‘Why are you doing all that?’ Clara asked, cutting through her thoughts.
Jo looked at her, thinking how unbearably cute she was as she sat wearing a pair of white cotton pyjamas with tiny unicorns dancing across them in pale shades of pink and lilac. Her feet were clad in pink furry slippers, from the top of which bunny ears stood to attention. Her hair was silky soft, in smooth curls. In fact, her hair was exactly how Jo would like her own to look after this deep-conditioning treatment. She feared, however, that it might just look as if she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket.
‘Well,’ Jo told her. ‘Sometimes it’s nice to pamper yourself. I just want to make my skin feel nice and soft and make myself look beautiful.’
‘But you are beautiful,’ Clara said, with the sincerity that only a six-year-old can possess, and Jo’s heart melted just a little.
‘Well, thank you very much. You are very beautiful too. But because I’m a little bit older, sometimes I need a little more help to get there.’
Clara screwed her face up again, her brow furrowed. ‘But your face is your face. You can’t change it.’ She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
It was pretty faultless logic as far as these things go. ‘Well, that’s true enough. But still, it’s just something some of us like to do, especially if we have something important or extra fun planned, like going to a party or a wedding. You know, like when you put on your favourite dress when you went to Lucy’s birthday party?’
‘Are you going to a birthday party?’ Clara asked, eyebrows raised. ‘Can I come too? Please! Please, please, please!’
Jo shook her head slowly. ‘No, darling, I’m not going to a party. I’m going to help Libby at the shop tomorrow and she is having a special visitor who I want to talk to about the stories I write.’
‘Does he write stories too?’
‘He does,’ Jo said. ‘And he might be able to help me.’
‘Like you help me with my homework sometimes?’ Clara asked.
‘Exactly like that.’ Jo smiled. It seemed a simple enough explanation for a six-year-old to wrap her head around.
Clara seemed to accept this and went back to playing with Buttercup while Jo went to the bathroom to wash off the face mask and rinse the conditioning treatment from her hair.
There was nothing wrong with wanting to look every inch the professional. Both Libby and Erin had loved her outfit choice. When she had dropped Paddy back to the pub, both women were clearly patiently waiting for her return and both were giving her what appeared to be very close to a death stare.
‘You should’ve phoned me as soon as you got the email,’ Libby had said. ‘I’m so excited for you. What did it say?’
‘Never mind the email,’ Erin had cut in. ‘Tell me about this Lorcan fellah. I hear he was here at lunchtime and you didn’t even let me know! Kate told me after the lunch rush, but you were already gone. Spill the dirt, lady!’
‘And I hear you’ve been shopping for something to wear tomorrow. Do you need a second opinion?’ Libby had asked.
Both women were like overexcited puppy dogs, vying for her attention.
‘Yes,’ Erin had said. ‘I need to see this outfit. How about we go over to Libby’s flat and you can give us a fashion show.’
‘And tell us what the email said,’ Libby had pressed.
‘And about Lorcan,’ Erin had added.
Jo had known there was no way she was getting away from them without answering their questions, and showing them her suit, so she had simply nodded her agreement.
As she had walked to the back office to collect her bags, she’d realised that she felt excited. Very excited actually. Something was happening in her life. A few things, actually, and she didn’t have to be scared of it all. She could embrace it and trust faith to bring her where she needed to be.
That’s what Auntie Mags would tell her anyway.
So she’d managed to smile and pose as she’d walked out of Libby’s bedroom twenty minutes later to oohs and aahs from her friends.
‘That. Is. Stunning,’ Erin had said.
‘The colour!’ Libby had gushed. ‘It brings out your eyes, and your hair and you just look beautiful.’
‘I’d snog you,’ Erin had added. ‘You know, if I was that way inclined.’
‘Thanks. I think,’ Jo had replied. ‘I do love the suit. It was way more money than I wanted to spend, but I figured it was worth it.’
‘Oh, it totally was,’ Libby had agreed. ‘You’ll make an impression on Mr McLachlan for sure. Although, by the sounds of it, you already have. I’m so thrilled for you.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Jo had said as she’d walked back to the bedroom to change out of her new suit. She’d called through the open door, ‘We don’t know what he wants to talk to me about. He might want to break bad news to my face.’
She’d heard both Erin and Libby let out a groan and stuck her head around the door.
Erin spoke first. ‘Jo, I love you very much. But he won’t want to break bad news to you. He’ll love it. And if he doesn’t love it, then he’s wrong. You have talent. I know that. Libby knows that. Everyone knows that. When are you going to start believing it?’
Jo was still asking herself that question as she rinsed her hair. Maybe it was time to just start believing in herself. She took in her reflection in the bathroom mirror and nodded. She was going to own her meeting with Ewan.
‘Jojo!’ Clara's voice rang out loud and clear.
Jo turned and walked back to her room.
‘If you are having the thing about writing the story tomorrow, that’s not good.’
‘No?’ Jo asked.
‘It’s Clara and Jojo night! Mammy goes out and me and you stay in and read books and have hot chocolate and cuddles. Who is going to look after me? I don’t want to be here on my own.’
