Libby put her hand up, signalling to her friend to stop talking. ‘We are not allowed to mention neighbours or Donegal men. That is the rule. This is your cease and desist order!’
Jess saluted and barked a ‘Yes, Sir!’ response in a military style.
Three hours later, as they busted some moves on the dance floor to Destiny’s Child singing about independent women (Jess had requested the DJ play it), Libby thought herself exceptionally lucky and definitely not in need of any man in her life. She’d be okay. She’d run her business. She’d live alone in her flat, which admittedly wouldn’t have the best paint job on the walls, but which would be home. She’d be just fine.
She twirled around the dance floor, hands in the air, and she felt as happy as she ever had done. Libby was ecstatic she had worn flat shoes, which allowed her to throw some of her best dance moves into the mix and, by the time they were being asked if they had a home to go to by a burly and rather amused-looking bouncer, she was both really quite drunk and also aching all over from the most strenuous aerobic workout she’d had in years.
Jess hadn’t been so sensible with her footwear and they were no sooner out of the bar onto the cool pavement than she had taken off her three-inch heels and was making almost orgasmic moaning sounds at the feeling of the relief the flat, cool ground was giving her insoles.
‘Taxi,’ she muttered, eyes still closed but finger pointing in the direction of the heaving taxi rank across the street.
‘You only live ten minutes’ walk away,’ Libby said, thinking of Jess’s riverside apartment. ‘We’d be quicker walking.’
‘So help me God, Libby. If you make me walk home on my poor pulverised feet, I will end you.’
Jess didn’t often get cross, but with more than a few drinks in her, she unleashed her inner Dr Jekyll. So, wonky logic aside, Libby let her friend wrap her arms around her shoulder and limp gracelessly across the road to the taxi stand, where Jess promptly sat down on the pavement and would only shuffle along on her bum as the queue moved.
The smell of salt and vinegar over freshly cooked chips hung thick in the air, as did the aroma of at least fifty people with alcohol on their breath, who had all been sweating buckets in whatever pub or club they had just been in. Someone started a sing-song of ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams and they were just reaching peak ‘And throooouuugghhh it aalllll’ when Libby felt a tap on her shoulder.
Through blurry eyes, she turned and saw that Jo was grinning at her, a bag of chips in one hand, which she tipsily waved in her direction.
‘Libby!’ she said with drunken enthusiasm. ‘Do you want a chip? Were you out tonight? I had a night off, so I thought I’d make the most of it. Here, are you going back to Ivy Lane? Could I share a cab? I’m bunking in with Noah tonight – well, not in the same bed,’ she grimaced, then laughed.
Libby tried to shake the image of Noah in bed out of her head and focused on what she was actually doing. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m taking this one back to her flat. I’ll probably just kip there to make sure she is okay. Although maybe you could share anyway and just travel on on your own? We are going in vaguely the same direction.’
‘That would be great,’ Jo said, waving her bag of chips in front of Libby’s face again. This time she couldn’t resist and took one, biting into it, wishing she had a full bag herself to eat. ‘My mates are going in completely different directions,’ Jo added. She waved across at a group of people, who smiled and waved back, before diving back into their own chip bags.
‘It’s no problem,’ Libby said with a smile.
‘You’re a good egg,’ Jo added with a smile, before her face clouded a little. ‘But here, are you okay? I’ve not seen you at the Inn very much these last few weeks. I know you’re busy, but is there something more going on? You didn’t fall out with Noah, did you? I asked him if anything was wrong, but he just told me to mind my own business.’ She shrugged her shoulders and ate another chip before offering the bag back in Libby’s direction. ‘Noah never tells me to mind my own business. Well, rarely. But he’s been moping around too and I’ve seen him staring wistfully over at the bookshop and he’s started taking Paddy out for long walks, which he tends to do more when he has something on his mind.’
