
Merrin looked at the row of ‘In sympathy’ cards that now lined the shelves and the mantel, feeling grateful for and hating them in equal measure. She yawned and, when she opened her eyes, Bella was standing back to allow none other than Loretta Mortimer into their little home.
It was such a shock to see her there with rain lacing her hair that Merrin couldn’t find any words. Instead she stared at the woman, as if glued to the seat.
Digby’s mother’s manner was uncharacteristically hesitant and she looked down, running her fingers over the heads of the roses and ferns in her hand.
‘I was very sorry to hear about your father.’ She addressed Merrin directly. ‘I brought these for Heather.’ She held them out and it was Bella who took them and walked to the sink where a vase lived on the shelf above it.
Merrin felt rooted to the spot.
‘I saw Digby.’ She hadn’t intended on saying anything, but this came out almost instinctively, knowing it was Mrs Mortimer who had sent him.
Loretta nodded. ‘Yes. I thought . . . I thought . . .’
‘You thought what?’ Her voice was surprisingly clear and steady. Gone was the quiet, pleading tone that had wrapped her words that day in the vestry.
‘I thought it might do Digby good to have a conversation with you, to lay some ghosts to rest. For you to see him settled and move on and for him to do the same.’
‘I am not a ghost, Loretta. I am a person: a living, breathing person with feelings!’
‘I know.’ The woman held her gaze. ‘Digby and his family left yesterday and he . . . he wrote to me. I don’t think I’ve ever mulled over any correspondence in such a way.’ She looked close to tears. ‘I know it by heart.’
‘And you are telling me this why?’ Merrin folded her arms across her chest as her whole body shook. How she hated that this woman was in her home at all, especially at a time like this.
‘Because years on the planet gives one a certain perspective that is sometimes hard to see when you are young.’ There was the smallest smile to her mouth, as if picturing her young self. ‘It’s only age and experience that allow you to see the big picture. Helps you understand the ripples of actions that reverberate for a lifetime. And that was why I acted . . . why I intervened.’
‘You let me get dressed up and go to the church with the whole of Port Charles watching. You did that to me!’ Despite her new-found strength, Merrin’s voice cracked at the memory of her dad walking her into the vestry.
‘I didn’t do it to you . . . I just pointed out the facts. Gave him options; the fact that he chose to act how he did confirms I was right all along. He wasn’t ready and I knew he wasn’t. I tried to see a happy future as we planned your day, but I knew that in the long run I was saving you from a whole lot of heartache, both of you.’
‘You know nothing of the sort. You caused the heartache! You meddled, pulling strings like we were puppets!’
‘For the right reasons!’ Loretta looked up with a hint of tears in her eyes and her bottom lip trembled. ‘I know what it’s like to marry in haste and to live a life feeling sidelined ever after.’
Merrin shot Bella a look, wondering if she was hearing this too. Bella widened her eyes and pulled a face that in any other circumstances would have seen the two rolling about with laughter, but not today.
Loretta straightened and wiped her eyes. ‘I might have acted inappropriately, but I did so with the very best intentions.’
Merrin shook her head. There was nothing the woman could say, nothing she could do to make amends.
‘Those weren’t your choices to make.’
‘You’re right.’ The woman jutted her chin and tidied her hair from her face. ‘But trust me when I tell you that a bad marriage, a marriage made in haste, a mistake – can ruin a life. It can utterly ruin a life, even if it’s a life you thought you wanted. Imagine if you married a drunk, or worse, someone who could never love you because they loved someone else! Imagine becoming the person everyone talks about.’ Loretta gasped as if she had spoken too freely.
‘Digby’s not a drunk, he didn’t love someone else!’
‘Digby?’ The woman looked at her quizzically, as if confused.
‘Yes! And I did become the person everyone talked about.’ Heat rose in her flushed cheeks.
‘For a while,’ Digby’s mother whispered. ‘Only for a while. Imagine it for a lifetime.’
‘Is that you, Loretta?’ Heather called softly from the top of the stairs. ‘Come up.’
Merrin felt flustered by her mother’s invitation, knowing her dad would have thrown the woman out, just as he had the uniform she had presented to his wife. It was another reminder that he was gone and his absence left them a little exposed, vulnerable even. She heard the creak of floorboards overhead as her mother made her way back to the bed. Loretta turned slowly, and quietly trod the stairs.
Falling back into the chair, weakened by the exchange, Merrin felt her heart clatter in her chest.
‘Did that just happen?’ she whispered to her friend, who placed the vase of flowers in the middle of the table.
‘She’s in your house!’ Bella looked up as if she, too, could not quite believe the turn of events.
Merrin again thought about the uniform debacle. Where does she think she lives? Buckingham bloody Palace? She grew up in a caravan at the back of the bog! I won’t ’ave it!’
She wondered what her lovely dad would make of the fact that old Loretta from Mellor Waters was in his bedroom. The thought of him was enough to signal a fresh bout of tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MERRIN
Merrin sat up straight at the table and stared out to sea. It was what her dad would have described as a ‘golden day’。 Cold, but with a blue sky and that magical bright-after-the-rain feeling that was as fresh as it was hopeful.
‘Gallop home, little ones,’ she whispered.
‘Who you talking to?’
Her mum, sitting to her right, pulled her from her thoughts, but her gaze stayed resolutely on the water. ‘The little horses.’
‘Little horses,’ Heather whispered under her breath. ‘He had lots of daft little sayings, didn’t he?’
Merrin nodded and pushed the plate with the remainder of her toast across the table.
‘Not that hungry, love?’
She shook her head. Her eyes were drawn to Loretta’s flowers, which sat in pride of place in the middle of the table.
‘Did Loretta tell you we had words?’ Merrin felt shy raising it, knowing it was not the main topic, today of all days.
‘No, but I heard a bit of it floating up through the floorboards. She was proper cut up, sat on my bed and was quite teary. Not that I was in any state to comfort her.’
Merrin patted her mum’s arm. ‘It felt good to say things I’ve wanted to for a while, but I never wanted to upset her.’
‘Wasn’t only your words, love. She’s mournful – often got that way when I was cleaning for her over the years. Everyone has a story, Merrin.’