Page 51 of Once Upon a Thyme
And it had all been a lie.
‘Why did you change your name?’ Was all I could ask.
Simon shrugged. ‘Jonathon Fisher didn’t sound rock and roll enough.’
‘And Simon Welburydid?’
He shrugged again. ‘I loved you,’ he said, fiercely. ‘I didn’t know you weren’t getting the letters. Your mother must have… Look.’ There was a moment of earnest searching of pockets until he found his phone, contained in that ‘older person’ way in a case with slots for cards. In the front, where a driving licence would normally be displayed, was a photograph. Small and battered with ragged edges, as though it had been cut from a larger picture, it showed a small chubby-kneed child in a hand-knitted jacket of such chunkiness that it about doubled the child’s weight. ‘It’s the only picture they let me have.’
‘That’s me?’ I stared at the round face of the toddler, which stared back solemnly.
‘I sent money for you,’ Simon said hastily, clearly taking my momentary thoughtfulness as a feeling of rejection. ‘All the time. And when the bands got successful, I was sending quite a lot of money. For you, for your education, your future. I thought – I have no idea why, because I know quite a lot of drunks – that the money was going into an account for you. One day, I hoped your mum would sit you down and explain and give you a big cheque.’ He glanced around the kitchen. ‘I can see I was mistaken.’
He stood up and put his still nearly full mug down on the table. ‘Look, I ought to go. You’ve got a lot of thinking to do and this has been a bolt from the blue for you, I’m so sorry.’ A hand reached out to touch me, and I recoiled. The hand withdrew. ‘Yes. As I said, I’m very sorry. We were complicit in keeping you in the dark, but I didn’t realise justhow muchdark was going on. I only began to realise when we chatted by the pond that day and you obviously had no idea who I was. I truly didn’t know whether it was better to tell you or let you believe whatever you were told about me.’
My breathing was still snagging in my throat. I didn’t think I could say anything, so I was quite glad when Zeb stood up too. ‘Maybe, if you came back tomorrow, Simon? I think Tallie has quite a lot of thinking to do.’
‘Yes, of course.The Goshawk Tradersare off on a break now for a few weeks. I’m going to stay in York, so I can come over?’ His tone was hopeful. ‘I want to do what I can to make up for all the lying and years of not being there.’
‘The wedding,’ I said.
‘Wedding?’ Simon was nonplussed for a second. I could hear it in his voice. I couldn’t see him because I was refusing to look up from the cracked and lined surface of my table. It still looked and felt the same as it had when he’d walked into the kitchen an hour ago, and it was the only thing that did. That permanency was comforting.
‘The wedding. Mika and Tessa’s wedding.’
‘What about it?’ he asked, cautious now, as though I were about to confess to something. Did he think I might be pregnant with Mika’s child? The idea almost made me laugh.
‘I want Drycott to do the flowers. Herb bouquets. Table decorations, room décor.’
Beside me I felt Zeb react, a momentary twitch of surprise.
‘Oh!’ Simon flickered, a moving outline. ‘Well, they’re getting hitched in London, some fancy venue, I think a wedding planner has?—’
‘We will do the bouquets and all the wedding arrangements.’ I dropped the words like stones into the pond of his confusion. ‘You know we can. And the magazines will feature them. I think you owe me this, Simon.’
He blinked, clearly processing and then smiled. ‘Actually, I think that’s an amazing idea, Tallie. It will tie the wedding into the video we’ve been making, link it all together.’
‘But they will already have sorted flowers,’ Zeb said, a tiny voice breaking our concentration on one another.
Simon waved airily, a hand that knows money is no object. ‘I’m sure they can switch suppliers.’ Then, with a touch more trepidation, ‘Are you sure you can do it? They get married in two months, will you have enough herbs to do all the arrangements?’
‘Yes,’ I said, absolutely definitely. ‘We bloody well will.’
‘Well then.’ Simon rocked on the balls of his feet. ‘Well then.’
Zeb got up now and opened the back door to the rapidly gathering night. ‘Give it a couple of days,’ he said, as Simon moved to leave. ‘I think Tallie has a lot of thinking to do and she’ll have more questions for you, I have no doubt.’ He threw me a look. ‘She’s getting much better at asking questions now, I’ve found.’
Simon looked relieved; the worst, for him, was over. ‘Yes. I’ll… I’ll give you a call? If that’s all right? I need to talk to Mika, obviously, and Tessa, and there will be some… some questions from them, I expect.’
‘I’d think so, yes.’ Zeb ushered Simon out.
‘Can I tell them?’ Simon asked from the doorway. ‘About you and… and being my daughter?’
I had a momentary vision of Mika’s face, being told that he’d been casually flirting with his manager’s daughter and laughed. ‘Why not?’
‘I think that’s a yes,’ Zeb said and closed the door. We sat in silence, listening to the footsteps crunch the gravel, the gate open and shut, and then the sound of the car driving away.
I still didn’t move. I stayed focused on the yellowing polished top of the table, crazed into honeycomb patterns by heat and years. It looked like the earth outside, in the summer drought.
