Marin didn’t expect a lightning-strike kind of change to happen after her heart-to-heart with Rebecca, which was just as well, since it seemed as if nothing had changed the next morning when Rebecca came down to breakfast, pale and tired-looking and monosyllabic.
Marin had made oatmeal and blueberry muffins, and Rebecca picked at both before heading off to school. Marin sat at the table with her second cup of tea, wondering if she should have suggested Rebecca bunk off for the day. They could have gone to Carlisle or even Newcastle and done something fun together. But perhaps it would have been too much, seemed too forced.
She sipped her tea, her thoughts wandering aimlessly; she was tired too, having not fallen asleep until near dawn. Eventually she roused herself and cleared away the breakfast things. She was just sitting down with her laptop when the doorbell rang.
Rather to her surprise, it was Joss. “Hello,” she said, and stepped aside so he could enter, but he didn’t.
“I can’t stay long. I’ve got to get to grips with the churchyard now that things are growing again. But I wanted to stop by and tell you what I’ve learned.”
“And what is that?”
Joss grinned. “Allan Mayhew traced the photograph back to its owner. James Welton, a lifelong villager. He’s about eighty years old, and he lives in a nursing home in Whitehaven.”
“And how did he come to have it?”
“Allan asked him that. He visits the nursing home to see his aunt, apparently, and stopped in to see James. Apparently his mother Flora had a few photographs from the vicarage after the Sandersons left.”
Marin frowned, intrigued. “And why would that be?”
“She helped to clear out the place for the new vicar, or so James said. His mother had been close to the Sandersons, apparently, sung in the choir in the late twenties. Maybe she wanted a keepsake. In any case, James remembered the one of the girl. He said he thought it was Eleanor Sanderson, and better yet, he knows what the building in the garden was.”
Marin caught her breath. “He does?”
“Shall I tell you?” Joss asked with a grin and Marin laughed.
“Do you know, I almost don’t want to know now? Almost as if it will spoil it, especially if it really was nothing more than an old garden shed…”
“No,” Joss said. “It’s far more interesting than that.”
Excitement rolled through her in a gathering wave. “Go on, then. Tell me.”
“A butterfly house. Just for a few years, or so he said. Andrew Sanderson had it built for his daughter, something to cheer her up after her brother died, I think.”
“A butterfly house… there was a butterfly on her fingertips in the photo! Of course.” She shook her head wonderingly for a moment before turning back to Joss. “How does James Welton know all this?”
“It was passed down to him from his mother. She knew quite a bit about the Sandersons, but James wasn’t even born until 1929, long after the photograph was taken.”
“And the man in the photograph?”
“That I couldn’t tell you, so there’s still some mystery for you to solve.”
“I have no idea how I’ll go about it,” Marin answered with a laugh. “But thank you for telling me about the house.”
“You’re not disappointed?”
Marin considered this for a moment. “No, I’m not. It’s good to know, but it was the story I was always more interested in. About this Eleanor, and the man behind her.”
“Yes, well, that part we may never find out.”
“I know.”
They both fell silent, and Marin thought Joss would go. Then he spoke up, his gaze turning intent. “Have dinner with me? Tomorrow night?”
“Dinner…” Marin repeated, so taken aback that the invitation didn’t quite compute.
“Dinner, in a proper restaurant. A proper date.” He swallowed. “Just to be clear.”
She felt a tingling all over, as if her entire body was covered in pins and needles. “That’s very clear.” She swallowed too, both thrilled and unsettled by Joss’s unexpected invitation. “Yes, all right. I’d like that very much.”
“Good.” And with a parting wave and grin he headed back down the walk.
Marin closed the door and stood there for a second, her heart beating rather hard. Joss Fowler had asked her out on a date, and she had accepted. It was a small thing for most people, but for her it felt as if she’d taken another leap forward into this life she’d been creating for herself. Coming out of her shell, learning to live. Smiling, she turned back to the kitchen.
Rebecca, of course, was thrilled when Marin told her about the date. “Oh, you’ll have to let me do your hair,” she exclaimed. “And your make-up… you never wear make-up, Marin.”
“I’ve hardly needed to,” she replied. “Staying at home all day.”
“And you’ll wear the black dress you got at the swish party, won’t you?” Rebecca continued, her hands clasped together, and Marin hesitated.
