Page 30 of A Part of Me and You
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
I nod. She’s right. Skipper is dead. Oh Christ, this is awful. She sits back down on her stool and puts her head in her hands and she starts to cry.
‘Oh, Juliette I am so, so sorry,’ I say to her. I go towards her and I want to touch her shoulder and make her feel better but I don’t. ‘I wish I had much better news for you and it was so brave of you to tell me but—’
‘What the hell am I crying for?’ she whispers and sniffles, glancing all the time out towards the balcony in case Rosie comes back in. ‘I barely knew him. I don’t know why I am getting so upset. I know nothing about him, only what I see every day through my daughter. Why am I soupset?’
‘Of course you’re upset,’ I say and then I do something that until yesterday, I haven’t done to anyone since Lily died, apart from Matt, or my dad when I see him. I reach out to her and I give her a hug, just like I did with Rosie yesterday evening on the beach. She hugs me back tightly and I try to squeeze away some of her pain and some of my own pain too.
‘I swear to God I wasn’t expecting him to be dead,’ she tells me when we part. ‘I had myself all prepared for him being a married man who didn’t want to know me or Rosie, or even someone who didn’t remember me and denied it all and demanded some sort of DNA test to prove it. I had so many scenarios go through my head but never did I think he would be dead. He was only my age or thereabouts. Maybe a bit younger. How can he be dead? When?’
‘Skipper, or Pete which was his real name, was only about twenty-five when he died, I think,’ I tell her, trying to explain this as gently as I can. ‘I didn’t get the chance to ever meet him in person, but Matt speaks so fondly of him and his death was a big shock to everyone who knew him.’
She looks out the window, her face furrowed in pain.
‘How did he …?’
I swallow. I only ever heard this story second-hand through Matt but it’s one of those stories that everyone around here knows.
‘He was killed in an accident,’ I tell her. ‘A boating accident, which makes it even more tragic as he was one of the finest captains around here, or so they say. I’m ever so sorry.’
I can’t bear to think what must be going through Juliette’s head right now at the news of Rosie’s biological father being dead all this time. The thought of leaving her child behind with no consolation of finally meeting her biological father must be truly devastating for her.
‘I had so many silly hopes and dreams for what might come out of this trip, even though I denied it to everyone, including myself,’ Juliette says. ‘I had hoped so much in my heart that Skipper would remember me instantly and would recognize Rosie as his own the moment he laid eyes on her, and even if he had a wife and family of his own, he would slowly welcome her into his life … so that when I go, I would know that she at least got to meet him and that I’d done my bit instead of all these years of telling her that her father had never known I was stillpregnant with her, and that I’d never been able to find him to tell him about her.’
‘Oh you poor thing. Is that what you told her?’
She shrugs and nods. ‘I’m not proud of it, but I had to come up with something to answer her questions,’ she said. ‘That worked until she was about ten and then I met Dan, my husband, and she forgot about what she didn’t have for a while. But recently, well since Dan and I split up actually, she’s been asking me about him again and I’ve found letters that she has been writing to him, telling him all about her life so far and it just tore me up inside when I saw her longing for him in black and white. I really hoped this would all be different, just for her sake, but my sister was right. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have let sleeping dogs lie. I should have just gone to Scotland or Cornwall or somewhere that isn’t here, somewhere with no memories.’
I want to phone Matt and ask him what I should do or say in this situation. He would know exactly what to do. He is so much better at this type of thing than I am, plus he would be able to tell her so many stories about Skipper and some of the funny times they spent together which would maybe ease Juliette’s pain. He knew him so well and I know that when Matt hears there is a little girl alive in Skipper’s memory, it will be bittersweet for him and all who knew the legendary Skipper around here.
‘Look, I know there must be so many “what ifs” going through your head right now,’ I say to Juliette, ‘but I think you were right to come here. I do still think it was meant to be.’
‘You really do think that?’ she asks me, dabbing under her eyes with a tissue. ‘Oh, I really hope you’re right because right now I feel like such a failure, a romantic fool.’
‘Yes, I really do think so,’ I say, not knowing where or how I am finding the words. ‘You have got answers. They may not be the answers you were hoping for, but at least you have closure in your own mind and you can tell Rosie the truth. Tell her that this is where you met her biological father all those years ago and about the fun you had and how this is the place she can come to when she wants to feel close to him. And maybe close to you too, after this time together here. This has always been a special place for you and it’s now even more special for your daughter, Juliette. Focus on the days ahead with Rosie. In time, she may want to look up some of Skipper’s relatives and who knows what she will discover, but you’ve made the move you always wanted to. You’ve come here and I don’t think you’ve done so in vain, not for a second.’
Rosie and Merlin arrive back into the kitchen which is perfect timing as only moments before the situation may have been a little hard to explain, but Juliette has perked up now and she beams when her daughter enters the room.
‘Do you have an iPhone charger by any chance?’ she asks me, holding up her phone as if I need to see what an iPhone looks like. ‘Mum, I swear I want to live here. There are even sockets to plug in your phone out on the balcony. This issomy dream house. I feel like Kendall Jenner hanging out here. My friends are so jealous.’
Juliette shoots me a glance and rolls her eyes and we all have a laugh at Rosie’s observations.
She looks so different today with her hair tied up in a loose ponytail and a lot less make up on. Her skin is dewy and young and now I know why she looked so familiar to me when I first laid eyes on her. We have a connection. I may not have known Skipper, but he was one of Matt’s best friends and a friend of Matt’s is a friend of mine. Now here I am standing in front of the daughter he never knew he had. I may sound a bit like Eliza with all my belief in fate and signs, but I definitely did feel a connection when I looked into her eyes on the sand dunes yesterday and now I know why.
‘I should have one somewhere,’ I reply as Juliette tells off Rosie once again for speaking out of turn, but I honestly don’t mind. What I would give for Lily to be here now asking for things or playing up or throwing a tantrum or being cheeky. I would give the world without hesitation.
I find Rosie a phone charger in one of the kitchen drawers and she thanks me then bounds back outside.
‘I think my Merlin has a new best friend,’ I say to Juliette who watches her daughter leave, her head tilted to the side and a look of pure love on her face.
‘She sometimes seems like she hasn’t a care in the world, like she doesn’t have the worry of a dying mother and an absent father she never knew to deal with,’ she says to me. ‘I just wish she could be like that for a lot longer – young, innocent and carefree, but it’s all going to come crashing down soon, isn’t it? Her teenage years are going to be robbed and she’ll have to grow up overnight. My poor little Rosie.’
I can’t let the idea of how sad that is sink in right now.
‘Look, if you want to find out any more about Skipper, you know, when Rosie is up for it, I can give you my details,’ I tell her, trying to give her some direction to go from here.
‘You will? Oh, Shelley that would mean the world to me.’
