‘Because he loved someone else.’ Her lip quivered and the hurt at this admission, even after all this time, was clear. ‘He loved someone else very much and they had planned to marry, but his parents intervened and made a deal. They sent Guthrie around the world on his yacht for a few years and the girl – a local girl – they paid off her parents and the parents of a local boy whom she was encouraged to marry. And marry they did. Beneficial to all except dear Guthrie, who, broken-hearted, went off the rails.’

‘God, that’s—’ She fumbled mentally for the word – what was it? Sad? Horrific? Cruel?

‘It is.’ Loretta finished her tea and placed the mug on the floor. ‘He told me that on the day he was supposed to marry the girl he loved, his mother, Eunice, came into the room and presented him with a note saying the girl had changed her mind. His mother was furious, of course, shouting around the corridors “How dare she? A local girl! The daughter of a fisherman? A bloody fisherman!”’

‘A fisherman?’

‘Yes. A fisherman.’ Loretta held her gaze. ‘But it was all a ruse. It was the very next day that he set sail on his big life adventure, away for seven years. He was never able to forget her, but found escape in the bottom of a bottle. He saw her from time to time over the years, his would-be bride, but never spoke to her again. On the odd occasion when interaction was unavoidable, whether I was there or not, she looked through him like he was a ghost, and many was the time I wondered if he might be. So thin was his heart, so transparent his body that ached his whole life for the girl he lost.’

‘So, you . . . you saw her? She was a Port Charles girl?’

‘Oh yes. Guthrie died without ever knowing the cost of the transaction on what should have been his wedding day. But I’ve unearthed the documents since.’

‘What was the transaction?’ Merrin asked quietly with her pulse racing and her mouth dry. Outside, dusk drew its blind on the day as the sun sank beyond the window and the two women sat in the cocoon of her new home, transfixed by their conversation.

‘It was a gift of the Old Boat Shed and a fancy trawler, given to the Kellows on the condition that their oldest boy, Arthur, marry Ellen Bligh. A fine vessel and one on which Ellen’s husband worked happily until the day he died. And then I believe your father, too, and now Jarvis. The boat, Sally-Mae, a combination of Arthur’s mother’s name and Ellen’s mother’s name, is that right?’