Page 42 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

Well, he’d tried that with Miri. He’d shown her the more romantic side of his nature and look where that had got him: divorced and replaced – as a husband and, probably, as a father, too.

He walked on, so deep in thought he hardly noticed the seagulls dive-bombing him from above, and tourists wandering nearby.

Rosie’s wedding was going to be a living nightmare, but he couldn’t cry off. His dad would need his support, and Miri was right – he and dismal Damian would need to forge a relationship if they were both going to be a part of Archie’s life. But would he gradually be pushed to the margins of Archie’s life as Damian took over? Jack so didn’t want to lose his son.

Tears prickled as he strode on, past his dad’s shop and up the cliff that led to Driftwood House. A quick glance into the store had shown his father deep in conversation with an old army buddy, so Jack wouldn’t be missed for a few minutes more.

He walked higher and higher, stopping before he reached the clifftop. Then, he stood looking out over the sea.

Perhaps losing touch with Archie was inevitable. His son would grow up in the same house as Damian and start to call him ‘Dad’. Spending the weekend with Jack would become a nuisance as he got older. And, eventually, he’d never want to come at all.

Perhaps he’d say the words that Jack dreaded hearing: ‘I don’t have to see you. You’re not my real dad.’

Tears were blurring Jack’s vision and he slipped on the steep path. Stones tumbled off the side of the cliff and fell into the churning waves below.

‘Stop it!’ he shouted, suddenly feeling horribly out of control. He wasn’t the kind of man who shouted into the wind. He sat down on a boulder that almost blocked the path.

If he didn’t stop getting upset, he would fall, and Miri would probably assume that, completely heartbroken, he’d thrown himself from the cliff deliberately. Which he’d never do because it wouldn’t be fair on Archie.

Jack brusquely wiped away tears with the back of his hand. It was all too much: Miri’s news coming hard on the heels of his father’s gloomy prognosis. And now he was dreading Rosie’s wedding reception, which was a shame because part of him had been looking forward to it.

Parties weren’t usually his thing. Talking quietly with a friend, face to face, was far more pleasant than yelling at acquaintances while a would-be DJ cranked up the music to top volume. But Rosie’s wedding party would be different because Heaven’s Cove villagers knew how to have a good time.

He would have enjoyed it, if it didn’t now entail socialising with Damian, and lying to Miri that he and Alyssa had endured a spectacular and speedy break-up since they’d last met.

‘Three point one four one five nine…’ he began to recite out loud, startling a seagull feasting nearby on a dropped crisp packet. ‘Two six five three five…’

Gradually the chaos inside him began to subside and was replaced with the unbending order he needed to hold himself together.

He would go to the wedding, and he would be civil to Damian, and he would spin a story so that Alyssa didn’t have to pretend to like him. Miri probably wouldn’t believe him: she’d twig that he’d made up the whole sorry story about being in a new relationship because he couldn’t bear her pity.

But the sun would rise and the sun would set. He’d continue to gather research data at work and see Archie as much as he could. And life would go on.

He gave a deep sigh, his thoughts returning to Alyssa, whose life had shrunk to a tiny caravan in Magda’s garden. Alyssa, whom he knew almost nothing about.

She had tried her best to hide the envelopes spilling across the table and he’d only glimpsed them. But it had been enough to see they weren’t addressed to Alyssa Jones – at least, not the letter that had been most visible. That had been sent to someone with the initials ‘A.S.’. Alyssa had stepped in front of it before he’d had a chance to read the surname but it had definitely begun with an S, which was confusing. Might that be her maiden name? he wondered.

One item she hadn’t been quick enough to hide was the handwritten note lying next to the envelopes, which had simply said: Missing you, Baby – Ben x

Was Ben her husband? And if Alyssa was married to a man who was missing her, why was she holed up in a caravan in the middle of nowhere, peddling myths to gullible tourists?

It was a mystery, and one that Jack was curious to solve. But he deliberately squashed down any thoughts about it. His life was complicated enough with adding Alyssa’s secrets to the mix. They were hers to keep.

He stared out across the sea. It was beautiful today – the water shining as waves were caught in beams of sunlight. Alyssa would insist that it resembled quicksilver, he thought, before shaking his head. It didn’t matter what Alyssa, with her own peculiar slant on life, would say. And he needed to get over himself and get back to his father, who needed him.

Jack started walking back down the path, picturing vials of quicksilver – liquid mercury, atomic number eighty in the periodic table, that moved as if it were alive.

TWENTY-ONE

MAGDA

Magda didn’t normally dread seeing Stan. Far from it –she often went out of her way to call into the shop for a tin of beans or a packet of sugar. Her food cupboard was heaving with beans and sugar, but any opportunity to spend time with Stan was grabbed and relished.

But now things were different. Now she knew Stan’s time on this earth was more limited than either of them had expected, and it was breaking her heart.

Not that she could show it. Not when Stan was dealing with so much and Jack, bless him, was doing his best to cope. They needed her to be capable and strong, even when she felt as if she couldn’t go on.

‘This isn’t about you,’ Magda muttered to herself, pushing open the shop door and standing aside to let a couple of teenagers out. ‘So get over yourself and act normally.’

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