Margherita
“It’s going to rain and we’ll get soaked again,” Ash complained as we made our way to St Colman’s Well.
“Yes, well, there’s nowhere else we can talk in private at the moment, and I need to speak to you before you see Lara.”
“This doesn’t look very private.”
“There’ll be nobody there.”
The truth was, I couldn’t face conducting a heavy conversation indoors, the words weighing over our heads as they were spoken.
“Yes. You’re right. We need to talk . . .”
“We certainly do,” I said, trying to sound steely, but an edge of vulnerability echoed in my voice. And I hated myself for it.
I sat on one of the benches in St Colman’s Gardens. The whole of Glen Avich was at our feet, nestled against the hills. He took his place beside me.
“Margherita. This has been a mistake . . .”
He was echoing my own words to my mum, and it was unsettling.
“What has been a mistake?”
“Separating. It makes no sense to be apart. It really doesn’t—”
“You seem to not remember all that happened, Ash. You being away all the time. Ignoring the children. Saying we would be better off without them—”
“I was wrong.”
“Really? Because it sounded like you meant it.”
“I was an idiot. I’ve missed you all so much.”
What? “You haven’t even phoned me for weeks, Ash!”
“I was angry! I was so angry and disappointed. And we fought all the time, Margherita, I couldn’t take any more fighting with you. But when Lara called me and told me what happened I realised how stupid I’d been, how selfish.”
That much is true, I thought, but I didn’t say.
“Did Lara tell you she fell in the loch?”
“Yes. She did. And I don’t blame you for not watching her.” Not watching her? “I don’t blame you for a moment . . .” Then why, when I looked into his eyes I felt three inches tall? “. . . but that just shows you, children need two parents. They need a safe environment.”
“This is a safe environment! And yes, they do need two parents, and you were never there! You didn’t even get involved when Lara got into trouble at school!”
“That is all in the past, I told you. We need a fresh start, you and me. Our family deserves it.”
“Ash . . .”
“Please, come back. Come back to London and let me move back in.”
My head was spinning. It was all too sudden. I jumped on my feet, and he did the same.
“I—”
“I stopped at my mum’s on the way here,” he added quickly. “I told her I was driving up to see you and bringing you back. That if she wanted me to choose between them and you, I chose you.”
“You said that?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head so strongly that his blond mop bounced up and down.
That was the ultimate Ash gesture. His face looked so . . . familiar. I knew his features, his gestures like I knew the back of my hand.
I felt something in me soften.
“You stood up to your mother?”
“Yes, I did. For you. For us. So that Lara and Leo could have a proper family. Let me move back in. Into our home.”
“I don’t know, Ash. I don’t know.”
“We’ve been married for a long time. We have two children. You’d throw everything away like this? Can’t you see, Margherita? Can’t you see how our family deserves another chance?”
A wave of guilt hit me so I hard I felt sick. I didn’t know what to say.
“Please, Margherita. Please, listen to me. My place is with you, and with the children. I’m so sorry for the way I’ve been. I want things to change. Give me . . . give us another chance. Come home.”
“We’ve been so happy here . . .”
“Here?” he said, as if that was completely unbelievable.
“Yes. Here. We never spoke about staying, but I think it’s been in the back of our minds. I mean, mine and Lara’s. We both love it here in Glen Avich.”
“Margherita—”
“Listen, Ash, I need to think. I need to think about all this. It’s all been so hard . . .”
“Of course. Of course. Come back and we’ll talk about it at home . . .”
To my intense shame, I burst into tears. Ash wrapped his arms around me, and I smelled his scent, the scent of the man I’d been married to for many years and the father of my children.
And I split into two people.
One was the Margherita of today, with all that Ash had done to her, the neglect of his children, the coldness, the bone-chilling indifference of the last few years.
And the other was the woman I used to be, the twenty-five-year-old who loved Ash so, so much. The girl who had so many dreams for her married life.
The second one won, and I melted in tears against his shoulder for a long, long time.
Ash was triumphant when we walked back to La Piazza. I was full of confusion, my thoughts jumbled up and fighting each other, cutting me inside.
We had agreed we would come back to London, but he couldn’t move back in yet. I wasn’t ready. None of us were.
“We’re going to tell Lara,” I said to my mum, wearily. Strange, I thought. We should have been celebrating that the family was getting back together. But my mum and Michael looked grey, and Leo hadn’t recovered from the surprise of seeing his father after such a long time, without warning. As for me, I felt numb.
“Coming with us?” Ash said to Leo, offering his hand. But Leo shook his head and hid behind my mum’s legs. “He just needs a bit of time,” Ash said magnanimously.
And so we went to speak to Lara. I dreaded it. I became more and more apprehensive with every step we took, until I was in a panic. Before we stepped into my mum’s house, I held Ash back by the arm.
“Maybe I should speak to her first . . .”
“Why?”
“To ask her what she thinks. To prepare her . . .”
“But we can’t let our daughter make a decision on our marriage.” He shrugged.
“It’s not just a decision on our marriage. It’s about the whole family—”
“It’s up to us to make the best decision for them! They are children!”
“I know, but . . . it’s been an enchanted summer for them. And they won’t take well to going back. Lara certainly won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me.”
“Well, she told me something along those lines too, but she’s only fourteen, she can’t—”
“She told you that? Did you ask her?”
“No, I didn’t ask her. She just told me. Just yesterday, when she phoned me to tell me about the accident. I didn’t give it that much weight. I told her I wanted you all to come home. She said she loved it here and she hated her school back home, you know, the usual teenage stuff. I wouldn’t make a big deal of it.”
“How can I not?”
“Because she’s a child!”
I looked down.
“Margherita . . .” His hand was on mine. “I thought we had made a decision. You know you must come back. You know it in your heart of hearts. Your life is with me. Your home is in London.”
“We’ve had such a difficult time, you and me . . .”
“Yes, and I’m so sorry about that. I told you, I’ve been a fool. But we’re going in circles, here. The question is: do you really want to throw it all away? Our family? Our marriage?”
And then I heard myself replying. Out of my head, not out of my heart.
“All right. Let’s tell her.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said, and hugged me again.
But the twenty-five-year-old girl and her dreams and hopes were gone again now, and the weight of responsibilities, the desperate need to make the right choices for my children, was back. And his embrace, those arms that should have been as familiar as my mother’s, as my children’s, felt strange, alien.
I told myself I’d made the best decision for all involved, and I repeated it to myself again and again, ignoring my heart’s protestations.