Page 94 of The Happy Hour
A smile creased his cheeks.
Your job is done, Peg. I didn’t pay for the aftercare package. Seriously though, thank you for everything. And Jess deserves more than I can give her right now. Maybe in a few months. Take care.
A few months and someone else will be bringing her coffee! Don’t lose the one good thing to come out of all this. Aftercare package is included. I’m not going anywhere. Px
Ash rested his head against the sofa. He couldn’t get that last image out of his head, the one he’d been met with when he’d left work on that Friday lunchtime and travelled, almost blindly, to Greenwich, to the pristine front door and Peggy leading him down the familiar corridor.
Nico was still in the bed, but the monitors were silent and so was he. He looked softer, as if all the ambition and the anger that had lived inside him, tightening his muscles, had gone. More than anything, his dad had looked peaceful, and it was in that moment, when it was too late, that Ash had felt a swell of compassion for him and all the mistakes he’d made. It felt as useless as all his other emotions right now.
He got up, determined to get that beer, and there was a knock on the door. His first thought was that it was Jess, and his heart leapt, the first positive thing he’d felt in over a week. He opened the door and found Mack, a newspaper under his arm, holding two mugs of coffee.
‘I had to put one of these on the floor so I could knock, and you know how hard it is for me to bend. Let me in, will you please?’
Ash’s jaw tightened.
‘It’s not a request, but you already know that.’ The older man stood his ground until Ash stepped back and let him in, then he walked through the living room and put the mugs and paper on the small kitchen table, beneath the ticking clock.
‘I told you I couldn’t make it.’ Ash’s voice was rusty. He thought that the last person he’d spoken to, beyond texts and WhatsApps, had been Dylan, two mornings before.
‘Because your dad died.’ Mack pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I know it’s hard. When you’re my age you get used to losing people, butused toisn’t the same aseasy. What are your plans for today?’
Ash looked away.
‘Right, then. Come and sit down, and we’ll do the crossword together.’
‘I don’t have time for crosswords.’
‘Because you’re too busy wallowing?’
Ash glared at him.
‘You can make room for a coffee and a crossword amongst all that,’ Mack said, unperturbed. ‘You might even find a few moments of happiness.’
‘I told you—’
‘And it could be that I have an interesting tale to tell,’ Mack went on. ‘About how someone banged on your door earlier in the week. A woman with dark hair and dark eyes, who said she was looking for you. Said her name was Jess.’
‘What?’
‘It was Tuesday evening.’ Mack narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know where you were, but judging by the bangs in the corridor that woke me up in the early hours the following morning, I would have wagered that a pub was involved.’ He flipped open the newspaper.
‘Jess washere?’ The last few days had blurred into a succession of empty hours, except that Tuesday was the one day he’d given into the urge for numbness, met some colleagues when they’d finished for the day, then carried on drinking when they’d all gone home. He’d ended up making his way to Greenwich, though fuck knows how he’d managed the route in the state he was in. He’d stood under her window like a pathetic, booze-soaked Romeo, and even imagined that she’d called out to him. But he must have made it up, and even if he hadn’t, it wasn’t the way he wanted to see her again: stupidly drunk and stuck in his complicated grief.
He’d had no idea that, earlier that day, she’d come to find him; that despite what he’d said to her, she cared enough to come all this way.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ He sat down at the table.
‘I would have, if you’d answered your door.’ Mack glared at him, unapologetic, and Ash felt his lips twitch. Self-pity was not an acceptable state to his neighbour.
‘It’d better not be a cryptic crossword,’ he said. ‘You know I’m hopeless at those.’
‘You’ll only stay hopeless if you don’t try, Ash.’ Mack flipped to the right page, and Ash angled his body so he could see. For the first time in days, he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.
*
Once Mack had gone, he made himself baked beans on toast, something he knew would satisfy his sorely neglected stomach.
He thought about what he’d said to Jess all those weeks ago, about how it was the people who mattered at the market, not what they were selling. He’d believed that it was better for him to be by himself until he felt less untethered, but Mack’s visit had shown him it didn’t work like that. He needed other people to anchor him, and he needed to be honest with Jess.
