‘The first star of evening and the wonderful Goddess of Love,’ you said. Your breath tickled my ears. A shooting star fell from the sky. You said it happens all the time and that the heavens are always in a state of flux.
We sat on the bench and you told me more about India. How you were almost killed by an elephant and watched a dead man being burnt. I could have stayed there forever listening to you. God! If anyone knew. I feel as guilty as anything writing this. You kissed me. 3!! times. Oh God… oh God… 3 times!!! You opened my mouth with your tongue and it was so different to the way Jake does it. Like I’m dreaming what’s happening and there’s arrows shooting through me. I wanted so much for us to lie on the ground and keep kissing forever.
It was so dark I couldn’t see your face. You told me I was special and beautiful. No one ever said I was beautiful before. Well, Jake did but he said ‘weirdly beautiful’ and that’s not a compliment, not as far as I’m concerned. You said it properly and that’s when you kissed me for the 3rd time. That one was deeper. A bit scary and it hurt a bit, the way you were holding me so close but I didn’t pretend.
I nearly threw up when Karin came out. We’d stopped by then. Thank God we had. If she’d seen… I can’t even think about it. She came out in her nightdress, all hot and bothered, even though you showed the stars to her as well. The Big Dog star and the Big Dipper and the rest of the ones we’d looked at together. She said looking at stars was more boring than swimming and we should all go to bed. And we did. I’m going to try and be nicer to her. I’ll tell Jake that she likes him. It’ll stop him bothering me. I can’t stand to think of him ever coming near me again.
I won’t sleep tonight. Your lips on mine… oh Max… what’s going to happen when I go home? I can’t stop thinking and thinking… if only I was ten years, even three years older. Then I’d be grown up enough to know all about signals from men and what they mean.
Yours forever
Nadine
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Chapter 55
Jake
Eleanor was relaxed but determined to make a full recovery. It still felt strange, the newness of talking to her without that bristling sense of busyness that always used to surround her. Her bungalow was cosy, a word he would never have attributed to his childhood home. He knew Cora was responsible for the softer lighting and vases of fresh cut flowers, the wholesome meals she prepared for him when he visited.
It was days after her stroke before he remembered Cora’s admission about Sea Aster’s planning permission. Perhaps, in the confusion of that day, he had misunderstood. Eleanor had never given any indication that she had changed her mind and had always rejected his attempts to pay rent on the basis that he was maintaining the property until the conversion could begin.
She was relaxing in the back garden, a rug over her knees, when he called to see her after the UK tour. Cora carried out a tray of tea and scones then discreetly withdrew.
‘Enough about that,’ Eleanor said when Jake asked too many questions about her health. ‘I wanted to talk to you and Nadine together but she shows no inclination to return home.’
‘She is at home – ’
‘For goodness sake, she’s living in a shipping container. That hardly qualifies as a home unless you’re an unfortunate immigrant seeking asylum.’ It would take more than an ischemic stroke for Eleanor to lose her interruptive skills.
‘What do you want to talk to us about?’
‘I’ve come to a decision. I’m gifting Sea Aster to the two of you. A fifty-fifty split.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘Have you ever known me to have a sense of humour?’
‘But… that’s very generous – ’
‘Call it generosity, conscience money, motherly love, whatever,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my stroke.’ She began to cry, a sudden loud outburst that startled him.
‘It’s okay… it’s okay.’ He patted her hand and glanced helplessly towards the house. ‘Will I call Cora?’
She blew her nose vigorously and her voice, although muffled when she spoke again, carried all its old authority. ‘Don’t bother Cora. A few tears here and there never did anyone any harm. I’ve already spoken to my solicitor about changing the deeds. He’ll be in touch with you in due course.’
‘But you can’t… what about your plans for First Affiliation?’
‘Dead in the water. I don’t miss it.’ He thought she was going to cry again but her voice hardened. ‘That’s the extraordinary thing. I thought leaving the party would be akin to an amputation. All my limbs were in place last time I checked. They may not be working as well as I’d like but time and physio will take care of that. I need a second chance, not a second home.’
How could he possibly repay this debt of gratitude? Or even find the appropriate words to thank her.
‘Nadine won’t come back.’
‘She’ll still be the mother of my grandchildren, even after your divorce comes through. I don’t want any arguments. Sea Aster belongs to both of you. Decide between yourselves how to work that out. Get rid of that ugly wall in the hall and open it up to the light. I want my grandchildren to have a base they can call home when they visit.’
Nadine was equally stunned when he rang her that night.
‘Do you think her mind is… you know… affected?’ she asked.
‘She’s one hundred per cent lucid,’ he reassured her. ‘I suspect she was planning to do this even before her stroke.’
‘You know I can’t possibly live there.’
‘The house will be yours as much as mine.’
‘I’m sorry, Jake. Sea Aster means nothing to me. She’s always going to be there – ’
‘Only if we let her.’
‘You think you can banish her that quickly? I don’t. Once the deeds have been gifted to us I’m signing my half over to you. It’ll be my property. I can do as I choose with it. Has she been in touch… texts, phone calls… letters?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘No contact at all?’
‘Apart from a message I put on her answering machine when I came back from London. I threatened her with a court injunction if she contacts any of us again.’
‘That must have her quivering in her little blue shoes.’
‘You don’t have to be sarcastic.’
‘Do you seriously think she’ll pay a blind bit of notice to a threat like that? What solid evidence have you got that will convince a judge she’s staking our family.’
She waited for his reply and when none was forthcoming she said, ‘What she’s doing goes way beyond that fling you had with her. I met her when I came home to see Eleanor. We took afternoon tea together.’
‘Afternoon tea?’
‘Just because we hate other doesn’t mean we can’t be civilised.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because it had nothing to do with you.’
‘Nothing―’
‘She’s convinced I’m responsible for her father’s death.’
‘That’s ludicrous. How could you be responsible… ?’ He stopped, remember the comment Karin had made about Nadine destroying her family. He had brushed her words aside, believed them to be another example of her heightened sense of drama, her unbounded need for attention. Now, as Nadine cut across his surprise, he tried to pull together the strands of that holiday. To search beneath the sun-trapped days on the beach and the headiness of having two beautiful girls vying for his attention. What else had been going on in Monsheelagh Bay that would have led Karin to make such a brutal accusation?
‘The past would have stayed buried if you hadn’t brought her back into our lives,’ Nadine’s voice had a flattened certainty that chilled him. ‘That’s that part I find impossible to forgive.’