Ant stood, barefoot, in baggy cargo pants, his shirt unbuttoned at the top so that a tuft of chest hair was just about visible. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his tanned arms. If Libby wasn’t mistaken, his hair was damp – as if he wasn’t long out of the shower. They looked so comfortable in each other’s company that Libby almost felt as though she was intruding. Where she would normally just have walked straight in, called out for Ant and gone to the fridge to pour herself a glass of wine, she stood at the door and tried a subtle cough – which, given the sound of the music, the laughter and the chat, went unnoticed.
She knocked on the glass of the door, offered a slightly louder ‘Hello?’ and tried to make her voice sound as normal as possible.
‘Baby!’ Ant called, his voice bright – happy – a little tipsy perhaps.
‘Ant… Jess,’ Libby replied and, if she wasn’t mistaken, Jess shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat before giving her a smile, saying hello.
‘This is a bit of a surprise,’ Libby said, walking to where Ant was standing with his arms outstretched to pull her into a gentle hug and kiss the top of her head.
‘That I’m cooking dinner?’ He laughed. ‘Sure, I always cook dinner. We all know better than to let you loose in the kitchen.’
Jess laughed too. And while that was true and Libby would never, ever be gifted in the culinary stakes and certainly had nowhere near the love for cooking or the talent that both Ant and Jess possessed, she still felt a little pulled by their laughter.
‘I meant it’s a surprise to find Jess here,’ she said, her voice not betraying her uneasiness.
‘Jess is always welcome here,’ Ant said. ‘You know that. I’ve always known your best friend came as part of the overall Libby Quinn package.’
‘I think, maybe, she means because I was supposed to be at a conference today,’ Jess offered, and Libby noticed she at least had the good grace to blush about it.
‘Well, yes… that. And other things, but mostly that,’ Libby said.
‘It was cancelled, yesterday. Last minute, you know. The key speaker has some sort of gastro bug. I knew you’d already made plans, so I didn’t see the point in disrupting them at that stage. So I found myself at a loose end and decided to take a drive down to the beach – for a walk on the sand. I was just heading back to the car when I bumped into Ant. He invited me over for a cup of tea, and, well, we’ve just been chatting.’
‘And making dinner?’
‘We didn’t realise how much time had passed, and then I realised you’d be here soon, so I thought I’d just invite Jess to stay for dinner. She had no other plans, so we threw caution to the wind and opened a bottle of wine,’ Ant said. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Libby said, but that wasn’t exactly the case. The truth was, that while it was nice to know that Jess could turn to someone as she was feeling a little lonely, it felt a little strange that she had turned to Ant. Especially after the conversation they’d had earlier in the week. Jess knew the state of play of their relationship. ‘It’s just a bit unexpected,’ Libby added. ‘But it’s a nice surprise.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Ant said. ‘Now, do you want to pour yourself a glass of wine before Jess and I empty this bottle? You snooze, you lose!’
Libby took a glass from the cupboard and poured a large measure and drank the first few mouthfuls a little too fast. A medicinal measure. Entirely allowed.
‘How did the market go?’ Jess asked. ‘Did you get the stuff you wanted?’
‘I did!’ Libby replied, delighted to be able to talk about her purchases. ‘And a few extras too. They had some amazing stuff there – really great pieces. I could have spent a fortune.’ She decided not to tell them that she almost did spend a fortune.
‘I don’t get the vintage thing,’ Ant said as he sipped from his wine. ‘I mean, I get it has a certain appeal – but to me there’s something a bit, well, musty and mouldy about it all. Don’t you think?’
‘Well, no,’ Libby said. ‘And in many cases, it’s a much more superior quality than you would get now.’
‘Not if you go to the right places,’ Ant said. ‘I mean, personally I think it’s hard to beat smooth clean lines in a workplace. Something sleek – minimalist even. Lots of natural light and light tones for it to bounce off. It makes me feel lighter in myself – to be in that environment.’
Libby couldn’t help but feel that with every new word Ant spoke, the crack that existed between them grew bigger and bigger until it became a chasm. Or maybe the blinkers had just started to come off.
She had told him many times how she loved the feel and look of a traditional bookshop, that the industry had lost that little bit of something as technology had moved on. She wanted the shop to feel like a treasure trove, an escape from the bright lights and big noises of the increasingly hectic world. She wanted to bring just a hint of that back – with modern technology to back it up, of course – and here he was describing vintage as ‘musty and mouldy’.
‘I think we’ll have to agree to disagree,’ she said, taking another long drink of her wine.
Ant looked at her closely, held her gaze for a moment perhaps longer than necessary, before he said, ‘Yes, I suppose we will.’
Libby was aware that Jess had once again shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I think I’ll just go and use the bathroom,’ her friend said, as she slipped off her stool and straightened her dress.
Libby wondered, in the course of Jess and Ant’s bonding afternoon, had her friend told Ant that she had been having doubts? Surely not. That would break all the rules and she had always known she could confide anything in Jess and it would go no further.
But there was something off with Ant – and she would hardly be able to get into a serious conversation with him about it now.
They stood in an uncomfortable silence for a bit before Ant spoke.
