the truth. My truth. Now you tell me that my husband lied to me, cheated on me, let me think he was dead. That he has another partner and another life.’ She gasped. ‘Oh God … Just go. Go.’
‘OK. I’ll go, but I’m not moving from my place until I can see you again. I’ll be here when you want to talk to me, or cry on me, or hit me. I’m sorry about this. It’s a terrible shock but once I knew, I couldn’t un-know it. I had to make sure it was true. It would have been wicked to keep silent. I will always be here for you, Marina. Believe that.’
After he’d left, she stood for a while, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was frozen. She heard people on the coast path, kids shouting on the beach, the gulls screeching, life going on around her like a movie in which she played no part.
She knew that she was in shock, but all the ways she helped others to deal with it had failed her.
She had to turn over every stone, see what horrors crawled out, but that meant looking at the photos, seeing Nate’s new life, the one he’d left her for so cruelly, so selfishly. It might even mean talking to him … seeing him again. Her stomach clenched and she felt very hot and light-headed.
She rushed to the cloakroom and threw up.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tiff was home late. She’d spent her Saturday afternoon interviewing an author at an arts festival in St Ives, after which she’d met Dirk and they’d gone to a classical concert. Dirk wasn’t on call but when they’d neared Porthmellow, he’d been paged to join another lifeboat crew on a difficult shout. She’d leapt out of the Land Rover outside the station and walked up from the harbour alone as twilight fell.
‘Hello!’ she called, walking through the cottage sitting room to the kitchen. ‘I could murder a nice cup of tea.’
Marina was slumped in a chair at the table, her face streaked with mascara, a box of tissues in front of her. Tiff’s first thought was that she and Lachlan had had a huge dust-up, or that there’d been an accident. Her stomach turned over.
She dropped her bag on the floor and rushed over. ‘Marina? What’s happened?’
Marina sat like a zombie. ‘I can’t even tell you.’
Tiff was horrified by the state she was in. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter, love?’
Marina stared at her. ‘It’s Nate … he’s alive.’
Tiff had seen and heard many things in her time – shocking, upsetting, impossible – but none had caused her to grab hold of a chair for support. She’d been ready for bad news but this was way beyond her imagination.
She kept one hand on the chair, wondering if Marina had been in an accident after all, and was in shock. ‘Nate? He can’t be.’
‘He is,’ she cried. ‘Lachlan saw a Facebook message from a woman who wanted to contact me. She’s been living with Nate and was suspicious about who he really was.’
Tiff was still so gobsmacked that her cogs were turning more slowly than usual. ‘Wait … What?’
‘It’s true. Nate lied and let me – and everyone who cared about him – think he was dead. He let me go through all that pain because – well, God knows why, but it’s probably to do with money. I didn’t want to think the worst of him. I never thought he would do that, but Lachlan’s saying he has more debts in South Africa … and a partner.’ Tiff recoiled at the anger in her cousin’s voice.
‘Jesus. Don’t say he’s married this woman?’
‘No, but he does live with her. Lachlan says she owns a vineyard.’
Tiff took a second to process the onslaught of news, picking up on Marina’s last statement. ‘Hold on a minute … did you ask Lachlan to investigate this?’
‘No. I didn’t. I had no idea what he was doing or I’d have – God, I don’t know what I’d have done. I wish I didn’t know in so many ways, but it’s too late. No one can ever put the genie back in the bottle.’
‘And Lachlan did all this without your permission?’ Tiff repeated. ‘He read your messages and went searching for Nate even though you and he thought he was dead?’
‘He says he thought the first message was a hoax and he didn’t want to upset me.’ Marina was aware how that sounded and she was still angry but