CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR HARRIET WENTWORTH

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

H ARRIET W ENTWORTH

14 S EPTEMBER 2024

‘There you are! I was starting to worry!' Harriet called as she leaped up from the leather chair, relieved to hear the knock on the front door and knowing he'd hear her, remembering how chatter used to float through the timber as strangers passed by. ‘Oh!' It was a surprise to see a young woman standing on the step. She knew instantly who it was, as if the folded sheets of paper in her hand weren't clue enough. ‘Tawrie!'

‘Yes.' She nodded. ‘I'm sorry to bother you.' She looked a little awkward, standing on the top step, her eyes clearly red from crying.

‘You're not bothering me. Not at all. Happy birthday! Bear told me.'

‘Thanks.' The girl looked down; Harriet got the impression she wasn't having the best day.

‘I was actually just getting a little bored, thought Bear would be back by now, but he's off on a trek up to the Torrs and then walking around the reservoir, apparently. I remember it's beautiful, the view down over the town.'

‘It is. I don't do it often enough; you don't do it when you know you can, do you?'

‘I guess not. Come in! Please, come in!' Harriet hoped it was the right thing to do, inviting her inside without knowing how their mid-morning rendezvous had gone. It felt a little risky, but if reading her diary had reminded her of one thing, it was that when true love came knocking, you had a duty to usher it in. Charles had shown her how to love again, how to trust, and the thought of Bear and Tawrie not being given their shot was almost more than she could stand.

Tawrie hesitated but stepped inside and looked towards the stairs, her eyes double blinking as if in memory.

‘This is rather odd, isn't it?' She thought it best to cut to the chase. ‘First of all, as I'm sure you know, this isn't the first time we've met. In fact, the last time I opened the door to you and walked you through into the sitting room you were only a little girl! I can picture you then as plain as day. You were shy.'

‘Still am a bit.' The girl smiled awkwardly. ‘I didn't know, or at least I didn't remember until ...' She lifted the paper on to which Harriet's son had transcribed certain sections of her diary.

‘Yes, which brings me to the second odd thing: you've read bits of my diary, know some of my deepest darkest thoughts. Bear asked, of course, before he gave them to you and I could tell it was important to him.' She hoped this was a prompt to encourage Tawrie to be open about her feelings too.

‘Yes, I feel ...' The young woman tried to find the words.

‘A little awkward?' Harriet cut in. She knew she did.

‘No, not at all.' Tawrie shook her head. ‘A little in awe of you! Absolutely in awe! Is it okay to talk about, that ... that ... time?'

‘Yes.' It was an easy answer, despite the girl's hesitation. ‘I mean, for years after I would have given anything not to talk about it, but now, with the glorious benefit of hindsight ...'

‘I hope you don't mind me saying this, Mrs – Mrs, erm ...' She blushed.

‘Please, Tawrie, call me Harriet. I mean, you've been inside my head, literally, so I think we're way past Mrs Wentworth!' She tried to lighten the moment.

‘Harriet, thank you.'

She liked her nature: open, unassuming, sweet – very much, in fact, like Bear. She was pretty too, naturally so, her stance confident.

‘I was going to say I think you're incredible; remarkable. Ed has told me bits of what happened, I hope ... hope that's okay to say,' she stuttered. ‘I don't know how you got through it, how you did it. I mean, I've had my heart kind of, well ...' Again that blush and Harriet could see that Bear's feelings, not least surrounding the complex nature of their beginning, was a shared thing.

‘So I guess this brings us nicely to the final odd thing,' she interjected. ‘The fact that my son says he's in love with you after only knowing you for five minutes!' She laughed, trying to make light of a situation that felt precarious to say the least. It was, however, the elephant in the room and it felt right to mention it. ‘In fact, he said that after one unremarkable chat with you, he would have gone anywhere with you. He just wanted to be with you. It really struck me. I don't think I've felt that way, never had that flash of something that had the power to knock me off my feet, to change the course of my life.'