Libby pulled a particularly vinegar-coated chip and used the time it took her to eat it to think what to say in reply. Her brain was hazy with alcohol and she didn’t want any stories getting back to Noah. She had to make sure not to say the wrong thing. Certainly not to tell Jo that her foster brother made her feel really giddy, but that she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted because… because… Well, at 1.30 in the morning, with a bloodstream swirling with alcohol and the words of Robbie Williams swimming through her head, she found it hard to remember why.
Thankfully a voice from the pavement chimed in. ‘Everything is just tickety-boo,’ Jess slurred. ‘Libby here, the best friend in the entire whole world, is just very busy with the shop. And the flat. And you know, her parents might just be naturists, so she has to move out quick smart.’ Jess attempted to click her fingers at ‘quick smart’, but her fine motor control was gone to hell at that stage, so she ended up just staring at where her thumb and finger should have met. ‘Here, Jo, are you any good with a paintbrush?’
28
Home
Hung-over Libby was delighted with drunk Libby. Not only had drunk Libby made sure she’d taken off almost all of her make-up before falling into bed in Jess’s spare room, she’d also made sure drunk Libby had taken two paracetamol tablets and, by the looks of it, consumed the better part of a pint of water. Hung-over Libby still felt very much on the ropey side but not as bad as it could have been.
Not as bad as Jess was.
Libby heard a low moan coming from her friend’s room and soon after a crashing sound and a call of ‘Ouch!’ Seconds later, she heard Jess padding down the hall towards the kitchen, muttering something about her mouth being as dry as a furry boot.
Lifting her empty pint glass, Libby made her own way to the open-plan living area where Jess was trying to put coffee on while slugging on a can of Diet Coke as if her life depended on it.
‘Morning,’ Libby said, quietly, her voice hoarse.
‘There’s Diet Coke in the fridge,’ she muttered. ‘I’m attempting to make coffee. And toast. Will we have toast? Carbs are medicinal you know, and I’m a doctor.’
Jess turned and looked at Libby, who could see her friend’s make-up had not been removed except for whatever remnants she’d left on her pillow, and her eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness.
‘I’m also sure I’ve some Dioralyte here somewhere. Although right now, a saline drip would be most use.’ Jess and her medical knowledge were brilliant to have on your side during the very worst of hangovers. She was legend in their early twenties as she imparted all her newly learned cures on her friends who were enjoying their early twenties by drinking to excess at least three nights a week.
‘It was good night though,’ Libby said, touching the ice-cold can of Diet Coke against her pulse points to cool her down. It was another hot day and she was sure she was already sweating forty-per-cent-proof alcohol.
‘It was. All of it. That I can remember anyway. Which reminds me, do you know where my shoes are?’
‘You traded them with a woman three up in the taxi queue for her place. You told her your bladder was at “maximum capacity”.’
‘Shite,’ Jess said. ‘Those were good shoes too. From Faith. Absolutely crippled me – but pretty to look at.’
‘You did tell me last night if you ever suggested wearing them again, I was to batter you over the head with them.’
‘I did?’
Libby nodded. ‘You were very vocal about that.’
Jess pinched the bridge of her nose, then laughed. ‘Oh God, Libby. When was the last time we just went out and had silly fun like that? When did we get so serious?’
‘Probably right after the last time we had a hangover like this one,’
she moaned before asking Jess to make up some Dioralyte, known for its rehydrating properties, stat.
‘Double doses,’ Jess said. ‘We’ve to get this bad boy out of the way by tomorrow. Team building is awful at the best of times, never mind on the second day of a nightmare hangover.’
‘I need to get this hangover cleared by lunchtime,’ Libby said. ‘I can’t take a full day off the shop – or the flat now that I have my marching orders from home. Hangover or no.’
‘I suppose,’ Jess said, grimacing. ‘But at least it’ll give you the chance to firm up plans with Jo a little for tomorrow.’
Plans? With Jo? For tomorrow? Something very vaguely recognisable gnawed at Libby’s memory. Something after eating chips and before Jess handed over her shoes. Lovely Jo and a promise Libby had made to love her forever. Oh God.
‘What did I do, Jess?’ she asked, her stomach sick at the thought.
