Page 51 of Mirrors of the Past

Chapter Nineteen

Present

Tegan decided not to stay in the office on her own any longer that day. She emailed Ryan the website link, then re-saved all the photos from the site, and then she was out of there.

Fortunately, time was getting on so she didn’t feel bad giving herself a reasonably early finish.

She went for a walk around the village, all the way to the church where Rose was buried, and stopped at a pub called the White Lady for dinner. She treated herself to a large glass of wine — she felt she deserved it after having shadowy figures loom up at her in the middle of the office. It was, however, a mistake to read the potted history of Pencradoc on the back of the pub menu.

“Pencradoc House and village are said to be haunted by the spirit of Rose, Duchess of Trecarrow, an unhappy woman who died under mysterious circumstances in 1884 . . .”

‘Bollocks to that,’ muttered Tegan, quickly putting the menu down and picking up her phone instead. She scrolled through her social media, answered a couple of emails and did a little online stalking of her friends and family to see what they were up to. Meg and Jo were back in America, Merryn was posting pictures of food, and Ryan was . . .

Well, Ryan wasn’t on her friends list. And, annoyingly, he had his accounts hiked up on the privacy settings.

‘Bollocks to that as well,’ said Tegan under her breath. She hovered over the “Add Friend” icon, and then, before she could overthink it, she clicked it.

She looked at her phone, almost willing the confirmation to her request to come back in — but it didn’t. Which was a little annoying, but also a bit of a relief, as she knew she would have then wasted ages scrolling through his posts and photos to piece together what had gone on in his life since they’d last met.

Perhaps she had misjudged him all those years ago, had never given him a chance. After all, she knew as well as anyone that you could put a front on and hide your real self from everyone, even from your closest friends and family. Heaven forbid anyone ever thought she was anything but confident and bubbly and knew exactly what she wanted out of life.

Oh, well.

She moved on to Angelo’s profile. He had posted a picture of the sunset, his sandals tossed to one side, a pair of flip-flops upended near them, a guitar lying in the sand and two sets of footprints leading up from the ocean. A huge heart drawn in the sand encompassed the guitar and the footwear. She smiled at it, remembering the day it had been taken, and scrolled back through the older photos — selfies of her and Angelo on the very same beach, her raising a cocktail to him over a plate of pasta, a picture of him posing in his sunglasses in front of Mount Etna. Further back, she knew, were pictures of him with other girls, friends of his, draped around him at beach barbeques or standing in silhouette against the sunrise, arms raised greeting the new day in skimpy shorts and a bikini top.

Even the odd photo of him kissing a stunning brunette was laughed over as two friends enjoying a party and too much red wine.

So she stopped scrolling before it got to that point in his feed and sighed.

Overcome with some sort of nostalgia for her life in Sicily — and a sudden longing for Angelo’s soft, melodious voice — she called him.

He answered straight away.

‘Tegan!’ His warm voice had a smile in it, even though he seemed a little distracted. ‘My love. How are you?’

‘Hey, Angelo.’ She smiled into the phone. ‘It’s so good to hear you. How’s things?’

‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘Busy, though. So very busy!’

‘I can imagine.’ Tegan settled back in her seat. ‘Are you at a gig, then?’ There were clinking glasses and sounds of laughter in the background, as if he was using the phone in a busy bar or restaurant.

‘Gig!’ He laughed. He always laughed when she said “gig” because, he claimed, the word sounded so peculiar to him. ‘Yes, yes. A gig.’

‘Did you get my message before?’ she asked.

‘Your message?’ He sounded confused. ‘What message?’

‘The one about coming over here. To visit. Maybe for Christmas? Like I mentioned?’

‘About me coming to you?’ He still sounded baffled. ‘I — I do not recall that. I think I did not get that. My phone has been, how you say, flaky?’

‘Oh. Okay. Yeah — I was just asking basically if you might like to come here and see me? I’m not going to get a holiday soon, so I can’t come back for a while and wondered if . . .’

‘Ah!’ The penny must have dropped. The smile was back in his voice. ‘I would love to visit.’

‘Awesome.’

‘But . . .’ He sighed. ‘I cannot.’