‘But it hasn’t got Tio Rico,’ Ben protested. He swallowed, and lifted his eyes to her. ‘Mummy, doesn’t Tio Rico want us any more?
She tried to find the words. Words that a four-year-old child could make sense of. But they were cruel words, harsh words for all that. Yet what else could she do except say them? To give Ben false hope would be the cruellest thing of all.
‘Your uncle can’t be with us any more, Ben,’ she began carefully. ‘He has duties to attend to. He has to be a prince now, not an uncle. It was just a holiday we spent with him. Just a holiday. That’s all.’
Her words fell with excruciating mockery into her own ears.
A holiday. That was all it had been. A holiday of enchantment, magic, wonder, and such bliss that it made the realisation that such a time could never come again so agonising that she could hardly bear it.
But above all, above everything else, she must not say the words that ached to be said. For what was the use of saying them? What was the use, even in the dark—all alone in the bed she had once been content to lie in, solitary, celibate, untouched by the magic that he had strewn over her—what was the use, sleepless and despairing, of letting those words whisper in her mind, each one an agony of loss?
The only way she could face the rest of her life now was never, ever, to say those words. Never even to think them. Or they would destroy her.
Resolutely, she went on getting the beach things together.
Pain and memory clawing within her.
She took Ben, protesting, down to the beach. She had forgotten how chill the wind could be even at this time of year, in early summer. She made a camp in the lee of a line of rocks, sedimentary shales turned on their side by vast geological forces over vast reaches of time. So much time.
She looked out to sea.
Where was he now? she wondered. Was he in some fashionable high-society resort—Monte Carlo, the Caribbean, somewhere exotic? Mingling with fashionable high-society people? Fashionable high-society women, every one a beauty, the kind that he took his pick of—the Playboy Prince, leading the life he was born to lead?
Stop it. It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter where he is, or who he’s with, or what he’s doing.
It doesn’t matter.
It will never matter again, for the rest of your life.
She shook out the rug and weighted down the corners with a book, shoes and a bag.
‘Who’s for a paddle?’ she said, forcing her voice to be cheerful.
‘It’s too cold,’ said Ben, and sat on the rug and wrapped a towel around him.
She whisked it off.
‘Then we’ll make a railway track. Which engines did you bring down with you?’
‘I don’t want trains—I want my fort. The fort Tio Rico made with me.’
Lizzy’s heart sank. Gently she said, ‘We couldn’t bring it back, Ben. It was too big—don’t you remember? But we brought the knights, so that’s good, isn’t it?’ she finished encouragingly.
‘But it’s the fort I want. Tio Rico and me made it. We made it together, and it had a bridge and a porcully and towers.’
She felt her heart catch with pain. Like a knife slicing into her memory stabbed her and she was there again, in the warmth and the sunshine—the ugly sister who had so miraculously been turned into Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty ready to be kissed awake by the most handsome Prince in the world.
No. Anguish crushed her. She mustn’t let herself think, remember. It was gone, all gone. Like a dream. An enchantment.
A fairytale that was over now.
She took a breath.
She must not think of fairytales. They were just that. Unreal.
This was real—here, now. With Ben. She chivvied him along, refusing to let him mope. What was the point of him moping? What was the point of her moping? They had to get on with things. They had to.