‘It was the same for me. It is the same for me,' Tawrie confessed and her face softened at the admission. ‘It's the same for me. And I've tried very hard over the last month or so to switch it off, to walk away. I've even made plans for my future, but it's not that easy.' She smiled, suggesting this discovery was far from an issue.

The way she repeated herself suggested to Harriet that it was a realisation.

‘Can I ask you, Harriet, about this?' She held up the words Bear had transcribed.

‘Yes, of course! Let's go sit in the kitchen.' She pulled out a chair for the young woman and sat opposite. ‘Gosh, feels like I'm at an interview.' She laughed and Tawrie swallowed.

‘That's what Ed said. We sat here and played Uno.'

‘I thought you were going to say he'd cooked for you and I would actually have fallen off the chair!'

‘He bought crisps, but couldn't find a bowl to put them in.'

Harriet liked the imagining of it and loved the insight into their time together. It sounded unpretentious, honest and the basis of a friendship that she knew from her own experience, as she pictured Charles at home in his apron, was the best foundation on which to build a long-lasting love. Charles ... for whom she would shuck off this cage around her heart, and for their sons too, who deserved more than a mother and wife who wore the thinnest layer of armour that no matter how tiny, invisible almost, was still a barrier.

‘What part of the diary did you want to ask me about?' She gripped the sides of the chair, arms braced as if this might enable her to better withstand anything that was uncomfortable to hear.

‘Okay, it feels weird.' Tawrie held her eyeline.

‘For both of us, trust me!' She pulled a wide-mouthed face. ‘I think it's best we treat it like the removal of a Band-Aid – do it quick!'

Harriet smiled weakly. Her words written in that little green book had been like a Band-Aid: the thing that she reached for to help her feel better, to cover up the wounds, to aid her healing. Something, she now realised, she had no further use for, as the wound beneath, the cuts once so deep, were now healed.

‘Here we go.' Tawrie drew breath. ‘" I study other couples, surreptitiously of course. I stare at them through my sunglasses, either as we walk or I sit ... There's one couple in particular who have caught my attention ... Always together, engrossed in one another, come rain or shine, as if the whole world exists just for them and whatever is going on around them is merely the backdrop to their love affair. I feel drawn to them, admiring of their apparent devotion and envious of it too. He has thick curly hair, a stocky man, kind eyes, handsome, and she's petite, dark hair too, but straighter. She has big brown eyes and seems coy, smiling gently, as if her happiness is a precious thing, a secret that she carries close to her chest. They fascinate me. Forever arm in arm or hand in hand. If they slow or stop, she places her head on his shoulder. As if only this level of contact will do. They are like one person, split down the middle. Golden. " It's incredible to me that you're talking about my parents!'

‘I was indeed.' She remembered them clearly, even writing the words; it had been like holding up a mirror to her and Hugo and all they had lost.

‘I think about them walking, taking the same path that I do each day, walking in my dad's footsteps.'

‘I understand.' Harriet thought of her mum, who she missed dearly, and knew that to place her hand on a handle she'd touched, sip from a cup that had felt the curve of her lips or slip a blanket around her shoulders that had brought her mother similar comfort, meant more than she could express.

‘Shall I carry on?'

‘Yes, please.' Harriet settled back in the chair. It wasn't quite as painful as she'd envisaged; hearing her words brought to life.

‘This next bit is hard for me. I've read it over and over a hundred times today, and it's like looking at something that's horrible, scarring and yet compelling, rubbernecking my own parents' misfortune, kind of.'

‘Would you like me to read it out loud?'

Tawrie nodded and slid the sheets of paper across the tabletop. Harriet took a beat to scan ahead, familiarise herself with her own jottings, thinking again how lucky the couple were to share what, at the time, had been beyond her reach. ‘If you want me to stop at any point just say.'

‘I will.'

She read slowly, deliberately. ‘" The news spread like a lit fuse ... travelling along its twisted, looping route, gathering gasps and cries as it went along the way. The worst kind of whisper as each fragment of news was added to, as the bigger picture revealed itself ."' They exchanged a lingering look, both understanding what came next and the magnitude of it. ‘" There's been an accident ..."' she whispered . ‘" A man went overboard. "' Oh Tawrie, are you sure you want me to carry on?'

