Page 24 of The Happy Hour
Wendy grinned. ‘They’ve got a new line of owls. Much less sinister.’
‘Owls are not entirelyun-sinister,’ Jess pointed out.
‘I think you’re averse to the countryside, confused by its bucolic charms. If I brought in statues of scrawny city foxes, rats and pigeons, you’d be perfectly comfortable.’
‘Not pigeons,’ Jess said, feeling defensive on Ash’s behalf.
‘Give the owls a chance, eh? Why are you here on your day off, anyway?’
‘I was introducing Lola to some of the stallholders,’ she admitted. ‘She wants to film a music video here, and now she and Spade have met the whole thing is, predictably, snowballing.’ She thought of Enzo, and his struggle to keep his business going while Carolina was ill. Would he even be able to pay for his stall next month?
‘Lola and Spade together, eh?’ Wendy tapped her lips. ‘There’s some confidence worth bottling right there.’
‘Don’t I know it. Anyway,’ Jess sighed, ‘no filming for me today, at least. I’m off the hook until Lola’s rewritten her tune.’
Wendy gave her a knowing look. ‘Enjoying your time in the limelight?’
‘I’m going to bebehindthe camera. That’s what filming is.’
‘All right smarty pants. Sort everything out with Felicity?’
‘I’m taking the water feature to hers next Thursday, which is weirdly specific.’
‘She’s a weirdly specific sort of person.’
‘Agreed. I just popped in to see how you were doing, anyway.’
‘I’m surviving, just about.’ Wendy gave her a gleeful grin. ‘Something else on your mind?’
Jess bit her lip. ‘Not really.’ She hadn’t really had an errand to run, she just felt as if coming into the marketwithoutvisiting the shop would be a betrayal of some kind. ‘See you on Thursday.’ She stepped backwards through the doorway, nearly bumping into a couple who were walking past outside.
‘Don’t be too miserable away from the market,’ Wendy called after her, in a tone that Jess chose not to analyse. Of course she had a life outside the market. Ofcourseshe did. It was inconsequential that she’d brought her best friend and her colleagues together, and that she’d struck up a coffee arrangement with a man she’d met here. Greenwich Market wasn’t the centre of the entire world, and it certainly wasn’t the centre of hers.
Chapter Nine
In only a few weeks, getting the Thames Clipper from Embankment down to Greenwich had become part of Ash’s Sunday routine. It was a much better way to travel than the combination of tube and DLR, especially when the weather was good and he could make the journey in the fresh air. Today, the sun was bright and – thank God – there was a brisk breeze, turning the surface of the river into ripples of light and shade, chilling the back of his neck as he stood on the deck, holding the thing he’d brought tightly against
his chest.
The boat was quiet, the majority of passengers travelling in the opposite direction in the mornings, up towards Central London rather than away from it, but there was a young family sitting in the front row of plastic seats, a little girl with pigtails watching him with curiosity. He ran a hand through his hair self-consciously, then realised what she was interested in – it was what he had brought for his hour with Jess.
She’d given him the idea during their first coffee, and then last Sunday – well, it had felt chaotic, with him turning up late, cobbling together a plan to go up to the Meridian Line. But somehow, it had worked out. He’d made her laugh, she’d madehimlaugh – and for an hour, his tension had gone. He had felt as if he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and he wanted more of it.
‘Hello,’ the little girl said to him.
‘Hello,’ he replied. He made eye contact with her parents, and they exchanged smiles, then Ash went back to staring at the water. They had passed the main landmarks now, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, the Gherkin and the Shard, which he’d forced Jess to point out to him last weekend, and now the banks changed, the buildings becoming shorter, more domestic and industrial, London’s grand epicentre behind them.
The sun glinted off the water, and there was the occasional waft of something deep and rotten on the breeze, but mostly the air was fresh, letting him breathe more deeply. He pictured Jess with her dark, wavy hair brushing her shoulders, the way she kept her smile mostly guarded, but sometimes it burst out of her unexpectedly; how, when she bunched her cheeks, it changed the shape of the freckle constellations below her eyes.
He had never imagined, when he’d first gone to Greenwich, following the directions in the email, that he’d find something like this. After that first week, when he’d left far too much time, adamant that he wouldn’t be late on his first day, he’d stepped into the market – somewhere so much brighter than he was feeling – and let himself get caught up in it.
It was easy, the following weekend, to leave the same amount of time, to give himself that space before walking up to the white front door and all that lay beyond it. And then the third Sunday – the shout from Roger, Braden running through the market. Ash had chased him without thinking, then stood there, feeling like a fool without a plan. But then he’d noticed her standing there and, even though seeing a beautiful woman in that situation should have made him feel worse, should have heightened his embarrassment, somehow it had been the opposite. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for something more, biding his time at the market until it came along,
and then Jess had appeared, andshewas that more. He couldn’t imagine ever not wanting more of her.
‘I like your kite.’ The little girl with pigtails pointed at it, and Ash was brought out of his reverie.
He grinned. It was a traditional, diamond-shaped kite with brightly coloured panels in pink, yellow, green and purple, the ribboned-tail a rainbow of neat bows. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to fly it on Blackheath.’
