Move Over Darling (23 page)

The location of the cottage was lovely; secluded and sheltered on one side by tall trees yet with superb views to the front of swathes of green unfolding to the sea. He was almost sorry he wasn’t coming back. Reaching the car he turned to look at the house once more. In the soft sunshine it looked friendly and surprisingly inviting. For the first time in his life, he considered the possibility that there might have been more to Gwyn’s move than downsizing to save money. Perhaps his father had simply been striving to remain in striking distance of everything he held dear?

Another message he’d got too late, Gethin thought, driving slowly past the farmhouse and making a mental note to make contact with Alys. No matter how lovely the cottage looked, it was the last place on earth he wanted to live. Not when it meant seeing Coralie with Ned Wallace, for crying out loud. Being tender-hearted was one thing, but shacking up with the guy on his release? Well, he wasn’t going to stick around to find out how her pity had somehow been twisted into some sick form of love whilst the man was in prison.

Yet, whatever noises his solicitor made about the terms of the Will being too uncertain to be enforced, neither could he sit back and think of the other beneficiary, whom he detested, living there. What a mess!

Paying for petrol in the garage where he’d stopped to fill up before the long journey, Gethin’s glance strayed to the flickering images on the wall-mounted plasma screen babbling in the background. ‘Penmorfa’s Vicar is now in the frame!’ said the reporter, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Racy Reverend, minxy Marianne Parry, is under pressure as the lid is lifted on her secret past. But attention is turning to the quiet young woman who villagers say moved here less than a year ago and about whom very little is known. The question everyone’s asking is “Who’s that girl in the coral dress?”’ Good luck with that, he thought, hardening his heart, because he sure as hell didn’t know.

The pale morning light crept behind the curtains and fell across the bed. It seemed a lifetime ago that Alys had sat in the kitchen longing for her husband and daughter to notice her. To feel something more than the seconds being counted away. Now, she’d certainly got their attention and it spelled the ruin of all her hopes and dreams for her family.

Huw was curled into her, one arm across her chest, his body warm and familiar. Alys listened to the rise and fall of his breathing, whilst she lay very still, trying to make the moment last, treasuring it for as long as possible. Eventually, though, Huw began to stir. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, her heart skipping a beat as he pulled away to smile at her.

‘That wasn’t so terrible, was it?’ He grinned, looking, despite the silver hair, as boyish as when they’d made love for the very first time on a sweet, summer night.

‘Huw, it was wonderful.’ But simply being by his side again was wonderful, however fleetingly.

He propped himself up against the pillows to look at her, reaching out to brush away the tears that were flowing unchecked down her cheek. ‘Oh, Alys, what have I done to you? Where do I begin to tell you how sorry I am?’

‘
You’ve
done nothing to apologise for,’ she gulped.

‘Oh yes, I have – I should have responded to your pain far sooner. But just when I’d got my head around going to the doctors, they replaced Doctor Thomas with that slip of a girl and I got cold feet. When I got round to seeing her about my back, she asked if everything else was all right, so I finally mentioned the problem and she changed my blood pressure tablets. If only I’d known how easy it would be.’

‘You wouldn’t have been on those tablets if I hadn’t forced us to move.’

‘You didn’t force us,
cariad
, it was a joint decision, the right one for our family. You don’t have to shoulder the responsibility for everything, you know. I’m only sorry you felt you had to. I was embarrassed, Alys,’ he said, his soft, brown eyes revealing just how exposed and vulnerable he was feeling. ‘You know what it’s like here. I was sure everyone would find out what was wrong and everyone would be talking about me behind my back. So I tried to ignore it. I kept thinking that it would all get better, as if by burying my head in the sand the problem would just go away. No wonder you lost faith in me.’

‘Oh, Huw.’ She swallowed, her throat aching. ‘I never lost faith in you. I thought it was me. I felt so old and unattractive – I didn’t mind not making love, but you wouldn’t come near me, wouldn’t hold me …’

He studied her face. ‘How could you have doubted your beauty when that boy from the café was so taken with you? Someone who was young and vigorous – not like me.’

‘Huw,’ she said, desperate for him to believe her, ‘I was never unfaithful to you.’

He leaned back against the old brass bedstead Alys had inherited from her aunt, the place where they’d always been able to make up after their quarrels. Until now. ‘Infidelity isn’t always a physical act. I used to watch you laugh and talk to Jerzy in a way you hadn’t done with me for months.’

Alys fiddled with the cream wool of the cover she’d painstakingly crocheted when they were first married. ‘He was just a lost boy, Huw. Someone far from home, stuck in a relationship that was draining the life from him. You know how demanding Marika could be.’

‘True,’ Huw agreed amiably, ‘but I don’t suppose it helped her when she found him trying to seduce you in the potting shed.’