Jo could see Clara's lip start to wobble. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you won’t be on your own. Mammy is going to stay home to look after you. You can still sleep in my bed and I won’t be late home. So we can have big cuddles. I promise!’ Jo took Clara’s hand in hers and gave it squeeze.
‘Are you sure?’ Clara asked, and Jo could feel that every muscle in her little body was tensing. ‘Because I don’t like being alone.’
‘Of course I’m sure, sweetheart. We’d never leave you alone. I promise.’ Jo’s heart cracked at the sad expression on Clara’s face, knowing that there were times when this beautiful little child in front of her had been left alone in the past – before she came to live with the Campbells permanently.
‘Promise with all your heart?’
‘I promise with all my heart. We’re friends forever, remember? Red hair, don’t care!’
Clara did her best to smile, but Jo could see she was unsettled and she wanted to make it all better as quickly as she could.
‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘since I can’t be there tomorrow night, how about we have hot chocolate, just you and me, tonight?’
‘Are we allowed?’ Clara asked.
‘This time? Yes.’ Jo offered a reassuring smile, which seemed to placate Clara.
After they’d both had their drinks and Clara had fallen asleep much more content, Jo sat and watched her little sister sleeping. She had been through so much in her short years, and yet she trusted people. She was braver than Jo ever was and she embraced every day with enthusiasm, making new friends wherever she went. Clara allowed people into her life and into her heart in a way Jo didn’t any more. She had a lot to learn from the little girl curled up in her bed, she realised.
Although, actually, she felt she was already letting someone in, in the form of Lorcan. As she climbed into bed and lifted her book to read, her mind drifted off to how they had talked so easily all the way to Ivy Lane after their trip to the park.
When she left him at his grandad’s shop, she saw a new little twinkle in Harry’s eyes. Things were different now, she thought. She wasn’t just Jo from The Ivy Inn. She was Jo who was becoming
friends with Lorcan. And Lorcan was one of Harry’s greatest treasures. In fact, it was even possible that Harry Gallagher loved Lorcan Gallagher more than he loved his shop, and that was saying something.
It was no secret that Harry would have had Lorcan beatified immediately if there was a way to do so. However, as the Pope was unlikely to accept bribes in the form of Jaffa Cakes close to their use-by date, she very much doubted that Saint Lorcan would be getting a free pass to the gates of heaven any time soon.
She wondered if Harry deemed her good enough for his precious Lorcan, then remembered the way he had smiled so brightly at her and then at his grandson. Nothing would make Harry happier than if Lorcan moved to Derry and found himself a lovely girl to marry. He’d be watching every single step of their burgeoning friendship closely. Maybe she should go and talk to Harry in the morning. Tell him not to be getting any notions. Tell him they were just friends and Lorcan was nursing a broken heart.
And Jo knew exactly what a broken heart felt like. It was a broken heart that had sent her running home from Spain, convinced she would never be happy again.
18
The Break-Up
Colm McCafferty was six foot three inches tall, played Gaelic football and had thighs of steel. He wore his dark hair cropped, and his face was permanently speckled with freckles and a light dash of sunburn. When he played GAA, his pale complexion would be replaced by a ruddy hue that stretched from the top of his shirt to the tips of his ears. The redness, stark against his Irish pallor, only served to make the blue of his eyes extra vibrant.
He smelled, most of the time, of tea-tree-scented shower gel, and he was never without a selection of bruises to show off as a mark of his footballing prowess.
If there was someone to lead the rush to the dance floor as the first strains of ‘The Summer of ’69’ rang out at any family wedding or club party, it was Colm. He was also good for a pint, and never dodged his round.
He was declared ‘sound’ by almost everyone who met him. And Jo thought he was perhaps the most beautiful creature she had ever set her eyes on.
They met on their first day as holiday reps in Magaluf six years earlier. Their pale Irish skin immediately marked them out as new to the job – something that more senior staff members and some of the rowdier holidaymakers liked to take advantage of.
They were thrown together covering the late nights out, or helping to carry the occasionally much too drunk holidaymaker back to their accommodation. They were goaded into drinking too many shots, and rewarded with early-morning sea excursions, which had them both swearing they would never drink again, a vow which was all but forgotten by the time the evening was upon them.
It was full on, wild and hedonistic and Jo had loved every moment. She had become a rep to see some of the world, and to experience a life outside of the close Derry community, where everyone knew everything about everyone. Her experience repping had delivered that, and more. The ‘more’ being a romance she hadn’t expected.
When she saw her name beside Colm’s on the rota, she would feel warm and fuzzy inside. He made her laugh every single day. When her spirits were flagging, he could lift her mood in minutes with one of his jokes, or hugs, or just by telling her she was beautiful.
When he told her that he loved her, as they sat together on the beach on a rare night off, sun-kissed and blissed out, she had thought life simply couldn’t get better.
He was her first big love and she threw herself into their relationship wholeheartedly. It was heady, intoxicating and had all the passion of the chick-flick movies she loved so much. She felt as if she was permanently smiling, as if she had found the one who completed her. The Harry to her Sally.
