Page 29 of A Part of Me and You
Shelley stands up as well and looks me in the eye.
‘Please don’t leave yet,’ she says. ‘I would really like you to stay and chat. Tell me about your mystery man. I may not have a clue who he is but I’m enjoying our conversation and you have no idea how long it has taken me to do this.’
I have no idea what she is talking about.
‘Do what, Shelley?’
‘This.Talk. Chat. Get excited. Have a conversation with someone about life and the ups and downs we all have to encounter and how the world doesn’t just revolve around me and this empty house and my misery and grief. I never do this. I never let anyone in. Just talk to me about him. Please. It’s exciting and it’s new and I haven’t been moved by anything in three years and I really don’t want you to go. And if you decide when you leave here this morning that you want to keep our conversation top secret I can assure you my lips are sealed. I promise you, I really do. Would you have another cuppa?’
I am totally taken aback by Shelley’s outburst and the plea on her face has melted my heart. She is a young woman living in a big empty shell of a house, wracked with the worries of the world when she surely has her whole life ahead of her and here she is, begging me, me on death’s door, to stay and talk more about my whimsical dream of a man who I know nothing of. I am strangely honoured and let’s face it, I don’t have much to lose, so I sit back down on the stool and she does the same.
‘His nickname was Skipper,’ I whisper to her with a shrug and a smile. ‘There, I said it out loud. Skipper. He was a boat man, and what a fine and handsome boat man he was. Skipper. And that’s all I know.’
I wait.
‘Do you know him?’ I ask, wondering what on earth is going on in her mind. I wait and watch for her reaction as the name sinks in. And it does. Her mouth has dropped open.
‘Oh my God,’ she says, her hand slowly going to her mouth.
Is that a goodoh my Godor a badoh my God? I can’t tell.
‘I do know him,’ says Shelley and she swallows and gulps as if I have just delivered the worst news ever. ‘Skipper the boat man … I know Skipper for sure. Are you sure he’s Rosie’s father?’
I nod my head and look outside at Rosie.
‘I’m totally sure,’ I tell her. ‘There’s no way it could have been anyone else.’
Chapter 11
Shelley
I can’t believe what I’m hearing from this stranger in front of me. Jesus, I do not know what to say.
Skipper?
I get up to make more tea as promised and I can feel my hands shaking as I do so.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have told you this,’ says Juliette and I feel so bad for not being able to hide what I’m thinking. ‘Maybe we should just leave, after all.’
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘Is it bad that it’s him?’ she asks me. ‘Is he a bad person or is he someone I should avoid?’
‘No, he’s not a bad person.’
‘Oh my God, is it yourhusband?’
‘No!’ I tell her quickly. ‘God, no! It’s not my husband.’
Her pale face relaxes just a little.
‘Matt wouldn’t know the first thing about working on boats,’ I explain. ‘But hehastold me so much about Skipper. Oh Juliette, I am so sorry to be the one to have to tell you but—’
‘What then?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her, glancing out at Rosie, then looking back at Juliette in pity. ‘He’s … he’s not here anymore.’
I can’t say it. I really can’t say it but then Juliette says it for me.