‘Who did you go with anyway? To the market? You didn’t say?’
‘Noah. The landlord from the pub. He had a van and Jo offered his services,’ Libby told him. It wasn’t that she had been keeping the identity of her companion secret, she just genuinely didn’t think it would be of any consequence to Ant who went with her.
‘And who’s Jo? A man or a woman?’ Ant asked.
‘Jo is a woman, not that I think it matters. I’ve told you about her. The barmaid who helped me out when I got locked out of the shop.’
‘We’re pretty sure Noah and Jo are an item,’ Jess interjected.
He shrugged as if all this was news to him.
They fell into the same uncomfortable silence.
‘Did you get much work done today?’ Libby asked him. She wanted to know a little more about how he’d managed to bump into Jess. It wasn’t like Ant to go for a stroll along the beach. He took what he had on his doorstep for granted, as so many people did.
‘I got through lots this morning. Then lunchtime came, and the weather was nice. My head was turned, looking at figures all morning, so I decided to stretch my legs – and that’s when I met Jess. She seemed a little out of sorts, so I invited her in for a cuppa and we just got talking. She’s good company, you know.’
‘Cheers,’ Jess laughed. ‘That’s nice to know.’
‘Yeah, I’ve worked that one out myself over the years,’ Libby said, ignoring Jess’s light tone and not even trying to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
‘Of course you have,’ Ant replied, as if he hadn’t even registered her tone. He thrust a wooden spoon, ladled with some sort of tomato-based sauce, under her nose. ‘Taste this,’ he said, and she did as she was told. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ he asked and she nodded.
‘Jess has a secret recipe,’ he explained. ‘Well, it was a secret, but she shared it with me.’
He looked so completely delighted with himself, and so much more animated than he had appeared in months that Libby couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret.
He was a good man. She wished she
’d been able to make him happy. And she very much wished he had been able to do the same for her. But, the truth was, he hadn’t.
He smiled and pulled her to him, kissing her on the lips. But there was no tingle. No bee-stung feeling. No anything. Sometimes a kiss really is just a kiss, she thought.
15
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
‘Why don’t you stay over, Jess?’ Ant asked, as bottle number three of wine was tipped upside down in the ice bucket.
‘I’ll get a taxi home, don’t be silly. Give you some space,’ she said, placing her wine glass on the floor. ‘In fact, I’ve probably taken up enough of your time and your hospitality.’ She uncurled her legs from under her and stretched as she sat up.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ Ant said. ‘It’s been lovely to have your company. You can have the spare room – and it’s actually a nice spare room – not just somewhere I’ve thrown all the junk that I have nowhere else to put. It even has clean sheets on the bed. Go on, stay – there’s no point in getting a taxi and going to that expense when you’ll just have to come out in the morning to get your car back.’
Libby noticed Jess look at her. As if she needed her approval to say yes. Libby just shrugged her shoulders. It was unlikely she and Ant would have any kind of a discussion now anyway, and it was late.
‘I don’t know…’ Jess said.
Libby had been just about to jump in with a quick ‘honestly, I don’t mind’ when Ant cut her off at the pass.
‘Please, Jess. You’d be doing me a favour really. There’s only so much talk of bookshops a man can take.’
He laughed, a deep throaty laugh, and Libby watched as Jess smiled. She didn’t smile herself. She felt wounded.
‘Okay then. You don’t mind, do you, Libby?’ her friend asked.
‘Of course not,’ Libby lied. ‘If you two have each other for company, I can sneak off to bed. I’m absolutely exhausted anyway.’
She hoped she kept the hurt from her voice. She hoped nothing about her demeanour belied the fact that Ant’s words had cut to the bone.
On another day, she may have laughed it off.
On another day, she may have jabbed him playfully with her elbow and teased him about how much he talked about investment banking (mega yawn!).
On another day, she may have seen his words as just playful banter, but the truth was, she didn’t see it that way. She saw it as someone who was supposed to care about her using one of the most important things in her life to make her feel bad.
And that hurt.
She stretched and stood up.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked Ant, even though she knew by the way he was already reaching for more wine that he absolutely didn’t mind. Not even one bit.
‘Not at all. You get a good rest, Libby. You’re at danger of working yourself to the bone.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to say any more, and left her best friend and her boyfriend to their evening.
As she walked up the stairs, she listened to the hum of conversation between Ant and Jess, who had moved on to talking about world politics. For the briefest of seconds, her mind wandered to what Noah might be doing at that moment – working hard, stealing a kiss with Jo perhaps. Getting ready to dance around the living room.
Her head hurt some more, but not as much as her heart.
She climbed the stairs, walked into Ant’s room and changed into one of his T-shirts before brushing her teeth and laying down on the bed, where she looked out again into the inky night and allowed the sound of the waves to lull her to sleep.
She slept, deeply, through the night – not even waking to get a glass of water to quench her wine-induced thirst. When she woke, the house was quiet and all she could hear, bar the waves, was the quiet rumble of Ant’s breathing as he lay beside her. She turned to face him – to watch him sleep. She wanted to look at his face. Drink in his features. Remember the fun they’d had. Because it had been its own kind of fun.
