Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall
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she was leaving that day and it had gone even worse than she had feared. Not that Lily had cried or had a tantrum. She had simply stared disbelievingly at Alice out of dark eyes, then had got up without a word and run out into the garden. Heavy hearted, Alice had finished her packing. Now Roger was waiting with a bleak-faced Will by the car, and she had come to try and say goodbye to Lily.
Lily wouldn’t acknowledge her presence at first. Her body was rigid, her face averted, and Alice was dismayed to see the closed, blank expression that she remembered from their first meeting.
‘Lily,’ she began helplessly. ‘I’m sorry I have to go like this. I was going anyway in a few days, but I didn’t want it to be this way.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Lily, but a spasm crossed her face, and Alice’s heart cracked. It wasn’t long since this child had lost her mother, and now the next person she had allowed close seemed to be abandoning her too. She tried to put a comforting arm around her, but Lily shook it off.
‘Oh, Lily, it’s not that I want to leave you,’ she sighed.
‘Then why are you going? Is it because I’ve been naughty?’
‘Of course not,’ said Alice, appalled. ‘Of course not, Lily. It’s nothing to do with you. I wish I could explain but it’s…complicated…adult stuff,’ she said lamely. She wasn’t going to leave Lily thinking that it had anything to do with Will. Her father was the only constant in her life now, and, hurt as Alice was, she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise his relationship with his daughter.
‘Helen will be coming soon,’ she went on. ‘And it’ll be difficult for her if I’m still here. I’m going to miss you more than I can say, but you’ll like Helen, I promise you.’
‘I won’t!’ Lily jumped furiously to her feet. ‘I’ll hate her like I hate you!’ she shouted, and ran off before Alice could reach out to her.
Unable to keep back the tears any longer, Alice buried her face in her hands and wept.
The screen door creaked, and she could hear steps on the wooden verandah before someone sat down beside her. ‘She doesn’t hate you,’ Will’s voice said gently. ‘She loves you. She’s only angry because you’re leaving her, and she doesn’t understand why.’
There was a pause, punctuated by Alice’s hiccupping sobs.
‘I don’t have Lily’s excuse,’ Will went on after a moment. ‘I do understand why you’re going, but I was still angry because I love you, too, and I don’t want you to go, even though I know that you must.’
Alice’s hands were still covering her face, but her sobs had subsided slightly, and he could tell that she was listening.
‘I’m so sorry about last night, Alice,’ he said quietly. ‘I said some unforgivable things, and I said them because I’m a jealous fool, but really because I was looking for an excuse to hate you, like Lily, because making myself hate you seemed like the only way I could bear the thought of you leaving me.’
Drawing a shuddering breath, Alice lifted her head at last and wiped her eyes with a wobbly thumb. She didn’t say anything, but Will was encouraged enough to go on. ‘It was a childish reaction, I know, but I haven’t been thinking straight recently. I’ve been flailing round, so wretched and miserable because you were going that I would say anything.
‘I lied when I said I didn’t know you, Alice,’ he said. ‘I do know you. You’re the truest person I know. You would never do anything to hurt Roger or Beth, and I knew it when I was saying it. I just wanted to hurt you so that you felt what I was feeling.’
Alice opened her mouth, but he put a gentle finger on her lips. ‘Let me finish. I’ve made such a bloody mess of everything, Alice. I’ve hurt you, and because I’ve hurt you I’ve hurt Lily, and I don’t know how I’m going to forgive myself for either.’
He looked into Alice’s golden eyes, puffy now and swimming with tears, but still beautiful. ‘I won’t ask you again if you’ll stay. I know you’ve got your life to go back to, and goodbyes like these are too hard to go through again. Go with Roger now, and fly home as you planned. I’ll look after Lily. She’ll be all right.
‘I hope you find what you’re looking for, Alice,’ he went on, although his throat was so tight he had to force the words out. ‘I hope you’ll be happy, as happy as we were here, and all those years ago. I’ve always loved you, and I know now that I always will. It’s only ever going to be you, Alice,’ he said with an unsteady smile. ‘I want you to know that if you ever change your mind, and think you can take a chance on being loved utterly and completely, Lily and I will be here for you, and we’ll take as much or as little as you can give.’
‘Will…I…I don’t know what to say,’ said Alice hopelessly.
‘You don’t need to say anything.’ Will put a hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet. ‘You need to go home and decide for yourself what you really want, without me shouting at you and Lily piling on the emotional blackmail!’
‘Tell Lily…’ Alice’s voice cracked and she couldn’t go on, but Will seemed to understand what she needed to say.
‘I’ll explain why you’re going,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her that you know that she doesn’t really hate you, and that you love her too.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She didn’t seem to be able to stop crying as she walked through the screen door for the last time and out to the front where Roger was waiting by the car.
‘Come on then, waterworks,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve got your cases.’
‘Alice,’ said Will as she was about to get into the passenger seat, and she paused, a hand on the door and one foot in the well. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for Lily, and for me.’
Unable to speak, she nodded.
‘And remember what I said about being here if you ever change your mind,’ he added, his voice strained, and Alice bit her lip to stop the tears spilling over once more.
‘I will,’ she said. Then she ducked her head as she got into the car and closed the door, and Will could only watch in desolation as Roger drove her away.
THERE was so much post piled up behind the front door that Alice had to push her way into her cramped hallway. The flat smelt musty and unused, and even when she had switched on the lights the rooms seemed cheerless. Perhaps it was something to do with the dreary drizzle and the muted grey light of a wet Spring afternoon, she thought, and tried not to think of the aching blue ocean, the mint-green lagoon and the vivid colours of hibiscus and bougainvillaea.
Her feet had swollen on the long flight, and she kicked off her shoes with a weary sigh as she sat down on the cream sofa. This was the home she had worked hard for, the home she had been insistent she wanted to come back to. It represented everything she had ever wanted: security, stability, being settled at last. She had decorated it with care in the cool, minimalist style that appealed to her, and it had been her refuge whenever things had gone wrong.
Until now, she had always thought of her home as calm and restful. There was no reason suddenly to find the ivory walls cold, or to notice the roar of the traffic along the busy road outside, the dismaying wail of a siren in the distance, and the intrusive blare of a television next door.
No reason to find herself overwhelmed with homesickness for a verandah thousands of miles away, where the insects whirred and rasped and shrilled, and the scent of frangipani drifted on the hot air. Alice looked at her watch and calculated the time in St Bonaventure. Will would be sitting there now, still and self-contained, listening to the sound of the sea he loved so much.
The memory of him