Page 34 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
The next few moments were taken up with making two mugs of tea, and by the time Rory had brought them over to the table, Leo had settled into one of the chairs on the decking outside the chalet. Feeling a little awkward, she sat down next to him.After their previous intimacy, it felt odd not to know quite where to put herself, but the encounter with Corinne had changed something between them.
‘So…’ Leo began.
‘So…’ Rory echoed.
Leo let out a nervous laugh. ‘It feels as though we’re right back at the beginning again.’ He turned towards her. ‘I wish it didn’t.’
‘Me too.’ Rory, who was used, in her career, to waiting for students to respond, didn’t add anything further. Whatever it was that Leo wanted to say, she needed to hear it.
‘Look, Rory,’ Leo finally began, ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking about what you saw this morning, but I swear to you it’s nothing you need to worry about.’
‘Well, what I saw was Corinne sitting at the table, and smiling at you as if you were still her husband, right?’
Leo’s look of surprise at Rory’s directness showed her that it was the last thing he’d been expecting.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘She’d come over to see me. To talk to me. But now we’ve talked, I can assure you that there’s absolutely nothing left for us to say. Corinne knew that, really, but she felt she needed to see me in person.’
‘Because she wants you back, and she thought she could convince you to go back with her?’ Rory asked. ‘I mean, that’s what I’d do, if I was your wife.’
‘Ex-wife,’ Leo reminded her. ‘As of the moment I signed the papers, very much an ex-wife.’
‘So why would your ex-wife come here all the way from Australia then? She must have thought she’d be able to talk you round.’ Irritated now, Rory took a sip of her tea, and wished she’d put more milk in it when it scalded her mouth.
‘Rory, it’s not like that, I swear!’ Leo’s voice was shot through with frustration, and Rory wanted so desperately to believe him.She watched as he jumped up from his chair and began to pace up and down the decking, unable to keep still. ‘Corinne’s part of my past. It’s not what you think!’
‘No one who’s part of somebody’s past flies halfway around the world to see them,’ Rory replied. ‘From the way she was looking at you, it was clear that she still loves you, Leo.’
Leo put his fists up to his temples in frustration. ‘No, Rory, you’ve got this all wrong. Corinne wasn’t here to get me back. Well, not in the way you think.’
‘And what does that mean?’ Exasperated, Rory leaned back in her chair. ‘Maybe you can explain it to me?’
Leo paused. ‘Look, Corinne wasn’t just my wife. As you know, she was my business partner in the law firm back in Melbourne. When I came to the UK, I was on the verge of signing my share of the company over to her. I wanted to get out, and I’d had a job offer in London that would, finally, get me away from all the crap that’s happened over the past few years. And to be honest, Rory, I needed that. Ireally,reallyneeded it. The problem was that Aunt Violet and Uncle Bryan contacted me about this place just when we were on the verge of winding up the company. Corinne wasn’t prepared to wait for me to come back, and so she came over to make sure everything was signed so we could dissolve our business partnership.’
‘But surely she could have just emailed you the papers?’ Rory said. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Leo?’
Leo paused. ‘You’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘There is more to it than that, but… it’s complicated.’
‘Try me,’ Rory replied. ‘If I’m going to trust you, I need to know.’
Leo let out a long sigh. ‘Corinne’s been going to Alcoholics Anonymous,’ he said. ‘She realised, after the accident, that her drinking had got out of control. We were both well used to the corporate life, and with that comes a lot of opportunities tooverindulge. Corinne’s drinking was out of hand, and the night of the car accident, she should never have been behind the wheel. The law firm agreed to keep her on if she started receiving treatment for alcohol abuse, and while I was recovering in hospital, she decided that enough was enough, and, to keep her job, she agreed. She’s been working through the twelve-step programme ever since. She’s been sober for two years now, and intends to stay that way.’
‘So why did she come here?’ Rory asked.
‘Part of the programme is atonement,’ Leo replied. ‘That means she needs to make amends to those she’s wronged. I wasn’t just the catalyst for her to stop drinking, I was her biggest mistake. She’s had a lot of trouble coming to terms with that. I’ve told you that our marriage was over long before the accident, which is true, but it would be wrong to blame alcohol for that. We’d just come to the end of the line. The trouble is, Corinne can’t quite accept that. She had to see me one last time, to see my name on the papers for the business and the divorce, before she could truly accept that it was over. So that was why she was here. Now she’s seen what she wanted to see, and that I’m well, and better than I ever was when we were married, she can move on.’
‘But she could have just Zoom called you for that!’ Rory exclaimed. ‘Did she really have to come all the way across the world just to apologise?’
Leo gave her a grin. ‘She was always one for the grand gesture, and even after everything, she wanted to make an impression.’ He held up a hand, as if anticipating what Rory was going to say. ‘I know it’s bizarre, but it was what she felt she needed to do. Now she’s done it, I hope that’ll be the end of it. I’ve signed the papers for the company, and for the divorce, and now we can both move on with our lives.’
‘Has she left already?’ Rory asked.
Leo nodded. ‘She left this morning. She’s going to stay in Manchester with some university friends who emigrated here a few years back. She thought it would be a good chance to catch up with them. I think, probably, that’s the real reason she came here, but making amends with me while she was this side of the world seemed a sensible detour.’ He paused. ‘She’s not a bad person, Rory, in spite of everything that’s happened. She’s trying to move on with her life just as I’m trying with mine. We both have a lot to work through, but it’s one step at a time. I was her next step, and now she’s taken it.’
Rory let the silence extend between them for a few moments. She couldn’t really dispute anything that Leo had said, but it didn’t make seeing the woman who had held his heart for so long any easier. She’d be lying if she’d said she wouldn’t have preferred Corinne to remain on the other side of the world. However, it seemed counterproductive to keep going around in circles about it. She was only here for a few more weeks, and Leo was heading off to London at the start of September anyway. Was it really worth spending any more time obsessing about a person who was clearly part of Leo’s past?
‘Well,’ Rory said finally, knowing that Leo was waiting for a response from her. ‘If Corinne’s made peace with herself, and with you, then I need to make peace with her having been here. I’m too old to be worrying about what happened in the past. Let’s just try to enjoy the present, shall we?’
‘Amen to that,’ Leo murmured as he drew Rory to him. As their lips met, Rory felt a lightening of the burdensome thoughts she’d been carrying around with her all day. This might just be for the summer, but she was determined, from now on, to enjoy every single minute of it.