The sight of the young girl's tears falling from her reddened eyes was almost unbearable to witness. The girl nodded and rolled her hand, indicating for Harriet to continue.

‘" I found out it was Daniel Gunn ... Shock doesn't come close. How my heart aches for sweet Annalee, and for Dan too, the handsome man. I feel for his family, his kind mother, and most of all for that little girl, Tawrie, whose daddy is not going to come home ."' She looked up as Tawrie sobbed, covering her face with her hands. ‘" Tonight, it's as if the whole town weeps ... but no one will ever weep as hard or as long as Annalee, the woman with the sparkle in her eye, as she walked with her arm linked with that of the man she so loved. I shan't ever forget her happy, happy face, a woman who looked like she had the whole world at her feet and was loving every second of it. How I envied her and how I envy her still, knowing that the strength of feeling she will carry in her heart is something I can only dream of .. . "'

Harriet paused to let the news settle for both her and Tawrie, wanting the girl to know the joy her parents felt in each other's company, a joy that she wished for her and Bear. Also to allow her silent thanks to flow to Charles, who right about that moment was probably fretting over what to make for supper. Her beloved husband, with whom she had the whole world at her feet and loved every second of their life together.

‘" I hope they find Daniel Gunn. I hope they get to lay him to rest and say their goodbyes. I hope his daughter finds peace, safe in the knowledge that her parents adored each other and that she was made in love .. . "'

‘I was made in love.' Tawrie sniffed. ‘They loved each other so much!'

‘Yes.' Harriet reached across the table and held her arm. ‘I only saw her one time after and she looked very different. She'd got old and frail and hollow and broken overnight. And to me that was as desperately sad as the loss of your father.'

She looked towards the wide sash window and took in her reflection, remembering that when she'd sat here among the ruins of her marriage, she too had been frail, hollow, broken. But not any more; she had survived. She had come out the other side stronger.

‘It's hard to think that the woman is my ... my mum.' Tawrie wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘She's been ...' Her mouth moved but the words wouldn't come. ‘... different to that.'

‘I think you've probably had two mums. The one before she lost Daniel and the one that came after. I know my kids would probably say the same about me. The old me when my marriage failed and the me now, different.'

Tawrie nodded and sniffed, her words coasting on stuttered breath.

‘I've thought for the longest time that, erm, that my dad, might have gone out to deliberately ... to, erm ...' Another sheet of distress covered her face. ‘That maybe my mum had, because of her behaviour, her issues, driven him to go out on his boat, to stash his watch and wallet and ...' She couldn't voice it.

Harriet shook her head vigorously. ‘God, no! I only met your mother properly once, but I saw them together countless times. They were oblivious to the rest of the world, deeply devoted is how I would have described them and how I heard them described by people who knew them better than me.'

‘It's a wonderful thing for me to know, a relief. My nan had told me they were happy, but she sugar-coats everything for me, always has. I thought she was just painting me a picture.'

‘We do that when we try to protect our kids. I know when we moved here and I was doing my best to find a way forward with Hugo, I was always beaming at the kids, trying to sell them the idea that everything was going to be grand, as if I could make it so just by saying it enough. But I now know that honesty is everything, truly. And finding something that's yours alone and brings you joy, something you do just for you. For me it's my garden. My little haven where I can escape the noise, the clutter, the kids. I have very boisterous teenage twins.' Just the mention of her boys was enough to fill her with a desperate longing to see them, hold them. She couldn't wait to get home.

‘Yes, Ed said.' Tawrie took a deep breath and seemed to settle. ‘I swim, that's my thing.'

‘Yes, Bear said.' They exchanged a smile. ‘Where do you swim?'

‘Down at Hele Bay Beach, every morning from March to September and sometimes in the winter too if it's a fine day. It started off as a way to clear my head, get my thoughts straight. I was sick of tootling along in the middle lane – just about coping with life, you know?'

‘I do.' It was easy to recall sitting at this very table knowing she was only just keeping her head above water.