‘Oh, Huw, hardly!’ she protested, feeling herself blushing. ‘He forgot himself and kissed me, that’s all.’

‘And you kissed him back, according to Marika. She wasn’t very happy when she came running to me,’ he added, sternly.

Alys shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before, Huw?’

‘Least said, soonest mended? I was afraid of losing you altogether,’ he said, looking abashed. ‘Thought if I pushed you too hard you might be off on a plane to Gdansk!’

‘That wasn’t even a remote possibility! Nothing happened,’ she said, meeting his gaze. ‘I realised immediately how foolishly I was behaving and stopped right there. It never went any further. I do admit to being flattered, especially …’

‘Especially since I’d withdrawn my services,’ Huw said, dryly.

A harmless crush, she’d told herself at the time. Nevertheless, she
had
found herself watching the way Jerzy moved and wondering about his touch. So when he had held her close and kissed her, she’d wallowed in the release of that sudden, sharp, illicit thrill … until the realisation of her own stupidity left her cold.

‘Oh, Huw, what kind of support was I when you needed me? How can you possibly want me to stay?’ She shook her head, swallowing tears at the sadness in his warm brown eyes. ‘You know it’ll be all over the village now, that I’d been having a torrid affair? Delyth and Mair will see to that. I think they’ve been longing to drop that bombshell when they thought it would do most damage. Kitty believes it, too.’

‘Hush!’ he said, moving closer. ‘We’ve both made mistakes, Alys, but no one can hurt us unless we let them.’

Alys closed her eyes trying to stop the tears. She ran her hands across the silver hairs of his chest and breathed in the warm, male smell of him, her own dear Huw. Daring to open her eyes she found him watching her: tender, loving, filled with wanting.

‘Oh, I’ve missed you so much,’ she murmured, shivering as he pulled her close.

‘I’ve been lonely too, love. And I know that my life’s not complete without you,’ he said, gently folding her to him, kissing her face and stroking her back before drawing her down to the bed.

‘Huw, the curtains are still closed. They’ll be wondering where we are at the garden centre.’

‘If Delyth and Mair like to talk,’ she heard him say as her mind went blank. ‘Let’s give them plenty to gossip about.’

‘You shouldn’t have long to wait. It’s a reliable service even if the trains are few and far between,’ said Coralie, letting the engine tick over whilst she waited for Ned to get out of the van. ‘Are you sure you’re all right for money?’

‘Coralie.’ He shocked her by reaching across to switch off the ignition. ‘Hayley Butterfield is dead. It doesn’t matter how much you try to do for everyone, it’s never going to bring her back.’

She winced and took a long deep breath, but it still shuddered in her throat.

‘And it’s not your fault. You need to know that.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘
I
was the one driving far too fast along a quiet shopping parade at night. I told myself I’d probably clipped my wing mirror on something. And then I looked in my rear view mirror … I panicked, drove home and – well, you know the rest. I still can’t believe that I thought I could get on with my life.’

He shook his head. ‘I pretended everything was normal. Didn’t even tell my fiancée I’d been made redundant. I watched the appeals. I agreed what a bloody terrible thing it was that someone had taken away a young girl’s life. I even said what a good person she must have been, carrying an organ donor card so that her death wasn’t completely senseless.’

‘You were distraught; you’d just lost your job, your income. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t visited your offices in the first place!’

‘An innocent girl didn’t die because of a decision you took about company strategy,’ he said, furiously. There was a pause whilst he struggled to compose himself. He took a deep breath then continued more quietly. ‘I was – am – what they call a functioning alcoholic. Someone you’d never know had a drinking problem, because I’d got so good at hiding it. The first thing I did after work every night was to head for a bar. I would have been over the limit that night whether I’d lost my job or not,’ he stated flatly. ‘De-stressing, being sociable, networking, whatever spin you put on it, what I really liked to do was unwind with a drink.’

‘So,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t stop to report the accident because I knew I’d be breathalysed. I ignored that poor kid lying in the road and prayed that I’d be sober before they found me. And I pleaded guilty to hide the truth because I thought I’d get a lighter sentence. But it’s not that easy …’

Coralie covered her face with her hands, but he forced her to look at him

‘It wasn’t your fault; it was mine. I killed her. I’m the one who has to live with that. But if it hadn’t been for your regular visits when I was at my lowest ebb, I would have found a way to finish myself off. Two lives would have been lost, two families left without hope. By talking to me, making me feel human when no one else would, you made me see a purpose to this life. I’ll always be grateful for that, but I want to forget you, and forget the past. All either of us can do now for Hayley Butterfield is to carry on living the best way we can.’

