She pressed send, knowing that it wasn’t the response Simon would be expecting. He’d probably expected that she’d be there to welcome him on the doorstep, all jiggly with prenuptial excitement and raring to share their news.
Staring at the phone, she half expected her mum to send a second message telling her to get up to the house because Simon had something he wanted to announce. Please don’t, Simon. Relief prickled her skin when he emerged from the back door a couple of minutes later and started to pick his way down the long garden path. She watched him, wondering what the right words were to break someone’s heart gently. It’s not you, it’s me? She wouldn’t insult him with pat lines or stock phrases.
‘Violet?’
He opened the door and stuck his head into her workshop. It wasn’t a place he ventured often by choice. Violet’s workshop was a riot of colour and organised chaos; it didn’t sit well with his everything-in-its-place, neat-as-a-new-pin mentality.
‘Come in,’ she said, sliding down from her stool at the bench to hastily clear a pile of material off the battered velvet armchair she’d up-cycled from a neighbour’s garden sale. ‘Sit down.’
Simon looked back towards the door, uncertain, as if he didn’t understand why they weren’t leaving the workshop to go up to the house to break their happy news right away.
‘Please, just come in and sit down?’
Frowning, he did as she asked. ‘This isn’t quite what I had in mind for this morning,’ he said, looking uncomfortable as he pulled a peacock-blue reel of cotton from under his backside and laid it on the side table Violet had decoupaged with jungle animals; glossy leopards and jewel-bright parrots.
‘I know,’ she said, quiet and serious.
His eyes moved to her left hand, to her bare wedding finger.
‘There’s something I need to show you,’ she said, reaching for her grandpa’s letter. ‘It’s this. My mum gave it to me yesterday morning.’
He frowned at the letter as she held it out. ‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer, just swallowed and nodded for him to take a look. She watched as he sighed, resigned, pulled out the folded letter and began to read. He read it through once, then turned it over to read it from the beginning again.
‘You’re going to have to fill in the blanks for me here,’ he said, laying the letter down beside the cotton reel on the table, looking as nonplussed as she’d felt when she read the letter for the first time. Violet nodded, unsure where to start. She wasn’t surprised he was confused; she still felt that way herself twenty-four hours on.
‘It seems that my gran, Monica, owned a Victorian pier on the south coast. Grandpa never sold it on after she died, and now he’s left it to me.’
Simon shook his head, as if he didn’t want the information to lodge itself in there permanently.
‘Okay.’ He drew the word out in a way that said: You’ll have to tell me more, I’m not sure where this is going yet.
‘And there’s an apartment with it too.’
He nodded slowly. ‘So, you’ve inherited an old pier and a flat in a place we’ve never heard of down on the south coast.’
‘Yes,’ Violet said. ‘Mum thought it had all been sold off years ago. It’s come as a real shock to her.’
‘I can imagine.’ He looked at his shoes. ‘Is this why we’re not up in the house drinking champagne? I brought some, your mum put it in the fridge.’
Violet flinched, wishing her parents hadn’t needed to be involved. ‘Yes, I guess it is. I was going to tell you about it last night, but you kind of took me by surprise when you …’ her eyes moved to the small red velvet box on the window ledge ‘when you proposed.’
‘I have to say, you didn’t seem quite as thrilled as I’d expected.’
He couldn’t have handed her a clearer cue. Violet felt her heart start to rush, panicky now the moment was here.
‘It was a shock,’ she said, trying to be diplomatic. ‘Marriage is a big step …’
‘One everyone takes,’ he said, reasonable.
‘Not everyone,’ she frowned. ‘But that’s not it. I just feel … Simon, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I’m ready for marriage yet.’
His brows dropped into a V. ‘But you … you said yes. You definitely said yes. I was down on one knee, and you said you’d marry me. That’s not the kind of thing I could have got wrong, Violet. The waiter shook my hand.’
He didn’t pause for breath as the implications of Violet’s words sank in.
‘I know I did. I said yes, because I didn’t want to say no in front of everyone.’
‘So you said yes out of pity?’
He looked offended now. ‘No! No … it wasn’t pity, honestly. I’m not saying I never want to get married, Simon, just not yet. I don’t feel …’ She trailed off, because the words in her head were too stark to say out loud. I don’t feel sure you’re the man I want to marry.
‘You don’t feel what? Like you love me enough?’
His uncharacteristic bluntness surprised her, and her faltering response probably made him wish he hadn’t asked.
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry Simon, but I honestly don’t know. All I know is that my heart didn’t jump for joy when you asked me, and it should have.’
His brows were so low now they had merged into one dark line across his creased forehead.
‘This isn’t Wuthering Heights, Violet,’ he said, almost patronising. ‘We’re normal people living normal lives.’
She looked down at her lime-green-and-navy-polka-dot polished toes. He couldn’t have said anything less inspiring if he’d tried.
‘I’m going to Swallow Beach.’
Simon breathed in and out, slow and steady. ‘Of course. You’ll need to go to make arrangements to sell it.’
Violet shook her head. ‘No, that’s not what I’m going to do.’ Her forthright words surprised herself; up until that point she hadn’t been sure what she wanted. But hearing Simon pretty much tell her what to do crystallised it for her. ‘I’m going to go and stay there for a while.’
‘What?’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘When? For how long?’
She paused. ‘I don’t know. Soon. Next week, maybe.’
He looked at the wooden rafters, thinking. ‘I’m due seven days’ annual leave. I’ll take you. We can have a holiday. Shame to use my leave so early in the year, mind.’
There was a look of something dangerously close to piety on his face, as if he was bestowing a favour.
‘No, I wasn’t talking about a holiday,’ Violet said, soft but firm. ‘I’m going to go and live there for a while.’
Simon made the mistake of scoffing. ‘You’re being slightly ridiculous now, Violet. How do you expect to do that on your own?’
Irritation sharpened her tongue. ‘Don’t you think that’s rude, Simon? To suggest that I’m incapable?’
‘I wasn’t …’ He looked flustered. ‘Is it so wrong to want to get married and settle down? I thought we were on the same page here, Violet. Singing from the same hymn sheet. Your mum and dad are going to be so disappointed.’
‘They don’t even know,’ Violet said.
He shrugged, looking awkward.
‘You didn’t