‘But now it's so much more than that. I love being in the sea. It revitalises me like nothing else. There's something extraordinary about being that close to nature, submerged in it quite literally. I swim with two of my friends and today we saw a school of dolphins leaping out of the water, so close I felt I could have touched them. I won't ever forget it. It's not the first time I've seen them, but all leaping and so close, like they were putting on a show.'

The young woman's eyes sparkled.

‘Your family must be so proud of you, Tawrie, and I don't mean that to sound patronising; you're an exceptional girl.'

Tawrie laughed nervously. ‘Don't know about that. My cousin might not be talking to me!'

‘Why?'

‘I'm joking, she will be, but I just quit my job in her café. I need to go find what I really want to do and working for her was preventing me from doing that.'

‘It sounds like a smart move.' She smiled. ‘Exciting.'

‘This last month has been a time of reckoning, made me think about everything. What I do know is that I need to set a path and walk it, and second, my dad probably thought he had all the time in the world, but life's short, isn't it?'

‘It is. But don't be hard on yourself, Tawrie. You lost your dad in the most brutal fashion and it tore your family apart, that's hard for anyone to deal with, let alone a little girl. The fact that you're upright and fantastic and functioning is, I think, remarkable.'

‘Thank you. Thank you, Harriet.'

It was a day, it seemed, for high emotion, as she too grappled with the desire to sob. What a fool she had been to let her past dictate her present, especially when she really did have it all.

‘So, I guess the final question I have, and please don't think I'm interfering, but what happens now for you and Bear?'

Tawrie looked out towards the window, her response considered. ‘I told him he was weak and I called him a liar. I was hurt and wanted to hurt him.'

‘At least you recognise that. And I can assure you he's neither. Not weak, but rather kind, so kind he'd never do what Hugo did, not intentionally, not maliciously. I think Hugo would still say he was a little hard done by. But Bear knows he messed up. And for the record, I'd vouch for him.'

‘With all due respect, Harriet, you're his mum – that's not going to stand up in a court of law!'

‘You're probably right.' They both laughed. ‘But it's the truth. I'd trust him with my life. I was a little doubtful of the strength of feeling he described, all that love-at-first-sight malarkey.' As she spoke, she thought about her husband, his infinite capacity for kindness, and her heart flexed.

‘But now?' Tawrie asked with eyes wide, as if desperate to hear the answer she wanted.

‘Now, having met you both, I think you kids need to give it a go. But what do I know? I didn't get it right until I was middle-aged!'

‘I should go. I'm supposed to be helping organise the party.' Tawrie stood and made her way to the front door. ‘When you see Edgar, Bear, Ed,' she fumbled, ‘can you tell him to come to the Gunn Fire and please come too, Harriet. I think it'd be nice, and Mum will be there, probably.'

‘I'll tell him, and thank you for the invite. Happy birthday, Tawrie Gunn.'

‘Thank you.'

The girl lifted her hand in a wave as she walked swiftly down Fore Street, smiling back over her shoulder. Harriet thought she looked a million miles away from a girl who was tootling in the middle lane of life, just about coping. In fact, she looked like a girl who had her whole future ahead of her and it looked rather golden.

‘It's time.' She closed the front door. ‘It's time.'

Taking a seat in the old leather chair, she let her hands briefly rest on the arms, before reaching for her phone.

‘Harriet! All okay?' There was the unmistakable note of alarm in his question. It was unusual for her to call and she was sure that, like her, the first thing she'd think of if he were calling her was that something might have happened to the kids.

‘Yes, all good, Hugo. Kids are fine, just, erm ...' And then it happened. Harriet Wentworth in that instant turned from the competent scientist, loving wife, and dedicated mother into a woman twenty years younger with the heavy twin yoke of distress and dilemma about her shoulders, weighing her down and down. ‘I just wanted to ...' She tried again from a throat that had narrowed with sadness and recollection.

‘You okay, old girl?'