“I don’t know, Rebecca. It’s really rather fancy. I don’t even know where Joss is taking me…”
“But it’s so perfect! Especially considering it’s that photo that got you together. The dress is kind of vintage, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but even so…” Marin nibbled her lip. She’d bought the dress, after all, even if it had only cost five pounds. It seemed silly never to wear it. “Oh, I suppose I could,” she said and Rebecca clapped her hands.
The next night Marin watched in bemusement as Rebecca assembled her arsenal of supplies in the kitchen: straighteners and a curling iron, plenty of hairpins and slides, and more make-up than Marin had ever owned in her entire lifetime.
“Honestly, Rebecca, I think you might be overdoing it—”
“Go put on your dress,” Rebecca ordered, “while I get ready here.”
Obediently Marin went upstairs and fetched the flapper-style dress from her wardrobe. She slipped it on and then looked at herself critically in the mirror; perhaps the dress really was too much. The tiers of fringed tassels glittered and winked in the light and made a little clacking sound every time she moved. She’d never worn something that left her shoulders so bare, and she shivered slightly even though the room was warm from the heat of the Rayburn below. What if Joss was dressed in jeans and a jumper? She’d both look and feel ridiculous, as if she’d made more of this date than he’d meant it to be.
But if she didn’t wear it, Rebecca would be disappointed. And she’d feel a coward somehow, as if she’d stepped back from something she’d told herself she was capable of. Something she wanted.
Resolutely Marin left the dress on and headed downstairs.
Rebecca had heated up the straighteners and the curling iron and she guided Marin to a chair before she went to work on her hair.
“I wish I had your hair,” she said as she began to style it around Marin’s ears. “It’s so thick and dark.”
“And so unmanageable.” Rebecca had blonde, wispy hair like Diana.
“It’s perfect for this style,” Rebecca assured her, and Marin wondered just what style “this” was.
It seemed an age before Rebecca had finished with her hair and make-up; finally, with a flourish, she drew back and reached for the hand mirror she’d brought down with all the other things. “Ready to look?” she asked and Marin held her hand out for the mirror.
“Most definitely.” Yet she wasn’t prepared for the sight of her made-up face and styled hair when she did glimpse her reflection. Rebecca had made her eyes dark and smoky with eyeliner, giving her, Marin thought, a surprising aura of mystery. Her hair had been done, she realized, in the same style as Eleanor Sanderson’s in the photograph: waved over her ears and then drawn back into a low knot.
“You’ve tried to make me look like her,” she said with a laugh, not sure if she was thrilled or horrified or both.
“I thought the dress called for it,” Rebecca answered. “I think you look fab.”
“Well, thank you.” She cautiously touched her hair, which had been sprayed into hard-shelled conformity. She felt a bit ridiculous, but she knew she couldn’t change her appearance now. Rebecca would be crushed.
Quite suddenly, Rebecca came over and threw her arms around her. “Thank you, Marin,” she said, and Marin had the feeling her sister was thanking her for more than letting her style her hair and make-up. She hugged her back, savouring the moment.
“Thank you for making me look like a style icon.”
Maybe this was how change happened, she reflected as Rebecca began to clean up her things. In seemingly little ways, without trumpets or fanfare. Maybe she and Rebecca would inch their way towards the kind of loving relationship that Marin had felt for so long was out of her grasp. Instead of a sudden, seismic shift they would come upon it gradually, learning to like and love each other over time.
The doorbell rang, and Rebecca scurried to answer it. Marin gave her reflection one last troubled glance; it was definitely too late to change her hair or her dress, and she had a horrible vision of Joss coming into the kitchen and his jaw going slack in appalled surprise when he saw her in this over-the-top get-up.
But it didn’t happen that way at all. Joss came into the kitchen, dressed in a suit with an open collar; she’d never seen him in anything but jeans and jumpers, and she decided he cleaned up quite nicely.
His eyes widened when he caught sight of her, but in a good way, and he smiled. “You look amazing. Eleanor would be proud.”
Marin laughed and ducked her head. “It was Rebecca’s idea.”
“Good going, Rebecca,” Joss said with a wink, and then they were heading outside with Rebecca waving them off, and Marin climbed into the passenger seat of Joss’s van.
“I feel like we should be climbing into a Rolls Royce,” he said, “but I’m afraid I only have my van.”
“Your van will do just as well. Where are we going?”
“A restaurant in Whitehaven, on the harbourside. There’s not too many options around here, unfortunately.”