She reached over to stroke his stubbly face and slipped her hand under the sheets to feel the beating of his heart. When she discovered he wasn’t bare-chested, as he normally was when they slept together, but was instead wearing a pair of pyjamas, she pulled back. Everything had changed already, it seemed.
She looked at the time on her phone and saw that it was after nine. She wanted to get to the shop as soon as she could, see properly what work had been done in her absence yesterday. That would be her focus. That would be her dream. She wasn’t going to let herself get distracted by matters of the heart again. Not by Ant and not by anyone else either.
She dressed quickly and quietly and crept out of the room into the silent house. Jess, it seemed, was still asleep.
Downstairs, the detritus of the night before – now including scattered CDs and some whisky glasses – lay around the floor. Jess’s sandals were kicked off beside the chair where she had been sitting. It was a nice scene. The sign that a good night had been had and that Jess and Ant had finally bonded. It was quite possible it was at her expense, but she would just have to deal with that.
She found an old envelope and scribbled a quick note to both Ant and Jess, saying she hoped they didn’t feel too bleary-eyed and that she’d gone to work. She’d catch up with them later, she wrote before she lifted her bag and her keys and stepped out into the warm morning air.
June was making itself known with an early-summer heatwave and Libby enjoyed the feeling of the rays on her face as she walked to her car.
Having arrived at the shop, she realised this place made her feel like nothing else mattered. It felt like home. Each and every time she walked in the door. Even though she could taste the dust as soon as she opened the door. Even though it smelled of wood, and plaster and dust. Even though the floor had all but been ripped up in preparation for tiling. Even though she hadn’t been brave enough to look upstairs to see what, if any, progress had been made on her flat.
As Libby stood, in the quiet of a Sunday morning in the shell of her shop, she thought of Grandad Ernie and how he would read to her. Were there any words as comforting as ‘Once upon a time’, that feeling that new adventure was waiting and you couldn’t dare guess what would happen next?
And just like that the bookshop name that had been alluding her all this time popped into her head and immediately felt perfect.
‘I’ll make you proud of me, Grandad,’ she said to the cavernous space. ‘I’ll make this the place you dreamed of. The place where you could have written that book of children’s stories you always wanted to.’ She felt tears prick in her eyes – she tried to head them off at the pass. She resolved that they were happy tears and that the only thing that mattered now was avoiding any further distractions and keeping the project on the move. She had eight weeks left until the planned opening, and still so very much to do.
Libby allowed herself a little cry, dabbed at her eyes and decided to treat herself to a coffee to bring herself round a bit. As she walked up the street towards Harry’s shop, she found herself hoping he would be working. There was something about Harry that had won her over. Perhaps it was because he reminded her of her grandad, with his broad smile and sense of humour. She also realised she’d come to look forward to finding out what issue would be the subject of his rants each day.
Harry was old-school and, it seemed, indefatigable. He seemed to run his shop single-handedly. There was talk of an assistant who worked part-time, but Libby had yet to meet them. Libby got the feeling that Harry’s life revolved around his work and that if he retired he would find himself at a total loss at not being able to see all the comings and goings on Ivy Lane each day.
She was smiling by the time she reached the shop and found herself cheerily wishing Harry a very good morning as he launched into a rant about the number of supplements and advertising brochures included with the Sunday papers.
‘Lifting these will give me a hernia,’ he said. ‘And most of it’s nonsense that goes right in the recycling
bin. There’s few people from round here interested in property pages which only feature ridiculously priced houses in London. A million quid for a two-bed flat? Sure, they call it an apartment to make it sound posh, but a flat is a flat. Imagine what that kind of money could get you here? A palace, that’s what!’
He wasn’t wrong. Property prices in Northern Ireland were incredible, far removed from the stratospheric prices in big cities. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a listing come in at over a million pounds here, and even the most extravagant of homes would generally still get you change from half a million.
‘I’ll stick with my wee shop and my flat.’ Libby laughed, emphasising the word ‘flat’ and Harry laughed.
He laughed loudly and Libby laughed along too.
‘You do right, and, sure, why would you not be happy? This is a great street and a great community.’
‘Do you live on the street yourself?’
Harry laughed. ‘Not quite. Two streets over mind. My Mary said if we lived on Ivy Lane, I might as well set a bed up in the shop and sleep here and she’d never see me at all.’
Libby laughed, mostly because she knew that Harry’s Mary probably wasn’t far wrong. ‘You do love your work, don’t you? Would you never think of retiring? Or slowing down even?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Sure, why would I do that when I’m fit and able to stand behind this counter? And I get to see my friends and neighbours, day in and day out, and hear all the gossip too. I couldn’t stand having nothing to do with myself.’
‘Ah, but you have to look after yourself too, Harry. None of us are getting any younger!’ Libby took care not to imply it was simply that Harry was getting on in years.
‘You’re only as young as you feel,’ Harry said. ‘Anyway, Libby, you’re one to talk. You’ve been in every day since you started work on that place. You’ll end up exhausted yourself! All work and no play, you know?’
The Hopes and Dreams of Libby Quinn Page 12