BECKETT
Beckett had never felt so deliriously happy and such a complete numbskull at the same time.
He was her brother-in-law.
Bob’s uncle.
Beckett felt genuinely distraught that Mary’s husband had died. He couldn’t imagine what that must have been like, but he guessed a whole lot worse than finding out your fiancée is a callous cow.
However, the abject misery that had been plaguing him since seeing the Lexus had evaporated. He would still have felt an undercurrent of panic that he’d completely messed things up with that cowardly message and the silence since. But she’d held his hand all the way to the car, and had smiled at him as he’d started the engine in a way that made it impossible to feel scared.
It was basically impossible to be scared when he was with her.
They waited until they were home before resuming the conversation, instead chatting about the carol concert, Li’s party, Mary’s parents. The trauma of Gramps going missing.
Mary told him about her conversation with Gramps in the hospital, and even as Beckett veered between disbelieving, irritated, furious and to some degree relieved, knowing Gramps, it did make sense.
‘It’s typical of the stubborn old goat not to simply admit he’s changed his mind.’
‘How do you feel about him being in a home?’
Beckett thought about this. He had so many feelings it was hard to distinguish them.
‘If it’s what he wants, then of course I’ll support it. It’ll be so strange him not being around all the time, but, like he said, if we can go back to being more like grandfather and grandson – father and son, really – rather than carer and patient, how can that not be a good thing?’ He smiled. ‘And I won’t be complaining about no more interviews with home-care managers.’
‘You didn’t fail him.’ Mary reached over and took his hand where it rested near the gear stick.
It was all Beckett could do to nod. He wasn’t sure he quite believed that, yet, but he would try.
Once Mary had put Bob in his cot, she made omelettes using the leftovers from a Christmas dinner she’d eaten with her friends.
They lit the Christmas candles Beckett had brought around, and with them combined with a fire in the hearth and the Christmas tree lights, the room flickered with a cosy – dared he imagine romantic? – glow. They sat either end of the sofa, plates balanced on their knees, and he waited for her to talk.
The fire was mostly embers by the time she’d described meeting Leo, their secret romance and rushed wedding. His heart ached as she wept while sharing how, after discovering she was pregnant, she’d found her husband unconscious, and a week later she’d lost him.
After he’d made a pot of tea and brought through slices of cake, she explained how she’d tried going back to work, but could barely make it past the entrance. How her relationship with her friends had disintegrated, leaving her lost and alone. She couldn’t bear to stay in Leo’s house, surrounded by his things, and had fought so badly with Kieran over what happened to the possessions, she’d simply packed her bags and left.
‘How did you cope, being here, after all that?’
Mary shrugged. ‘I didn’t. Remember the state of this place when you turned up? I hadn’t even bought a pack of nappies.’
‘You coped, Mary. In your own way. Maybe the best way. You needed time, so you allowed yourself to take it. You needed to rest and recover. To grieve and to get over losing your business and your friends as well as your husband. Your whole life. But you did it.’
‘I did wonder if this cottage had been like my cocoon.’
‘You were a caterpillar?’ He considered that. ‘But now you’re a butterfly. I’d agree with that.’
She screwed up her face. ‘Maybe one of those dull, browny-grey moths.’
Beckett put his mug on the table. ‘I’ve always loved moths.’
She gave him a sideways look, eyes shining in the candlelight. ‘Is that the first time you’ve lied to me, Beckett Bywater?’
‘Nope.’
She widened her eyes in surprise.
‘The first time was when I said kissing you was wrong.’
