To Love and Be Loved(66)

‘Cheers to that!’ Miguel raised his bottle. ‘So what do you think it’ll be like, Jarvis, being a married man?’

‘Not much different, I don’t think; we already share a home and have a joint loan on the van. I reckon she’ll like being the only married Kellow daughter, though, like it’s an achievement.’ He breathed out. ‘There’s more than a bit of sisterly rivalry there, and Ruby will like the win.’

‘Why is there rivalry?’

‘God knows.’ Jarvis took a swig of his drink. ‘Sisters!’ He shook his head.

‘Where did you propose? Was it the grand gesture, rose petals, champagne on ice? The whole nine yards?’ Miguel tried to picture the big man on one knee.

‘Not quite.’ Jarvis laughed. ‘I asked her in the queue at the chip shop in Mevagissey. We’d stopped off to pick up supper and it was raining hard and I looked at her with her little hood up, the string drawn around her face so she was all squished, and I knew it was the right time and so I said, “Will you marry me, Rubes?” And she said, “Do you want your sausage battered or plain?” I told her, “Plain, obviously, I’m not too fond of batter,” and then she said, “And yes, I’ll marry you, Jarv!” And that was that.’

‘Wow!’ Miguel, encouraged by the beer that swilled in his blood, found his story strangely moving. ‘I’ve got to be honest, Jarv, I get why you want to be a part of this family. They are good people.’

‘They are that.’ Jarvis took a deep breath. ‘My own dad is worse than useless and Ben . . . he’s been good to me.’

‘And now he’s going to be your father-in-law.’

‘I am indeed!’ Ben hollered from the chair. ‘And thank God you was only saying nice things, cos I’d have your innards for fish bait! You’re good lads, both of you,’ he announced, before falling straight back to sleep.

He and Jarvis laughed quietly.

‘My dad’s great, I just, I just don’t really know him.’ Miguel whispered this truth. ‘He was always working when I was a kid and, now I’m an adult, he’s still always working.’

‘No shame in a man grafting to earn an honest living.’

‘No, none at all,’ Miguel agreed. ‘But I think if I ever have kids I’ll do it differently. I want more balance; I want to have a relationship with them.’

‘I can’t wait to be a dad. I’ll make sure I’m always around and give them the best I can.’

Miguel felt the embarrassing sting of emotion at the back of his nose, which quickly turned to laughter, as Jarvis swiped his own tears and the two chuckled. He realised for the first time that day that he might be a whole lot drunker than he had thought.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


MERRIN

Merrin woke with something that felt a lot like relief at the fact that she was in the place she loved where the sounds and smells were familiar and comforting. Running her hand over the wall she had faced on more nights than she cared to count, she pictured the little girl she had been, casting wishes that she hoped would scamper up the wallpaper and leap out of the open window, shooting up into the night sky. As a big girl, too, all the things she had hoped for her and Digby had been pictured clearly with her eyes screwed shut and a smile on her face while her sister snored in the bed opposite. The thought of Digby stirred the sediment of anxiety at what the day might hold; the thought of what lay ahead: seeing people for the first time, attending a wedding! I need to get through this, I need not to crumple and I want to be invisible . . . One more wish that she hoped would come true.

She looked across the room at the beautiful shape of Miguel, asleep under the quilt in the space that used to be occupied by her big sister. It felt strange to have Ruby living next door, where their gran had lived all her life. And the pang in her chest was one of longing: how she would like, just for a while, to go back to when the Kellow girls had lived a simple life with their gran and gramps next door and the whole family meeting for endless cups of tea and supper wherever it was being dished up. This in the time when everything was funny and she, Bella and Ruby would regularly collapse in tears of laughter over the smallest thing or innuendo. A time before she had even been aware of Digby.

Closing her eyes briefly, she tried to imagine coming home for good. What would that life look like? The way it had felt to see Loretta had floored her, briefly, but she had survived her once and she could survive her again. Mrs Everit’s unwavering support meant more than she could possibly say. It spoke of community and was the very thing Merrin loved most about living in Port Charles. Did it matter that at some level she felt like an outsider, aware of how things had trundled on without her, and that her being here felt like something special, unusual, a novelty, as if she had lost her place as a local and lost her confidence in her ability to fit in?

‘And where would I live?’ she whispered into the ether, knowing now that the world was big and she was yet to find her place in it. Gone was her dream of having a husband and a family in this little fishing village and so she had forged another life. It was supposedly a temporary life, but it had become her only life, her permanent life with work at the heart of it; working hard to keep distracted from all she missed in this little cove.

‘Oh, my God!’ Miguel wailed from under the covers. ‘I have the worst headache in the world. I feel like your dad might have actually put that axe in my head.’