‘Well, you asked her to help you paint the flat, and then – and you’ll love this – you asked her if she thought Noah would use his van to help you shift some of your furniture out of storage because, and this is the bit I remember quite clearly, you really like him and just need to be near him.’
‘Oh God,’ Libby cringed, segments of the conversation coming back to her in horrific technicolour.
* * *
Libby’s sense of horror at having her darkest feelings exposed only grew through the day. In fact, it consumed her so much that very little actual work got done in the shop or the flat. She spent a good hour sitting on the stripped-back floor of what would become her new living room just staring into space, willing her body to find an extra ounce of energy to get on with things.
At just after three, when the morning’s carb loading seemed to wear off, she ventured up to Harry’s shop to bulk buy cheese and onion Tayto crisps and Lucozade, along with a king-size Twix.
‘Rough night last night?’ Harry said, taking one look at Libby’s paler-than-pale complexion.
‘Well, it was a good night, if truth be told. Probably too much of a good night.’
Harry rocked back on his heels. ‘You young ones. You know, in my day, women didn’t go near a bar and there was no pint drinking either. A wee half did youse right.’
‘Ah, Harry, now you’re not that old, surely? And, sure, there’s nothing wrong with a woman drinking a pint is there?’
‘Well, first of all, I am that old. This sad article here was born during World War Two, you know,’ he said and pointed at himself. ‘I was born the night the Germans dropped the bombs on Messines Park. Such a commotion that night, my mother used to say. Only time the Germans hit Derry. When I was a young boy, she used to scold me for leaving my toy cars everywhere – said that the bomb in Messines didn’t leave half the mess I did. She’d give me a good skelp around the ear too – back when it was acceptable to give wains a good skelp around the ear. They were good times, Libby. Hard times but good times.’
‘Harder for the women who couldn’t relax with a pint in their hands at the end of a long day,’ Libby teased. ‘You men aren’t that easy to live with, you know!’
‘Ach, sure I know it. A wee Babycham. That was Mary’s drink back then. I’m not wanting to come across as one of the women haters, but there was a charm in it. Those drinks. The wee glasses that they served them in.’
Harry looked so wistful at the memory, Libby couldn’t bring herself to launch into any more of a rant about the evils of the patriarchy or women’s rights. Harry was a decent man – just from a different generation. One like her grandad’s, and she imagined he would have been as courteous and respectful of women as her beloved grandad had been. For a second, she felt a wave of emotion threaten to floor her. Bloody grief, sneaking up on people when they least expect it! The hangover horrors weren’t helping either. She’d have to get this Twix into her and her blood sugars up quick smart.
‘But, Libby, I’m not meaning to offend you and your modern ways. It’s a changed world, I know that. And not all of it bad. So don’t you be getting cross with me and coming burning your brassiere outside or anything,’ he said with a cheeky smile.
‘As if I would,’ Libby said, and laughed.
He totted up her shopping and handed the bag over to her. ‘I didn’t charge you for the Twix, pet,’ he said. ‘I figured your need was greater than mine.’
She felt herself well up more, and saw Harry’s expression change to one of near horror at the sight. ‘Don’t be upsetting yourself, pet. It’s only a Twix and it’s almost out of date anyway.’
‘You’re very kind, Harry,’ Libby sniffed. ‘You’ve been very kind to me since I arrived here and you didn’t need to be. You’ve made me feel very welcome.’
The old man blushed. ‘You’re one of us now. I can tell you’re a decent sort. A welcome addition to our extended family here. Noah was right about you that first day you arrived. Said you brought a ray of sunshine with you. I told him, you know, that’s what I always think about my Mary. The day she walked into my life, she brought a ray of sunshine.’
That was enough to tip Libby over the edge into a full-blown sob fest, which left Harry looking mortified and more than a little confused about how to handle her emotional breakdown. He walked out from behind the counter and pulled her into an awkward half hug and patted her back.
