“I didn’t. It seemed an obvious thing she would come all this way to tell you.”
“It never occurred to me. And now I don’t know what to do.”
“Will you go back to her, do you think? Try again?”
Michael sighs and shakes his head, and Daff can’t help but feel relief. “I can’t,” he says. “It would be entirely the wrong thing to do. I’m too old to live a lie.”
“Oh Michael,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know. So am I.”
“It’s definitely yours?” Daff thinks of the high heels, the brassy hair, the big diamonds. She wonders if Michael has truly been her only conquest of late.
“I think so. I’m pretty sure. I’ve known Jordana a long time and I don’t think she’s a liar. Although,” he snorts in mock laughter, “I would also have said she wasn’t the type to have an affair.”
“That’s what I would have said about you.” Daff smiles wryly.
“Me too. It was a case of bad judgment. I’m still not quite sure what came over me.”
“I have to say—” Daff is careful—“she’s not quite who I would see you with.”
Michael starts to laugh. “Who would you see me with?” Someone like me, she thinks. But doesn’t say it.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs, embarrassed. “Someone more down to earth, I think. Someone more natural.”
“A single mother, perhaps?” Michael grins, and Daff blushes and moves to the sink to wash up, stay busy.
“Then there’s the small matter of my father turning up when he is supposed to be a bundle of bones at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Ah yes.” Daff turns to look at him. “I was wondering when you were going to mention that.”
“It didn’t seem important.” He shrugs, and they both laugh.
“I’m waiting for the next bomb to fall,” he continues. “It feels as if everything in my life is not what I thought it was, everything has changed, and nothing will ever be the same. If everything I thought I believed, everything I trusted, was wrong, how can I ever trust again?”
Michael pauses, but Daff senses he has more to say and doesn’t interrupt.
“Remember 9/11?” he says. “After the planes hit the towers we heard the news about the Pentagon, then the plane in Pennsylvania? ” Daff nods. “We were all waiting for the next thing, waiting for the world to come to an end. That’s how this feels. It feels as if my world has come to an end. Everything that was safe and secure and real for me is not. How do I trust?” He looks pleadingly at Daff. “How can I trust in anyone again?”
You can trust me. The words are on the tip of Daff’s tongue, but she doesn’t say them, just stands there gazing at him as he sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. You are a beautiful man.
She wants to say: you will find your way through this, you will find a way forward because you are all good. You are goodness and kindness and perhaps the best man I have ever met. You can trust me because I trust you. Because even though I barely know you I would place my life in your hands. I know you would look after it.
“Can we go?”
“What?” Daff shakes her head, breaking her reverie. “Go where?”
“For that walk.”
She laughs. “Yes, I’ll just get my shoes.”
They walk for hours. Along the pretty roads of Sconset, alongside the beach, neither of them with any time constraints, they are happy to just walk and talk, lapsing into occasional companionable silence.
“How do you feel about being a father?” Daff asks as they reach a pretty cove.
“I don’t know.” Michael winces at the thought. “I love kids, but they’ve always been other people’s kids. I’ve never felt ready for my own.”
“I’m not sure any of us are ever ready for kids.” She laughs. “They always seem to take you by surprise. You’ll be a great father, ” she adds. “If you choose to be involved.”
“Of course I’ll be involved. Oh God. That’s the next thing. Talking to Jordana and telling her just how involved I plan to be. I’m not going to just walk away from my child. I’d never do that.”
“I know,” Daff says.
“Shall we stop for a bit?” Michael points to another little cove ahead, smaller, hidden in the dunes.
“Sure.”
Suddenly it’s awkward. The two of them are sitting on the sand, knowing what’s coming, not knowing how to get there,