They made an incredible team and even though the work was exhausting, and quite often stomach-churning, it was the best summer of her life.
But when summer turned to autumn and then to winter, and that first holiday season was well and truly over, what had seemed perfect had started to crack around the edges. Jo hadn’t been ready to give up on their relationship and she spent too much time trying to recapture the infatuation and fun of the summer months. If it had been there once, she was sure she could get it back again. They would be okay. It was natural to find it challenging to deal with the changes to their routine and how that affected their relationship. Having both decided to stay in Spain, they got bar work where they could and scraped together enough money – just about – to live on. But the fun was all but gone.
When Noah had flown out for a short break as winter turned to spring, the cracks were more like chasms. He tried to tell Jo this, but she had reacted angrily. Noah didn’t know Colm like she did. He hadn’t seen him at his lively, fun and supportive best, leading a sing-song on a bus trip with thirty hung-over holidaymakers.
‘We always knew it was going to be a challenge,’ Jo told him. ‘When the season gets underway again, it will all be fine.’
But it wasn’t fine. Colm started having more and more nights out with the other reps without inviting her along. When he worked on excursions and booze cruises, he didn’t always tell the more handsy female guests that he wasn’t single. Whereas everyone had known they were a couple the year before, Colm now seemed to revel in flirting and being flirted with by other women.
It was at first a slow process, this unconscious uncoupling they went through. Jo had been so desperate to hold on to the memory of that one perfect summer, she put up with how distant he was becoming because she did love him. And she was just as sure that he loved her. He wasn’t a bad person. She had seen the best of him and that hadn’t gone away. That part of him was still there, if only she could reach it. There were moments when she was convinced she’d seen that amazing side of him again, but they were only fleeting.
In hindsight, she could see he was trying not to hurt her. But this just amounted to him throwing her the crumbs of his affection. They limped along together, acting the role of a couple – even sleeping together on occasion, but it just highlighted to Jo just how wrong things were. She felt worse after. Hollow.
When she found out she was pregnant, as she sat and cried in the loos of a taverna staring at two lines on a stick, a tiny bit of her hoped that this would be the thing that brought them closer together.
She allowed herself a tiny, very short-lived fantasy of the two of them walking along the beach, a curly-headed, sun-kissed toddler between them as they recalled that really tough winter they’d gone through and agreeing it had just made them stronger.
But, of course, that was just a fantasy. Colm had been horrified and then he had cried. She had cried too.
‘I’m not ready to be a dad,’ he’d wept. ‘I don’t want to be a dad.’
‘I know it’s scary,’ she’d said. ‘This was not in my plan either, but look, it is what it is. I’m pregnant and there is going to be a baby and I know, Colm, that we can make it work.’
He’d walked out and gone on a two-day bender. Two days in which Jo hadn’t know which way was up or what she was going to do if he didn’t come back.
Her relief when he did come back was short-lived. He’d sat her down and told her outright that there was no future for them. He’d do ‘the right thing’ and help support the baby financially, but he didn’t want a relationship with either her or their child. He was not going to be a daddy. It was as simple, and devastating, as that.
When Jo had miscarried a week later, after the most painful seven days of her life as she pleaded with Colm to reconsider, he took her to the hospital and held her hand as the nurse broke the news in broken English that there was ‘no baby any more’.
Colm did his best to hide it, but his relief was palpable.
It took that for Jo to finally accept that they didn’t have a relationship worth saving.
She had sobbed down the phone to Noah, who had booked her a flight home and had met her at the airport. He’d never once said ‘I told you so’, he’d just held her as she cried, watched out for her when she got home and then i
nvited her in on his new business.
Between Noah, and Erin, and her parents, Jo was given the support and love to start to heal. She was able to see a future, and possibly even a happy one, away from Spain and Colm and the memories of how low she had been.
But it was Clara who had really saved her. It was Clara who made her feel she could laugh again. And love again. Just not in a romantic way. All the love she had held in her for the baby that never got to be, she found she was able to shower on this funny, inquisitive, vibrant little soul.
She was happy with the love of her family and friends. She was reminded there was good in the world through her growing relationship with Clara, then just a chubby toddler. Watching the world through the eyes of a child was a great leveller.
But Jo Campbell still held a part of herself back. She never wanted to be hurt again like she had been hurt by Colm. So she put up walls around her heart and settled into her safe zone where she lived and worked among people who she knew would always love her.
And until recently that had been more than enough for her, but at the same time that she unlocked the need to chase her dream of becoming a published author, she started to wonder if there were other chances worth taking.
It was time to take down the walls around her heart.
19
Grease
Jo looked in the mirror and saw an adult looking back. Groomed. Professional. Sensible, but stylish. She was definitely stylish. The blue suit did indeed bring out the blue in her eyes. The conditioning treatment had done what it promised and her hair was frizz-free and in sleek curls, which tumbled from a funky updo that screamed ‘bohemian chic’.
In Pursuit of Happiness Page 11