Page 89 of The Truth About You and Me
‘We were fifteen!’
‘We were charming!’ Tom adds.
‘Hardly,’ Charl says, as she begins chopping a red pepper. ‘She dumped him before the apple crumble hit the table. Mum, are you sure everything else is ready?’
‘Yes, I told you, it’s all under control. Come and sit back down, Charlotte.’
The conversation continues on to other moments where their parents’ behaviour caused embarrassment.
‘Everything all right?’ Jack crouches beside me, his words quiet. His voice cuts through the cacophony of conversation around me, like we’re alone and the equaliser on the background track has been turned down.
Yes. No. I don’t know. This is wonderful. This is hard.
He reaches out and I take his hand.
They already like you.
I can tell.
His words are soft, gentle yet solid. His emotions hang off each word like an accent: pride, concern, protection and something else.
And I think it might be love.
38
MAGGIE
I clutch the glass in my hand, as Jack leads me through the downstairs labyrinth of ‘Chadders’. I’m hoping that Jack can’t see how overwhelming this is for me.
There are photos everywhere, family history smiling and laughing up from each wall, each sideboard. Each room that Jack takes me into swells with personality.
The smell of this house is intoxicating, years of breakfasts and dinners, perfume and shoe polish, firewood and cold showers all caught in the breath of the sea breeze leaking into the house.
Jack points to a photo. He explains this is the beach below the house, their own private cove, he says smiling. He laughs, telling me about a time they took the boat out and how sunburnt Charl got, but it was only on the one side he says. She’d gotten distracted mid suntan lotion application, and she looked like a domino. ‘Next summer, I can take you out. You’ll love it.’
I nod, but I find it hard to swallow down the anxiety that is calcifying in my throat.
Because Jack doesn’t see what I see. He doesn’t see how they are all so close on that boat; that I wouldn’t be able to hold their thoughts at bay. He sees me as one of them, the girl he likes, who laughs at his jokes, who could be part of a world where she can’t belong.
He pushes open a heavy wooden door with a creak.
‘This is the den, but it’s more Mum and Dad’s study now.’
I turn my head to the right. A large sofa that looks like it could fold in half if you sat on it speaks of overuse and comfort. Behind it are shelves bulging with books, some laid on top of each other, more books stacked in precarious piles on the floor. The whole opposite wall is glass, the doors leading out to the garden and the darkness beyond.
To my left is a large desk, two chairs on opposite sides facing each other. There are more books towering unsteadily, pots filled with pens and several different spectacles lying around the surface. ‘This is where the magic happens,’ Jack adds with jazz hands but without a hint of jealousy or resentment.
‘Your parents work together?’ I gesture to the desk, one chair with a red-and-brown-checked scarf over the back, the other with a thick black cardigan hanging across the shoulders of the chair.
‘Yes and no,’ Jack says, picking up a stray pen lid and slotting it over the tip of the biro. ‘Mum never edits Dad’s work. Says she’s all too aware of how fragile an author’s ego can be, but they work in the same space when they’re at home.’
I feel like I’m intruding, despite the welcoming warmth. Jack walks ahead, lifts a latch on the glass door and opens it; the sound of the sea crashing below pours into the room. I join him. ‘I can see why you love it here so much.’ I look up at him. ‘I bet if you had a picture dictionary and you looked up the word “home” there’d be a picture of this place.’
I squint into the dark clouds outside. A small flash so fast I think I’ve missed it. ‘Is that a lighthouse?’ I ask, catching the flash again.
‘Yep. You can’t always see it.’
‘It’s like the green light in Gatsby,’ I say, my voice distant: a glimmer of hope, just out of reach.
