Page 39 of Will You Stay Another Day?
Jags beamed at Lili. ‘You work in Mevagissey? Great seafood restaurants.’
‘Oh. He’s mentioned me?’
‘You know Dylan, any opportunity to boast about saving someone’s life by rushing them to A&E.’
Lili grinned. ‘Did he tell you it was his fault I fell down the stairs?’
Jags’s expression became serious. ‘He did. He was really worried. It’s… good to see him have something going on apart from work… Not that, I mean, I know you two aren’t…’
‘It’s okay,’ she said warmly.
The office door opened and Dylan appeared.
‘It’s not been easy for him, having to keep the business on track on his own,’ said Jags with genuine concern in his voice.
‘I’m off to give a quote on a property,’ said Dylan, out of breath, having hurried over.
Lili took this as her cue to leave and the two men waved her off as she walked back to Colonel Mustard. Jags seemed nice. Perhaps being responsible for the business, alone, was more stressful than Lili imagined and Dylan really had found it hard to cope. She turned on the engine and yawned. Lili was about to drive off when her elbow pressed against her jacket and something hard in the pocket. She took out a shiny conker.
25
Thursday, the day after the ham and cheese toasties at Dylan’s, was so busy. She was late to work after hold-ups on the road. Then an angry customer came in to return a glass vase that had a crack in it – a flaw that wasn’t there before sale, according to Lili’s inventory. Clearly the woman must have dropped it. Then a pipe supplying the sink in the staff kitchen leaked across the whole floor. After a series of frantic phone calls, she managed to find a plumber who could come out before water spread into the shop. He worked past closing time. Lili sat in the stockroom drinking coffee, surrounded by once much-loved objects. Em was much loved. Much mourned. Much missed. Lili gazed at the shelves. There were so many different types of loss – after deaths and break-ups, after abandonments. If they were lucky people, and people often were, they found new ways to be cared for, like these objects found new homes.
Was anyone loving Em now? Had her childhood dog and grandparents greeted her at the Pearly Gates? Or had the love she’d experienced on earth kept her here, lurking in the shadows, trying to keep friends and family away from danger?
‘You did a shit job when it came to me falling down the stairs, then,’ Lili said and stared in front of herself as if her best friend stood there. Lili surprised herself and gave a little laugh.
The plumber called up the stairs that he’d finished. Lili locked up and got into her car and drove away from Mevagissey, humming. She was about to turn onto the main road and begin the trip back to Truro when Callum and Jack caught her attention, in a small front garden, outside a block of flats. They were hanging green and red fairy lights around a leylandii. He’d said Lili had driven past his house before. She pulled over and Callum came over.
‘Hi!’ he said.
She got out and waved at Jack, who was playing with a cat. ‘Hi there. Just letting you know I’ve found an old video player and am waiting to see if it can be given a clean bill of health. I’ll keep you posted. Hopefully it will work out cheaper than buying one from eBay or a shop.’
‘Hear that, Jack?’ said Callum. ‘Lili is helping with my Christmas shopping! So the least we can do is invite her in for one of the Santa biscuits you made at school today.’ He turned back to Lili and lowered his voice. ‘Best of luck, last week he made fairy cakes and I ended up with a twist tie in my mouth.’
She beamed and went over to chat to Jack, kneeling down to stroke the tabby cat who belonged to a neighbour, apparently. The little boy rushed indoors to fetch his dinosaur collection and whilst Callum disappeared into the kitchen, he set the plastic animals out on the living room carpet and introduced them, one by one, to Lili. Callum carried in a tray and set it on the small dining table near the back window. Jack ran over and picked up one of the biscuits. He took it over to their guest.
Callum shot her a sympathetic look and went over with a small plate. ‘Would you like a different one?’ he said.
‘But that’s the best, Dad!’ said Jack. ‘Santa’s got a beard. I forgot to ice it on the others. And I washed my hands, like you told me to, after I played with the cat, so it’s okay that I’ve touched it.’
Lili bit into the gingerbread man. ‘Mmm. Lovely! Well done, Jack! Crumbly. Just how I like them.’
Callum jerked his head towards the Christmas tree. ‘I know we’re not quite in December, but we couldn’t resist this from the garden centre.’
Lili ran her eyes over the tree, loaded with a mishmash of different baubles, some homemade, clearly by the little boy, like the card snowman with wonky eyes and reindeer with three legs.
Absorbed in a fight between a T-rex and Brontosaurus, Jack lay on the carpet. Callum looked sheepish and apologised for the bulging black bin bags stashed in the corner.
‘Do they hold all the belongings you talked of, that you can’t let go of?’
‘Yep. An overspill from my bedroom. Nothing I could sell. Nothing worth any money.’
‘But they mean a lot to you?’
He nodded and sat next to her on the sofa. ‘Going back to my childhood.’
‘Relatable. I went through the loft earlier this year. I found a box of all the birthday cards I’d kept since forever – from relatives, school friends even. I decided it was time to let go. I chose one card from each person to keep. And all the ones from special birthdays, like my eighteenth.’ And all the ones from Em. She couldn’t let go of them.
