Page 119 of From Now On

It is near the end of the film when Charlie and Pippa head into the lounge, lips swollen from kissing. It is Charlie’s favourite part – John McClane is saving the day, saving his marriage – but Charlie doesn’t mind when Duke switches it off. For the first time he feels like the hero of his own story.

‘You’re back.’ Duke rushes towards Pippa but Billie gets there first, turning happy circles, joy wagging her tail into a blur. Pippa bends her knees and strokes Billie’s head with one hand, while, with her other arm, she squeezes Duke to her.

Nina sits up straight, shifting slightly away from Maeve, but Pippa has already noticed their closeness.

‘It’s good to see you.’ She looks Nina directly in the eye. ‘Both of you.Together.’ She smiles and Nina grins back, her hand finding Maeve’s once more. She’s still worried about being judged, not yet wholly comfortable with who she is, but Charlie and Duke make sure she knows that whatever challenges she might face, here she is loved, she is accepted, and ultimately isn’t that what everyone wants?

Love.

Acceptance.

‘I go to boarding school now,’ Duke garbles his news. ‘It’s not just any other school, it’s a music school. I got a scholarship because my teacher—’

‘Says I’m a genius,’ chorus Charlie and Nina.

‘Is that so? You’d better play for me then.’

They all traipse into the room next door. Duke picks up his sax. ‘Come on then.’ He glances between Charlie and Nina.

Wordlessly, Nina switches on the mic while Charlie deliberates between the guitar and the piano. There is none of the awkwardness of last year. Charlie not wanting to play in front of Sasha, not wanting to play at all. Music is a part of him, his link to Mum, and he is grateful for it.

They play ‘Minnie the Moocher’. Billie weaving between them in her four-legged-dance. Maeve picks up a pair of maracas, Pippa a tambourine, and they both sing the chorus. Maeve’s pitch is perfect. Pippa is flat but she sings unashamedly and Charlie loves her for it. They switch to ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’ and for this Nina sings purely for Maeve, their eyes locked. Maeve and Pippa sway from side to side, waving their mobile phones like lighters. Afterwards, Charlie rests down his guitar and sits at the piano, Billie at his feet. He plays and sings ‘What a Wonderful World’. It feels apt.

He knows there are many different kinds of love but there are also many different kinds of family. He used to think ‘blended’ was a bad word but now he sees it for what it is.

A choice.

Nina, Duke, Maeve, Pippa and himself might not fit the convention of what a family should look like but…

Billie rests her head on his knee in a don’t-forget-me way, as though she can tell what he’s thinking.

They are bound by love and loss and shared memories, hopes and dreams.

They are, Charlie affirms as he looks around the room, his past, his present, his future.

His everything.

They are all he needs.

Eighteen Months Later

Epilogue

Charlie

It’s scorching hot, only the whisper of a breeze blowing in from the sea, gently lifting and dropping the orange and yellow bunting strung across this pretty cobbled street. Even with the throng of tourists, Colesby Bay is idyllic.

Vanilla ice cream dribbles down the cone and Charlie licks it from his fingers. Next to him, Nina slurps at her lolly, pastel-coloured hundreds and thousands clinging to her lips. Billie, her nose now peppered with grey fur, bumps her head against Charlie’s leg –save some cornet for me.

They pass a stand of postcards outside of a shop with candy-coloured buckets and spades in the window.

‘We must send a postcard to Violet while we’re here,’ Charlie says, before they round the corner and see him.

Busking.

Charlie’s breath catches in his throat as Nina clutches his arm tightly.

‘How does he have the guts to do that?’ she asks again, watching her younger brother as he captivates the passers-by with his saxophone, the flat cap by his feet glinting with coins.

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