Page 60 of The Island in Bramble Bay
‘Come and sit down,’ he said, positioning himself on the couch so that she would be sat with her back to the door. As soon as she sat down, he took her hands to make sure he kept her attention. He saw Jared come in and head straight for her office.
‘Jessica. I want to clear the air between us,’ he began. ‘I was angry when you came to England and it wasn’t fair of me.’
‘All I wanted was for you to realise what we had and come back to me. I thought if you saw me away from here, you might see things differently.’ She seemed almost sincere.
‘Well, it’s not as simple as that.’ He placed her hands onto her lap and took a deep breath, hoping that Jared was getting on with his side of the job. ‘It hurt me that when I had the breakdown, the time I needed you the most, I couldn’t count on you. I didn’t know where to turn without you and Jared being there for me.’ He’d never talked about his breakdown with anyone except Maggie but being able to tell Jessica how he’d felt was cathartic. ‘You didn’t try to make things right, you didn’t seem to care.’
‘I had no idea that’s what had happened to you until a while afterwards. I thought you had just left me because of Jared and I felt bad about that.’
As if that wouldn’t have been reason enough, thought Charlie but he bit his tongue and let her continue.
‘There was nothing between me and Jared, it was just sex. He paid attention to me and all you were interested in was work. It was you I wanted Charlie.’ It was incredible how differently she saw the past given that they had lived it together.
‘I’m never going to get over that, Jessica. It was a betrayal but more than that, you were oblivious to what was going on with me. It must have been obvious that I was struggling, not coping with work. If you’d loved me you’d have seen it instead of jumping into bed with my friend because I wasn’t paying enough attention to you.’ She stood up and put her hands on her hips. Charlie’s heart jumped into his throat; he’d said too much, pushed her too far when the main aim at the moment was to keep her talking.
‘God, Charlie! You’ve forgiven Jared, what’s the difference with me? We’ve been working great together and now you’re dragging up the bad feeling again for no reason. We could have carried on and it would’ve been fine!’ She was getting angry now and what Charlie didn’t want was for her to start pacing around and find Jared snooping.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hoping that he sounded it. ‘I should have been clearer about things when I came back.’
‘You’ve been perfectly clear, Charlie. It might be over for us but it’s over for you and your new girlfriend too.’
Charlie could feel the colour drain from his face. ‘You sent the photo.’
‘I did.’ She paused, smiling with one eyebrow raised. ‘I guess there’s no coming back from that for me. It really is over but know this, Charlie, if I can’t have you, I’m going to fucking mess with you so that no one else will want you either.’
He had to get out. He was shaking with rage and fear; the terrible feelings that had overwhelmed him on the day he’d finally broken down, were all back. Suddenly, he couldn’t think straight but he knew he had to leave.
‘Look at you,’ she called after him. ‘Running off to try and win her back. You’re fucking pathetic!’
He reached the door and headed to the car. Shaking, he could barely start the engine but once he did, he headed at high speed towards the gates which were only just open enough for him to get through. In no fit state to drive, he pulled over and rested his head on the steering wheel.
It took a few minutes for him to compose himself and then he remembered. Jared.
57
MAGGIE STILL HADN’T heard from Charlie. She was fed up with waiting for him. Whether it was waiting for him to finish the work, waiting for him to come back from America or waiting for him to finally tell Jessica where to go. All of it. So she’d decided it was time to take back control of her own life, just like she’d come to Bramble Island to do in the first place.
Rob Tanner had come back to her and said he had spoken to the trustees and they loved the idea of the water lodges. There was overwhelming support for the idea that they would preserve the woodland but the snag was the money. The Trust had put aside an amount of money for the project and the new plan would take it way over budget.
‘What I wondered, given your passion for the project,’ he said on the phone to Maggie, ‘was whether you’d be interested in crowdfunding for the extra funds? It was hugely popular when the National Trust did a similar thing to buy the White Cliffs of Dover and it gave them invaluable publicity.’
This was what she’d come here to do; get this project off the ground, and now it seemed like she had some control of it again, she was more than happy to start crowdfunding.
It was so easy to set up. She’d set the target amount to raise and decided on a suggested donation amount. David, the area manager, had allowed her to offer an annual pass to Bramble Island for anyone who donated over £1000 and Will had persuaded his boss at the Bramble Bay Ferry Company to offer unlimited ferry trips for the same donors.
Maggie donated the first £50 herself to get the ball rolling and to check that it worked. She was proud of herself for pushing the project forward. It might have been Charlie’s idea but he wasn’t here now. This was all her now.
She’d drafted a press release and sent it to Rob Tanner and Verity for approval. Once they’d given it the okay, as well as sending it to every news outlet she could think of, she’d asked Clare to send it out to her database of people who’d signed up to the Bramble Island newsletter and the word began to spread from there.
Less than a week later, they had raised half of the target amount. Rob Tanner was thrilled and was sending one of Verity’s colleagues to help manage the burgeoning press attention. The local news wanted to cover the success of the crowdfunding and the BBC’s Countrycase wanted to do a piece on how thinking differently about development can benefit the environment. That meant another visit from Ben who was going to talk to them about the impact on the woodland from his newly adopted persona as saviour of the trees.
Maggie was happy to field most of this attention herself but she needed a bit of expert guidance on how to spin things the right way so she was looking forward to having a helping hand from a PR expert.
She waited on the quay for Ben and Verity’s colleague. Knowing that they would be staying for a few days, she had arranged rooms for them at the Sandbanks Hotel. Now that the summer was almost over they finally had rooms free, otherwise she’d have had to bunk in with Megan and Alice and give her cottage up again.
Once the ferry was close enough, she could make out Ben sat inside, next to the window with his companion beside him; she could see them get up ready to disembark as the ferry tied off at the quay. When they emerged from the cabin, Maggie recognised the man Ben was with straight away. It was Nick, the man she’d had a fling with before she broke up with Ben. It seemed unthinkable that he could be here on Bramble Island, when she felt sure she’d never see him again but the holiday lodge project was just at the point the Trust Treks had been when Nick had been brought in before and the Trust tended to work with people they knew. She felt stupid for not realising it could have been a possibility.
For a second, she thought she might be sick and briefly leaned over the railing on the quay until the feeling passed.