‘Yes. Just give me a minute.' Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back and took deep breaths. With the thumb of her left hand she felt the raised bump of the gold band on the underside of her third finger. A gold band she would never have had if she and Hugo had stayed married – and a man like Charles would likely never have come into her life. Both thoughts too terrible to contemplate. Sitting upright, she swallowed. ‘I'm in Corner Cottage.'

‘Ah.' His acknowledgment, she knew, an understanding of just what a return to the place might mean.

‘I ... I found the diary I used to keep during our— during that ... that summer.'

‘I remember.' He spoke softly.

‘It's odd. Even the sight of the little green book was enough to transport me right back to then.'

‘I see.' She heard him take a deep breath. ‘So come on then, H, let's have it!'

‘What?' She'd lost the thread.

‘Well, I never hear from you, never directly, not since ... not since then, really. You never call to chew the fat or make small talk.'

‘You want me to call and make small talk?'

‘No.' He was as ever direct. ‘I mean, I did, once upon a time, shortly after when it was all so ...'

‘Shitty.'

‘Yes, when it was all so shitty. So let's just cut to the chase.'

‘Hugo, I don't know what you—'

‘Well, obviously, you've gone to Ilfracombe, read your diary, had the fires of fury stoked and realised there's a couple of poison-tipped daggers you forgot to stab me with, so get it out of your system. But I can probably guess: "How could I destroy our lives, why did I do it, did I not care about the kids, how has life worked out based on all the very many mistakes and error of judgement I made?"'

‘Hugo, just stop!' She was firm.

‘Oh, don't worry, you'll get your turn—'

‘Hugo,' she interjected again. ‘The reason I wanted to call you, and the thing I want to say is—'

‘Here we go,' he muttered.

She ignored him. ‘—is that I forgive you.'

‘What?' he asked, calmer now.

‘I forgive you and I want nothing for you but happiness and peace.'

‘You forgive me?' His voice no more than a scratchy whisper.

‘Yes. I forgave you a long time ago, just never said it, never really thought about it, but it occurred to me that maybe we should have this conversation ... Hugo?'

The sound of his tears was surprising and hard to hear.

‘I'm ... I'm sorry, H.' He sniffed. ‘Sorrier than you will ever know.'

It was a shock to her how good it was to hear his remorse so earnestly expressed.

‘I've been thinking recently, how long do we have left of life, Hugo? Who knows – five years, ten, twenty? Whatever it is, we need to not let that time in our life when things fell apart be a cloud. That would be crazy, wouldn't it? I mean, we have two amazing kids together; we have an awful lot to be thankful for.'

‘We do. We really do. And thank you, H, thank you.' He swallowed his distress. ‘Maybe, erm ...' He coughed. ‘Maybe we could all get together: you, me, Charles and Ramona. You could come for dinner, we could invite all the kids! Get the pasta on, garlic bread, whip up a tiramisu, couple of bottles of red ...'

‘That sounds lovely,' she enthused.

‘Right then. Bye, H.'

‘Goodbye, Hugo.'

She smiled to herself long after the phone call had ended. Charles would rather get a pizza and eat in their little kitchen – anything other than subject himself to an evening like that, and she was inclined to agree ...

It was an hour or so before she felt composed enough to call her husband.

‘Hello, my darling!' His joy at no more than knowing it was her on the end of the line was like a bolt through her chest.

‘Charles,' she began, quite unable to get the words out as emotion filled her up.

‘Don't rush, Harry, we have all the time in the world, all the time in the world.'

His voice in her ear, linking her across the miles from one house to another, from one time to another, was like a door opening. She sat back in the chair, as she had so many times before, her hair now a little greyer, skin a little more aged, but with a peace in her uncaged heart that was as new as it was exciting, and as she drew breath to speak, it was like a firecracker going off in her chest. She could hear a sound like a note, like music, like ... She didn't know what. Clarity? As if fog had cleared in her mind. And she knew beyond any shadow of doubt that she'd have gone anywhere with this husband of hers. Anywhere. All she wanted was for him to hold her, talk to her, be with her.

‘I just ... just wanted to say that you are everything and I love you, I love you entirely, for always.'

‘And I you, Harry, my love. And I you.'