Page 86 of The Happy Hour
‘I don’t know what’s happened between you, but if he’s hurting, then he might have wanted that familiar routine, even if he’s not ready to speak to you.’
Jess nodded, but the idea went against everything she knew about him. He was, above all things, kind, and – even if he was still angry with her – she thought he would have popped his head round the door, acknowledged her at the very least.
‘How did you cope?’ she asked Felicity. ‘When your husband left you. When you ended up on your own so unexpectedly.’
The older woman lowered herself to the carpet and crossed her legs. She looked pointedly behind her, then raised an eyebrow at Jess.
‘Oh.’ Jess’s cheeks coloured. ‘Shit. I mean...’
‘I think we can both agree that I didn’t cope. This has been years of insecurity, years of... well, not facing the feelings I needed to face. Hiding behind possessions instead. Every purchase gave me a rush of adrenaline, a moment of knowing who I was, because that object was a little piece of me: I’d chosen it, and I could keep it as long as I wanted, even if it was just a Sunday newspaper. It’s laughable, because athingcan’t define anyone, but when you’re lost, you look for anything that might show you which way to go.’
‘It makes sense,’ Jess said. ‘You’d lost your husband.’
‘That wasn’t what happened,’ Felicity said softly, as Spade came into the room carrying a tea tray, the crockery and teapot jingling. Jess did a double take at the chintzy floral apron he was wearing, its lace trim giving him a rakish air. ‘You’re a darling,’ Felicity told him.
He gave a curtsy and put the tray down. ‘I’m gonna go and see about that pile of LPs in the bedroom.’
‘Steven – Spade – thinks he’s discovered a treasure trove.’
‘I have,’ Spade said. ‘Felicity is a dark, dark horse.’
‘I’m beginning to see that,’ Jess replied.
He poured the tea out, added milk and brought them each a mug, along with a plate of biscuits, then he squeezed Felicity’s shoulder, his fingers lingering at her neck for a moment before he left the room.
Jess took a sip of too-hot tea, counted silently to five and then said, ‘You were saying?’
‘Oh yes. Richard. He had a heart condition, and at one point, I thought I was going to lose him. But after the operation he made a complete recovery, and then he decided life wasn’t about domesticity; it wasn’t about routine, or lazy mornings with coffee and newspapers under the duvet. He wanted adventure, new experiences.’
‘You didn’t agree?’
‘Not at all. I wanted to focus on our family and friends, spend time with the people we cared about. At that point, I was still young enough to have a baby, and I thought that we could grow our family. But Richard wasn’t interested, so—’
‘He left you,’ Jess finished.
‘No.’ Felicity laughed. ‘I kicked him out. I told him that if he wanted a round-the-world ticket and an Indiana Jones hat, then he should fill his boots. And, after only a couple of hours’ protest – where his main argument was that I should go with him – he left. He never came back, not even for his things.’
Jess’s pulse raced. ‘But I thought... you said that he left you.’
‘He did leave,’ Felicity said. ‘But only because I told him to go.’
Jess blew on her tea, picked up a biscuit. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘OK.’
‘You’re wondering how I could have ended up like this, accumulating a city’s worth of things, when I made the decision?’
Jess nodded. ‘I thought that – that if you were in control, if youchosebeing on your own, then you’d –I’d– be OK. I thought that...’
‘You can say it: you won’t be saying anything to me that I haven’t thought about myself a thousand times.’
Jess swallowed. ‘I thought this was a response to trauma. I never thought it could happen to someone who was fine, and—’
‘But I wasn’t fine,’ Felicity said. ‘I didn’t really want Richard gone, but I was angry that his priorities weren’t the same as mine. I threw my husband out with the bathwater, then I stayed angry, and I didn’t let anyone else in for a long time. I tried to fill the hole up with objects, instead.’
‘Ash hasn’t been letting me in.’ The words rushed out before she could think about them.
Felicity nodded. ‘What about you, Jess? You’ve been such a help to me, and Spade was telling me how turning the TikToks towards Enzo’s plight was your idea, in the beginning. You’re always projecting outwards. Do you let people look after you, too?’
‘Sometimes.’ It came out as a mumble. ‘Not if I can help it,’ she added, when Felicity didn’t fill the silence.
