It didn’t seem to Holly that she had to wait long to see Tom’s reports as the days slipped by at an alarming rate. On the night that Tom’s first report was being aired, they cuddled up on the sofa, ready to watch the broadcast with a bottle of wine and popcorn. Holly was relieved that Tom was still home. The summer nights were drawing in as August moved closer to September and whilst Holly sat in the relative safety of her living room she knew the full moon was casting its borrowed light across the surface of the moondial. Tonight its lure was no match for the safety of Tom’s arms, her Tom, the man whose heart hadn’t been broken by the loss of his wife.
It was a strange experience, sitting on the sofa, watching the new improved Tom in professional reporting mode on screen while her real-life Tom gave a commentary on what had been happening behind the scenes. Stranger still because the image on screen didn’t match the man sitting next to her, who, despite his lack of hair, was still the old, dishevelled Tom she knew and loved. She wasn’t sure she liked the polished, pristine version on screen. He was too slick for her liking. He was interviewing an oil company spokesperson and he sounded different, harsher.
‘So what do you think?’ Tom asked tentatively as soon as the programme had finished.
‘You looked …’ Holly started, but then couldn’t think of the right words. ‘You looked very professional.’
‘You didn’t like it, did you?’ Tom asked. There was a note of disappointment in his voice that made Holly’s heart ache.
‘It’s different,’ she tried to explain. ‘It’s just not quite you.’
Tom sighed. ‘I know, you’re right. I’m trying my hardest to adapt. Everyone in the studio has been singing my praises, but it still doesn’t quite feel right. It’s strange how people react differently to you just because you’re wearing a suit and you have that slick look. The career politicians and the experienced press officers I’ve been interviewing still look down their noses at me, but some of the people on the sidelines, I think I kind of intimidated them.’
‘So is that what the studio really want from you? For you to go around intimidating people?’ asked Holly. She kept her tone light, but she really didn’t like the idea that Tom was being forced to move away from the approachable reporter he used to be.
‘I’m not in the anchorman job yet. Maybe when I am, I can relax the style a little. At least they’re not insisting I wear a suit when I’m in Haiti.’
‘I’m going to miss you,’ moaned Holly.
‘I haven’t gone yet and I will be back. All this pain will be worth it when we think about what it will mean for us next year. Next year I could have a little baby who’ll love me no matter what kind of silly suit I have to wear. And now we’ve been given a clean bill of health from the doctor, there’s nothing to stop us.’
‘I know,’ Holly answered, trying hard to hide her disappointment. She had mentioned her bump on the head, expecting that the doctor would send her off for an MRI, hoping that the aneurism might be an existing condition that could be treated and that she could then go on to have Libby, free from any risk. But he had given her only the basic health checks and so the risk remained. It seemed that the only thing Holly could do to avoid dying in childbirth was to avoid conceiving Libby. ‘Just as long as we get to spend the rest of our lives together.’
‘You don’t get rid of me that easy,’ Tom said, kissing the top of her head.
‘And you don’t get rid of me that easily either. Just don’t go getting all celebrity on me and running off with the first airhead you meet.’
‘You know I won’t do that,’ Tom assured her.
‘Yes, I know you won’t,’ Holly answered. The moondial had at least provided her with that certainty.
‘Anyway, I’ve got a long journey tomorrow,’ Tom said, raising his arms and yawning loudly. ‘Fancy an early night?’
‘Can I bring my popcorn?’ teased Holly.
‘As long as your crunching doesn’t keep me awake,’ Tom warned, still yawning enthusiastically.
‘Oh, it won’t be my crunching keeping you awake,’ countered Holly. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Tom, a trick she had learnt from Billy.
‘Mrs Corrigan, I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Then let me explain further,’ promised Holly, climbing onto Tom’s knee. ‘I don’t think we need to go to bed to have an early night.’
By the time Holly and Tom made it to their bedroom, the moonlight that had shone through the open window had faded and failed. Holly’s path lay firmly in the present.
Jocelyn arrived at eleven o’clock prompt with a wicker basket full of hidden treasures. ‘I thought we might make the most of the Indian summer and have a little picnic, if you’re up to it?’ she challenged.
‘If I’m up to it? So what’s put a spring in your step?’ answered Holly, genuinely surprised.
‘Well, I believe I have your Tom to thank for persuading Patti to return to university.’
‘She’s decided to go back? Jocelyn, that’s fantastic news, but please don’t go giving Tom all the credit. I’m sure she would have made the same decision eventually,’ Holly assured her.
Jocelyn had only recently returned from her visit to see her son and this was the first chance they’d had to catch up. Holly had been impatient to find out all there was to know about the moondial, but now the time was here, she was suddenly very nervous about bringing the subject up and she knew Jocelyn shared her reluctance.
Holly had managed to call a truce on all the thoughts and theories that had plagued her ever since she had crossed paths with the moondial. She hadn’t found all the answers, she hadn’t even worked out all of the questions, but she still held out hope that the answers were in her grasp and, most importantly, that there may be a way to secure her future and Libby’s too. She wasn’t about to give up on her daughter just yet.
But no matter how positive she was trying to be, she couldn’t dispel all her fears. Her experiences of the moondial had been to the extremes of bitter and sweet. For every ounce of hope it had revealed, it seemed to add a pound of pain. Jocelyn had already said there was a price to pay for changing the future and Holly wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the secrets that her friend had promised to reveal.
‘I hope you have something better in mind than the garden for our picnic,’ grimaced Holly. Although Holly had tried to keep the garden under control, if only so that Tom’s hard work wasn’t completely undone by another year’s summer growth, it was hardly the lush landscape she knew it could be and she still felt guilty about the state it was in every time Jocelyn visited.
‘I was thinking we’d take a trip to the ruins of Hardmonton Hall.’
‘Really? I didn’t know we could drive up there,’ asked Holly. To her shame, she had never visited the ruins close up and had seen no more than the crumbling walls that skirted the outside of the old estate boundaries and which lead right up to the gatehouse. Even then, the extent of the estate wasn’t as grand as it used to be with most of the land having been sold off, redeveloped or reclaimed for farming. Only the areas immediately surrounding the ruins had been left untouched.
‘We can’t drive up there,’ scolded Jocelyn. ‘Kids these days want to be ferried around everywhere. These joints of mine are feeling well oiled today and if I can make the trek, I’m sure you can.’
‘You want to show me where the moondial was originally sited, don’t you?’ Holly asked, and her stomach did a flip simply saying its name out loud.
‘It