Page 75 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
‘Ha! Yes. Sleepy seaside paradise, eh?’ Liam said, with a chuckle. ‘Never witnessed so much drama in my whole life.’ He paused, eyeing her sympathetically. ‘I hope you sort things out, Mum. Remember what I said: call me any time.’
‘Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll be fine,’ she said, wondering if, in fact, she would be. Tonight had felt like an inevitable eruption. It had been building, building, hovering over them all for weeks now.
Liam strode over to Ted. Peggy saw him hesitate for a second, hand outstretched. Then he gave Ted a quick, fierce hug, which Ted returned, although neither spoke beyond a mumbled ‘Safe journey,’ from Ted.
Peggy, watching them, wished more of a connection had been established between them. This visit– without the tensions, of course– might have been the perfect opportunity. She kept thinking they would really get on if they dropped thefroideurfor long enough.But maybe that’s my fantasy, she thought. Just because she loved both men, she had to accept it didn’t follow that they would love each other.
After Liam had left the room, Ted looked at Peggy. She thought she detected a question in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking of her. Whatever it was, she hadn’t the strength to deal with it now. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel again all his love and strength and safety. But too many bruises remained for that. She almost wished these bruises didn’t have to be prodded. If they weren’t, though, she worried their shadow might haunt her future with him.
Now she gave him a weary smile. He smiled back. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
35
Peggy didn’t hear her son leave. She had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep eventually, having lain awake next to Ted for a long while, feeling as if the conversation they must have was wriggling restlessly between them in the bed, like a sick child. But in the end her tired brain just shut down and she slept.
When she woke at seven thirty, Ted was not beside her. It took her a while to come to, taking in the sad realization that Liam was probably long gone. She stumbled out of bed and pulled on some shorts and a T-shirt, anxious, suddenly, that Ted might also have left the house.
She found him outside. Peggy watched him for a moment. He was very still, as if deep in thought. The coffee cup in front of him was empty. Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly out to join him.
Ted leaped up. He looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink: dark circles rimmed his beautiful eyes. ‘Hey.’ His greeting was awkward.
Her heart was doing the trapped-bird thing in her chest. She so wanted this to be a reasonable discussion, not a competition in blame and self-justification. But she didn’t trust herself. Looking at him now, she knew she was still upset.
They sat down. The day was overcast and it was chilly. She would have killed for a cup of coffee, but she wanted to get this over with.
Ted was the first to speak. ‘I… There’s something…’ He dropped his head into his hands for a moment. Then he raised it. Blinking fast, his mouth set, he stared at her, seeming about to explode. ‘She kissed me,’ he finally blurted out.
Peggy flinched, stared at him.
‘Lindy kissed me. You know, a proper kiss. On the lips. A definitely sexual kiss.’
Words spilled off Ted’s tongue in a breathless stream. ‘It happened that day you and I argued… She was so sweet to me at first. So understanding. I was a mess, my head still reeling from too much whisky and the row.’ He cast an anguished glance at Peggy. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to be right about Lindy. And I felt so ashamed of the kiss. It’s been driving me insane ever since.’
Peggy tried to unravel what he was saying, what she was feeling, without success. ‘Ashamed? Why? What did you do when she kissed you?’
Ted threw his hands up into the air. ‘I was horrified. I pushed her away, of course.’ Then his gaze dropped. ‘It wasn’t invited, Pegs, I swear. But I felt ashamed that she thought she could kiss me like that. As if I’d somehow led her on, by being nice to her, believing in her.’
Peggy’s mind whirred. ‘Wait a moment. Lindy had already kissed you when I told you she might be behind those emails? So why were you still defending her?’ She took a sharp breath.
Ted seemed bewildered. ‘I honestly wasn’t trying to defend her, Pegs. I was just shocked, finding it hard to believe, that’s all.’
Peggy felt some sympathy. She couldn’t really believe it,either. ‘She cast a spell on you, didn’t she? I began to worry you were in love with her.’
Ted shook his head emphatically. He had tears in his eyes when he finally spoke. ‘Absolutely not, never in a million years.’ He swallowed. ‘God, I’ve been so gullible. I completely misread everything, right from the start.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘But Lindy seemed so vulnerable. I wanted to help her. She persuaded me that nobody was on her side except me.’
‘Everyone would have been on her side,’ Peggy said quietly, ‘that’s the ridiculous thing, if Felix had genuinely been gaslighting her.’
For what seemed like a long while, they sat in silence on the terrace. Peggy shivered as a breeze blew up. She stared at the man beside her. His head had sunk, his hands lay loosely in his lap. He seemed to have given up. After a moment, she took a brave breath and reached out to him, laying her hand on his bare arm. He felt stone cold. ‘Ted?’
He didn’t react to her voice or her touch immediately. When he did raise his gaze to meet hers, she saw only pain in his grey-green eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Buying into Lindy’s drama in the way I did, I totally lost perspective.’ He went quiet. ‘I should have listened to you. That might have saved all this hurt.’
After a long moment– which she didn’t interrupt– Ted went on, his voice choked with feeling, ‘I was never,everinterested in Lindy in that way.Never. Not for a single, solitary second. You have to believe me, Peggy… I can’t bear it that you thought I might be.’
She heard the passion behind his words. Gazing at him, she found herself trying to eke out every tiny feeling hiddenin his soul. Shedidbelieve him. Giving him a smile of acknowledgement, his image misted as her vision blurred with tears. All the strength went out of her. She felt she could have slept for a week and wearily closed her eyes.
He moved closer to her, shifting his chair with a screech across the paving. She thought he was about to embrace her, but he stopped short, as if she had a force field around her he was not prepared to penetrate. Her body seemed to buzz with disappointment.
Trying to breathe some life into her exhausted brain cells, Peggy said, ‘I know it must have been hard, being on the front line of Lindy’s distress. But you seemed so fixated on helping her, it was almost obsessive.’