Penmorfa, on her return, was eerily calm. There was no sign, as she would have predicted, that anyone had ever been at Gwyn’s cottage, no answer at the farmhouse and Kitty was nowhere to be found. Needing to clear her head, she left the house and walked down to the cove. A solitary figure in the large landscape, she stood and watched the trail of an aeroplane high above. The hustle and bustle of a once-flourishing waterway was silent now except for the occasional pleasure boat braving the shifting sands of the bar to negotiate the grey and silted-up river.

If history had taken a different course, it might have been Penmorfa pulsating with life, but the little village had failed to catch the tide of prosperity. If events had taken another course, she might be looking forward to a brave new world in America, expanding her business and, perhaps, trusting herself to love again.

‘So long Frank Lloyd Wright,’ she said, turning away from the sea and watching her footprints sink in the sand as she walked away from it all and went home to pack. As night fell, she loaded the van and took the winding road through Penmorfa. At the other side, she slowed down, to take a last look in the mirror at the cluster of lights from a scattering of houses disappearing over her shoulder. In the wire carrier, firmly strapped in beside her, Rock was mewling pitifully. She blamed herself for not doing enough to get him acclimatised to it. He’d been too ill to protest about it when he’d first turned up on her doorstep, and had meekly put up with the indignity. Now he was probably sitting there anticipating a trip to the vet’s and wondering what was about to happen to him.

Poor Rock. Apart from doing everything she could to make it as physically comfortable for him, she couldn’t do anything about making him feel emotionally secure. It was going to be a long trip unless … taking a deep breath, Coralie fumbled around for some music. Doris’s singing filled the car, telling them whatever would be would be and Rock curled up and went to sleep.

‘Depraved,’ someone muttered, as Reverend Parry cleared her throat. Alys couldn’t be sure but she was pretty certain that it came from Delyth or Mair, so she shot a withering look in their direction anyway.

‘It makes my blood boil, Marianne,’ she’d told the Vicar before the meeting, ‘to see overpaid footballers obtaining injunctions preventing the press publishing any stories that could damage their lucrative sponsorship deals, whereas it’s open season with you. You’ve been left defenceless.’

‘Oh, Alys,’ Marianne Parry had smiled, ‘I’m not in the least bit defenceless. I do have a friend in a very high place.’

Nevertheless, since Reverend Parry was the one still being plagued by reporters, she had agreed to give an interview before the Hall Management Committee meeting commenced, hoping to stop any further press speculation. ‘The Bishop’s becoming a little weary of me being the story, rather than spreading the Word,’ she said of her appearance all over the red-tops.

Whilst they waited for a couple of stragglers to settle, Alys tried not to look at the thickly painted wood-chip paper and a clashing floral border of the Foundered Ship’s club room. It made her feel too depressed about the community hall which was still desperately needed.

The two weeks since the unveiling ceremony had been as bad as any that Alys could remember in Penmorfa. Even during the most horrendous crisis, such as when the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth had come perilously close to the village, everyone pulled together. Now all that united them was the search for a scapegoat and they hadn’t even been able to agree on that. The press feeding frenzy for the Vicar’s story had brought what many people were saying was the exactly the wrong kind of attention to the village and opened up old wounds about
Last Samba at Sunset
. Some people were cross with Alys, muttering that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t ‘got involved’, as they put it, with Gethin Lewis in the first place. Others were annoyed with Gethin for presenting them with a portrait of uncertain value instead of sticking to what he did best. And where were all her hopes for Coralie and Gethin now?

At least Coralie hadn’t had to hear one of the reporters remarking that it was a pity Gethin had squandered the opportunity to show off her fine assets. The only person to come up with an explanation as to why what had started as an act of generosity that was supposed to benefit the village had turned it upside down, was Willow, who insisted it was all to do with Mercury going retrograde.

Alys would have felt even worse about it all if it hadn’t been for Huw, who’d been constantly by her side in the days immediately after the ceremony, fending off the press and mercilessly quelling any muttered criticism of his wife. It was Huw, too, who’d discovered that Kingston Gravell, the presenter of the popular art and antiques programme
Gravell’s Gavel
, had a holiday cottage at Abersaith and had persuaded him to take a look at the painting.

‘It’s all about the quality of the work,’ Kingston Gravell told them, in that deep, comforting voice everyone knew from their television. ‘You don’t have to be an expert to see that this is an outstanding portrait. The artist has captured his subject in all her vulnerable, sensitive beauty. Her lovely face is tilted towards the artist in a shared moment of intimacy, her bare shoulders, above the coral dress, lean towards him,’ he’d said, smiling kindly. ‘The only fly in the ointment is that experienced, high-level buyers only put their hands in their pockets for strong, consistent performers. Gethin Lewis’s reputation has taken a big hit. There’s a danger that the best dealers and collectors will avoid this auction, especially if there’s any suspicion that the artist is using it as a tactic to get rid of something he wants to offload or feels is second-rate.’