Page 91 of The Happy Hour
She nodded.
‘I’ll tell him,’ Mack continued, ‘that you made the effort to come all the way here, and that the least he can do is give you a few minutes of his time.’
She managed a smile. ‘Thank you, Mack. Is there anything I can get you? Do you have everything you need?’
‘I have a few backups when Ash isn’t around, so I’m fine, thank you. It pays to still be this handsome at seventy-five.’
Jess laughed. ‘I’m glad,’ she said, and turned to leave. Mack squeezed her wrist, so quickly she thought she’d imagined it.
‘He cares about you,’ he said. ‘Whatever’s happened, I know that much.’
‘Thank you,’ Jess said again, and wondered if, from this point forward, her vocabulary would be at least 50 per centsorryandthank you.She walked away from him down the corridor, and heard Mack’s door snick quietly closed behind her.
It rained hard that night, grey cloud sweeping in to obliterate the blue. Lola had messaged her to ask how it had gone, and she’d replied with a simple:
He wasn’t there so, no luck.
But she realised, as she lay on her bed, her fairy lights pulsing from pink to gold, hugging her lilac yeti cushion, it wasn’t about luck. It was about her destroying a relationship that she’d valued. Perhaps she had been blasé because of her parents. It didn’t matter how much she pushed them away, how often she refused their invitations to go round for dinner, they had never disappeared on her. She had taken that for granted.
She fell into a fitful sleep, the rain drumming against the glass like small hands trying to get in, the air humid despite it. She dreamed of Ash in the places they had spent time: onthe bench in Greenwich Park; surrounded by all that space on Blackheath; at Felicity’s house. Then she dreamed of him in places they hadn’t been together: her beloved Waterstones; the long table in a shadowy corner of the Gipsy Moth. On the street, a few steps ahead of her.
She startled awake, glanced at the clock and saw it was only five past midnight. She’d been asleep for less than an hour. The heat in the room was almost unbearable, and she got up, pulled back the curtains and opened the window. The air, when it met her skin, was stultifying, but the raindrops were cool and she leaned out, letting them hit her bare arms, her shoulders.
And then she saw him, standing near the kerb, half hidden behind a van that was parked haphazardly, its front wheel up on the pavement. He had the same dark, ruffled hair, the same lean figure, but he was too far from the glow of the street light, a collection of black and grey shapes masked by the rain. It was only the tightness in her chest, the certainty in her bones, that convinced her it was him.
‘Ash?’ She called out, and he moved. But he didn’t look up; instead he turned, quickly – unsteadily? – and walked away. ‘Ash?’ A few more steps, and then he was gone from her view, even when she leaned as far out of the window as she dared. She rubbed her face and then, leaving the window open, went back to bed, lying on top of the covers.
The dawn light was grey, and Jess woke to a damp breeze caressing her skin. She thought there must have been a thunderstorm in the night, though she hadn’t heard it. She got up and walked to the window. The van was still there, parked like someone had been running late or looking at their phone, then not bothered to correct their position.
She had been dreaming about Ash a lot, but she couldn’t work out if last night had just been more vivid than the rest, or if he’d really been there, in Greenwich, standing outside her window. By the time she’d showered and dressed, had toast and jam for breakfast and was on her way to work, she decided it had been a dream. It was such a long way for him to come, so late at night, and she didn’t know if the DLR ran that late – the Clippers certainly didn’t. And if hehadmade the journey, like she’d done earlier that day, then why hadn’t he called up to her, pressed the doorbell? She’d checked her phone as soon as she was awake, but there were no missed calls or messages. No hint that he’d changed his mind about getting in touch.
She decided, as she walked to No Vase Like Home, that she was going to have to do something about this. No good would come of having such vivid dreams about him, especially if he was really gone from her life for good.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The rest of the week passed as sluggishly as the weather had been before the storm broke. On Wednesday, Jess worked feverishly on her Etsy shop, fulfilling all the new orders she had ignored over the last few days. She came up with a couple of new quotes which were, unsurprisingly, on the cynical side.A new dawn isa chance for a hundred new disappointmentsand,If ashark stops swimming, it’ll die. If a person stopsswimming, they have to worry about drowningandthe sharks.
On Thursday, her spirits were lifted when Kirsty came into No Vase Like Home trialling a new muffin flavour: sausage and red onion relish.
‘The chunks of herby, caramelised sausage really make it.’ She held the box out to Wendy and Jess, who each took one. ‘I’m expanding my breakfast range.’
Wendy looked at Jess. ‘I feel like that’s a dig at us.’
Jess smiled. ‘Or a compliment about our dedication to breakfast muffins?’
‘That one.’ Kirsty pointed at her. ‘Any luck with what we talked about on Monday night?’
‘You mean tracking Ash down?’ Wendy said before Jess could reply. ‘It was a failure, unfortunately.’
Kirsty looked stricken. ‘He didn’t want to see you?’
‘He wasn’t there,’ Jess said. ‘And his neighbour told me he’d made an excuse not to have coffee with him on Sunday – so he wasn’t here, but he wasn’tthereeither.’
‘Wow.’ Kirsty rearranged the last muffins in her box. ‘You must have really done a number on him.’
Jess’s indignation flared. ‘He did a number on me, too! At least I’m trying to get in touch with him.’ She thought of her strange dream-not-dream, and wondered again if it had been real. But if hewastrying to see her, then why not call? Why not reply to the messages she’d sent, that had started out apologetic, then aimed for jovially laid-back, and then, if she was honest, had got a little bit desperate?
Wendy tore her muffin in half. ‘Don’t give up on him yet.’