‘There, there,’ he soothed. ‘No need to cry, my love. Sure, it’s a nice thing he said. Noah knows a good ’un when he sees it.’
She walked away sniffing, and inhaling a Twix at the same time, thinking in her hung-over and emotionally fragile state, that ‘good ’un’ or not, she had thrown away what could be her chance to find love because of this stupid dream to open a stupid shop on this stupid street in this stupid summer.
Of course, a few hours later when she was back home in her room, the room she now felt there was an eviction notice hanging over, Libby’s guilt switched gear to self-hate at thinking badly of the shop and the street and the summer.
It was a Saturday night and she was feeling sorry for herself. Scrolling through her phone, she tried to think of who she could call to sound off to.
She’d already spoken to Jess, who had informed her she was actually at death’s door and going to sleep in the hope of feeling vaguely human again the following day.
The only name that jumped out at her, to her shock, was Noah. She realised that even though the thought of spending time with him scared her, the reality of not seeing him – and of actively avoiding him – scared her more. She knew he understood her – and her need to fit in. She thought of how he said Ivy Lane was the place he finally felt securely at home, and which had helped him heal after his own tragedy. She understood that. She felt it too.
But no. She wouldn’t text him. Especially not now, when she was feeling emotional and needy. She’d see him soon enough, she thought, thanks to Jo and thanks to her own big mouth.
Libby wondered if Jo had told him what she had said in the taxi queue. Perhaps Jo had been as drunk as she was and would have a hazy memory of it too. Or no memory. It might, she realised, still be possible that Noah didn’t know he had been volunteered to help, and that he certainly didn’t know that Libby had feelings for him.
She sent a quick WhatsApp message to Jo, telling her that she had organised alternative help and that she hoped Jo wasn’t experiencing the mammoth hangover she was, and then wrote:
I barely remember what I said last night, I was talking the biggest load of nonsense. I didn’t mean half of it.
Jo did not reply.
29
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Libby was cursing the fact she hadn’t bought enough emulsion or wallpaper paste when there was a knock on the door of the flat just after three on Sunday.
She dropped her paint roller and traipsed down the stairs, wiping the sweat from her brow with her arm – still feeling the effects of her overindulgence on Friday night. She opened the door to find Jo and, to her horror, Noah, standing there, paintbrushes in hand. J
o was smiling broadly. Noah looked hugely uncomfortable.
So uncomfortable in fact that Libby knew beyond all doubt that Jo had indeed told Noah everything she had said. The awkwardness was coming off him in waves, and she was pretty sure she was projecting a similar vibe.
‘The rush has just ended in the bar,’ Jo said. ‘We got here as quick as we could.’
‘Did you not get my text? I’m fine. I have it under control. Honestly, you two go and enjoy a bit of downtime before the evening rush,’ she said, struggling to even looking at Noah.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ Jo said, bright and smiley. ‘Many hands make light work. Besides, by the look of you, you could do with a little help.’
Libby looked to her paint-splattered arms and hands. The splodgy splashes of colour on her dungarees. ‘I’m fine, honestly, and anyway – I’m not ready to move furniture in yet and I’ve to go out now and get more paint, so, really, you’d just be wasting your time.’
‘Noah could take you to get paint?’ Jo said with a sly smile, which earned her a death stare from both Libby and Noah. ‘Actually, why don’t we all go?’
Despite her own reaction, Libby felt irked by Noah’s stare. This, she realised, was why it was a bad idea to allow herself near him, even for five minutes.
‘I can drive myself,’ Libby said. ‘Honestly. And I can do this myself too. You two can go back to the pub. Give the other bar staff some time off, or do something yourself?’
Noah raised his head, looked at her and sighed. ‘Libby, we both know that Jo here is quite persistent when she gets a notion in her head, so why don’t we just get on with this? It won’t take long and it will get her off our backs.’
Jo crossed her arms in front of her chest and smiled contentedly. ‘He’s right, you know. And don’t worry, I’ll be there to break the very obvious tension between you two.’
The Hopes and Dreams of Libby Quinn Page 22