“You better explain it and it had betterbe good.”
“OK, I will tell you everything. I don’tknow if I have mentioned it before or not, but I too have some relatives onSkye.”
“No Janey, I can’t say you have! Anotherrevelation!” She ignores my jibe and carries on.
“I have lost contactwith family here. The main contact I had was with an aunt, but she has sincepassed away, leaving two cousins who I never hear from. My aunt had a smallflat in Portree but when my visit was arranged back in 1998, she thought itmight be fun for us to rent accommodation at the lighthouse keepers’ cottagesat Neist Point.”
She pauses. Reality dawns. She saw it allfrom the window of the lighthouse keepers’ cottage. “Go on.”
“I remember how wild it was that day. Iheard voices outside and that’s why I went to the window to look out. I wasshocked anyone would be out there in those conditions. The wind and snow werefierce. I could see something wasn’t right. There were raised voices. At first,I could see you race to the tip of Neist Point, engaged in a conversation. Thenan older man joined you. And, well, you know the rest.”
“That’s just it, Janey, I don’t! Who didyou see out there that day? Did you see Caroline?”
“No, there was no-one there apart from youand the man I now know to be Bert.”
“So, what are you saying? You saw meconversing with an imaginary figure before father joined me?”
She hangs her head, “Yes.” Like a jigsawpuzzle, all the little pieces were starting to come together. There was moreand more undeniably compelling evidence affirming that Caroline, Juliet, andJames were not real.
“So, let me just get this straight … whenfather struck me down, he didn’t hit anyone else with that blow?”
“No, that would have been impossible,there was no-one else out there apart from you and him. And what you saidearlier was correct. Bert did shake someone violently before he landed thatblow, only it wasn’t Caroline. As George explained, it was you.”
The walls are closing in. “You have blownmy mind, Janey. I have so many questions! All this time, all these years whichhave gone by and you expect me to believe that you couldn’t find the right timeto tell me? What was it you said? Something along the lines of ‘it doing moreharm than good.’ Surely keeping this to yourself is doing more harm than good –for our relationship! Also, there is the small matter of how the fuck did weend up in a relationship in the first place? Did you pursue me? Did you takepity on poor little Thomas? And then what, when the time was right, you swoopedin and made your move?” She tries to speak but I silence her, I am on a rolland will not be interrupted. “And I have shared moments with you when I haveopened up and told you I had a difficult upbringing. I held back! I held back,Janey, because I didn’t want to put any of this on you but all the while youmust have been sat there thinking ‘yes I know only too well what it was likefor you!’”
“I can explain! The reason I didn’t tellyou when we had chats about your childhood was because I could see how painfulit was for you. And I was terrified that it would drive a wedge between us.That might seem selfish keeping it to myself, being worried about ‘rocking theboat’ but up until now you seemed so happy in your life. Yes, there were timeswhen I was concerned (we had a chat about that earlier), but you always seemedto pull yourself out of it. Having Michael and raising him brought so much joyto our lives it just didn’t seem right to hit you with this.
“As you can imagine, I was understandablyconcerned when you said you were coming here. It was all very mysterious at thestart – you had me thinking (briefly) that you were maybe having an affair.”
“An affair?”
“Well, I kept trying to reach you on thephone and there was no answer. So, I phoned your Inverness branch since yousaid this is where you were going to be based but they had no record of youarriving and they weren’t expecting you either. Not only that, I managed tolocate the accommodation you had booked in Skye only to discover there was noThomas there so I told the proprietor I would take your place and that’s whereI have been staying ever since I got here. I was more than relieved to find outyou were staying with George and there was no other woman involved! When Irealised the truth about why you came here, I was so relieved I could be hereto support you. Now that you are learning about what really happened here, itjust seemed like the right time.”
“OK, assuming I can digest what you havejust told me, please tell me how we came to be together. I am all ears, truly!”
“First of all, Thomas, I may be manythings but I am not a predator. I never ‘pursued’ you. Seeing you lying therethat day left for dead in that violent storm, it really affected me too. Inthat respect I could not get you out of my head for a long time. I couldn’tshake the vision of Bert lashing out so savagely at you like that either. Thenracing off as if he’d just tossed a piece of rubbish to the ground. It washorrific. So yes, at that time to a degree I did pursue you because Iperiodically checked in with my aunt to see how you were doing. She knew anacquaintance of your mother’s. I learned you had moved in with foster parents andI was so pleased to hear you weren’t going back home.
“That was the extent of it, just the oddquestion to my aunt now and again. And it was born out of genuine concern foryour wellbeing and nothing more. There was no subterfuge, no masterplan to findout where you were and to dig my claws in. Surely you know me well enough nowto know