They didn’t speak much on the short drive to Whitehaven; the sun was just starting to set, sending long, golden rays over the rolling sheep pasture on either side of the road, but Marin could see dark-violet clouds gathering on the horizon, obscuring the Isle of Man. She felt tense and expectant and definitely very nervous. Despite his relaxed position, both hands loosely on the wheel, she thought Joss was nervous too.
He parked the van in a car park by the harbour and they walked to the restaurant, still hardly speaking. It was only when they were seated at a table in the back, their menus before them, that Marin blurted out, “I don’t know what to say.”
Joss smiled wryly. “Is this too strange? I made a hash of asking, I know. ‘Just to be clear.’” He shook his head disparagingly and Marin smiled back at him.
“I like clear. But I haven’t… well, I haven’t been on many dates recently or even ever, which is kind of a humiliating thing to admit, considering my age.”
“I haven’t either, if it makes you feel better.”
“Not even when you were young and messing around?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t go to places like this.” Joss looked around the restaurant at the candle-lit tables; the only sounds were the low murmur of conversation and the tinkle of crystal and silver.
“And what about more recently?” Marin asked. “Has there… has there been anyone in your life?”
He shook his head definitively. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I have a history here,” he said after a moment. “And I’m afraid it’s not a very good one.”
“You mean messing about when you were younger,” Marin stated, and after a second’s hesitation he nodded.
“Yes.”
But just as before, she had the feeling he’d been going to say something else. Something important.
Deciding the conversation had become too intense too quickly, she moved it to other topics, asking Joss about the landscaping he’d done recently. They talked easily for a few minutes and then the waitress came to take their orders, and things started to seem normal, to feel almost easy.
After their first course had been cleared away Joss took a sip of his sparkling water – he’d offered wine to Marin but declined himself – and asked, “How are things with Rebecca?”
“They’re… good. I think.” She laughed a little and shifted in her chair, conscious of the way the beads on her dress clacked every time she moved. “We had a bit of a breakthrough the other night, and were able to speak more honestly to each other.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes… but it brought up a whole lot of things I’d rather not think about. About me.” Joss just waited for her to continue and, half wishing she hadn’t been quite so honest, she said awkwardly, “I always felt like my father didn’t love me. The way he pushed me away after my mother died, and how he always seemed to avoid me…” She hesitated, toying with the stem of her wineglass. “But after the things Rebecca said the other night, it made me wonder if it wasn’t me as much as him. Just the way he was. And maybe he did love me, as much as he could. If that makes sense.”
“Those sound like good realizations to have,” Joss said, and Marin sighed.
“Yes, in theory. But they make me feel sad too, like I’ve missed something. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, holding on to my resentment over how he was with me, perhaps we could have reconciled. Maybe we could have had some kind of relationship, if I’d been willing to accept whatever he was able to give, no matter how little.”
“Maybe,” Joss agreed. “But you can torment yourself with what-ifs. In the end they don’t change anything.”
“No, and it’s too late now, isn’t it?” She let out an uncertain laugh. “The funny thing, or perhaps the sad thing really, is that I always meant to talk to him. To put aside our differences. But I always thought there would be time. He was only sixty-three, you know, when he died.”
“How did he and his wife die?”
“A car accident. Drunk driver.” Marin shook her head. “So stupid and pointless. Some young kid, about eighteen, was over the limit and driving on the wrong side of the road. They were killed instantly, and he only got three years for manslaughter.”
Joss didn’t say anything. He had a strange expression on his face, a kind of deer-in-the-headlights look that was wiped clean away as he shook his head. “That’s terrible,” he said at last.
Marin wondered if she’d shared too much. She was mired in the past, when she’d been trying so hard to work towards her future. “Sorry, I’m rabbiting on. Tell me more about the landscaping project, the Hennessys—”
After a second’s pause he started to do just that, explaining about the Hennessys, an old village family who had been there for centuries; their house was the big sandstone place at the top of the high street. As he went on, Marin made the effort to listen attentively, or at least to appear as if she were listening attentively, but inside her spirits were sinking down, down, down. Something had shifted between her and Joss, and not in a good way.
Things now felt stilted and awkward; their hands brushed when they both reached for their glasses and Joss jerked back as if he’d been burned. When the time came to order dessert, Joss said he didn’t want any and Marin could tell he wanted to get away. They both declined coffee and Joss quickly paid the bill before ushering her outside the restaurant. Standing on the pavement, the water of Whitehaven’s harbour glinting under the moonlight, Marin wondered how it had all gone so wrong, so quickly.