Through Anna, Tess had followed Cashel’s career from afar. At no time did Anna ask why it had happened that way, why had she broken Cashel’s heart. And Tess never tried to explain, for she felt certain that Anna wouldn’t understand. If it had been her darling Zach whose heart had been broken, Tess knew she’d find it hard to forgive. And yet Anna had been part of her life since she was a child; part housekeeper, part babysitter when it was required. She realized that Tess wasn’t heartless or stuck up, or any of the things Cashel had called her.
She’d been distraught when she first saw the signs of Anna’s decline into dementia. To ensure the old lady got the help she needed, Tess had phoned Riach, alerting him to the problem.
Like his mother, Riach held no malice for her. He was the one who made sure she could continue to visit his mother without revealing her surname to the nurses Cashel had hired.
‘Cashel would go mad if he knew you were visiting her,’ Riach told Tess.
‘I know,’ she said, her silvery-grey eyes cloudy. ‘But it’s not his business. It’s about me and your mother. We were friends.’
Now Cashel would surely be returning for the funeral, and for the first time in many years, they would come face to face.
Assuming Riach thought she should attend the funeral.
Suddenly Vivienne broke off munching through the biscuits, having spotted someone walking towards her shop window.
‘Excuse me, Tess,’ she said. ‘It looks as though I have a customer.’
The moment she was gone, Tess went to the back room to make a phone call.
Riach’s mobile rang so long, she thought she’d have to leave a message, but just as she was steeling herself for the voicemail announcement, he picked up.
‘Riach, I am so sorry. I just heard about Anna. You must be devastated.’
‘I am – we are,’ he said. ‘I knew it was coming, but it still hurts. I want to cry, only I keep thinking how she’d hate me to cry.’
‘She was a very strong woman,’ Tess said, ‘but she’d have wanted you to mourn her, so cry away.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, and Tess could hear the slight hitch in his voice.
‘Riach, I would like to be at the funeral, but only if you think it’s all right for me to come,’ she went on. ‘I don’t want to cause any more pain. You’ve enough to deal with, without me—’
Riach interrupted her. ‘She’d have wanted you there,’ he said.
‘What about Cashel?’
‘Cashel will have to get over himself,’ Riach said shortly. ‘This will be a day for my mother and the people she loved.’
Tess unexpectedly found she had a lump in her throat.
‘She did love you, you know,’ he said.
‘I loved her too,’ Tess said, beginning to cry. ‘I’ll miss her so much. I know it’s better that she won’t have to endure the living hell she was in—’
‘That’s what I said to Cashel,’ Riach interrupted her. ‘I don’t know if he agrees, though. She was the one person he could come back to, you see. I’ve got Charlotte and the kids, he has no one.’
There was silence. A long time ago, Cashel’s someone had been Tess.
‘You should be there, though,’ Riach went on. ‘I’ll call you when it’s all organized. You’ll have to see him, but I’ll tell him you’re coming.’
Tess wasn’t sure what was worse – Cashel knowing in advance that she was going to his mother’s funeral, or him suddenly seeing her there after all these years.
That evening, just as Tess was locking up the shop, Kevin sent her a text.
We need to talk, the message said. Are you in later?
She had an inkling of what he wanted to discuss. The depression in the building trade meant that even brilliant carpenters like Kevin – Tess had to admit that he was a genius at what he did – weren’t able to find work. Before he’d left, they’d sorted out the finances in a general way, neither of them touching the joint account but agreeing that, since Kevin would be living basically rent-free in his mother’s little apartment he could afford to put more money into the mortgage. Clearly that was now becoming too much.
She dialled his number. ‘Hello, Kevin. The answer to your message is yes,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ll be in later tonight – where else would I be going?’ she laughed.
And on the other end of the phone there was a slight nervous chuckle that didn’t sound like her husband at all.
‘Yes. Where,’ he said.
‘It’s about money, isn’t it?’ Tess said finally. ‘Go on, tell me. You want to change things. Listen, Kevin, maybe …’ she paused, on the verge of saying, Maybe this has all been a mistake, maybe the separation has shown us what we really needed to know: that we were supposed to be together …
Something stopped her.
‘But we’ll talk about it tonight,’ she said breezily. ‘Do you want to have dinner? We’re having shepherd’s pie – not very exciting, I know, but I made double last week so I’m defrosting.’
‘I’m not sure … I’ll probably already have eaten,’ said Kevin.
‘OK,’ Tess replied, startled. Kevin loved her shepherd’s pie. Anna Reilly had taught her how to make it. And even though Tess could hardly claim to be a cordon bleu cook, she had mastered all the simple dishes she’d learned from Anna. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What time do you want to come up? Before dinner or after? If you want to come after, could you bring some biscuits? I’ve run out and there’s nothing nice in the house to go with tea.’
‘Maybe after,’ Kevin said quickly. ‘And when Kitty’s gone to bed we can talk.’
It had been a strange day, Tess thought as she closed the shop and started to walk home with Silkie dancing around at her feet. The odd tone in Kevin’s voice. The news of Anna Reilly’s death. The thought of Cashel returning to Avalon. It had all shaken her.
In the nineteen years since Cashel had left, they’d met only once: a horrible stand-off in the pharmacy, he clutching at what had to have been one of Anna’s prescriptions, she trying to choose some small present for Vivienne for her birthday. It had felt like touching the live wire on an electric socket. Tess had been rooted to the spot, staring up at Cashel’s dark, stormy eyes. Stormy was the only word for them. He had lost that air of warmth and kindness he’d had when he was young. No, that was all gone. As he looked back at her, his jaw set, every inch of his body had been tense with repressed anger.
Tess had been about to say something, to break the horrible cycle. It was so long ago, she wanted to say, can’t we be friends? After all the time we spent together and being each other’s first love … But as she’d opened her mouth to speak, he’d given her a look of such venom that she’d felt it as intensely as if he’d pierced her side with a sword, then he’d turned and walked out.
And now he’d be back for Anna’s funeral. Nevertheless, Tess had to go. She wouldn’t be frightened away by him. Anna was her friend, her dear, dear friend. She had to go for her sake, and her father’s. He would have wanted her to go. That was what the Powers did. No matter how uncomfortable something might be, they went through with it anyway.
So no matter that Cashel would be glaring at her with those stormy eyes of his, Tess was going to be at that funeral.
On the way home, Tess stopped by her mother-in-law’s house to collect Kitty. Helen minded Kitty two days a week and Lydia, a childminder, picked her up from school the other three. Occasionally Kevin would