by Ali McNamara
I look helplessly at Jess, but she doesn’t seem as thrown by Noah’s behaviour as I am.
‘I’d say you were pretty important.’ She grins, nodding in the direction of the office. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
I take a deep breath and march across the shop towards the office, then I pause just a moment before knocking forcefully on the door.
‘Yes?’ Noah’s tired voice asks from inside. ‘What is it, Jess?’
‘It’s not Jess,’ I say, opening the door. ‘It’s me.’ I step inside the room before he has a chance to turn me away, then I close the door behind me.
Noah is sitting behind his desk, and I notice he has yet to start work on any accounts. ‘What do you want, Ana? I think we said everything earlier, didn’t we?’
I shake my head. ‘I didn’t tell you how sorry I am for…’ I hesitate; how to say this? ‘… letting you down.’
Noah looks back at me, his expression not giving anything away. ‘You didn’t let me down. I just got the wrong end of the stick, that’s all. It’s fine, it happens.’
‘No, it’s not fine.’ I go over to his desk and sit down in the chair opposite. ‘I was a bit shocked, that’s all, and so I wasn’t honest with you about my true feelings.’
‘Which are?’
‘Which are… that I’m truly flattered that someone should want me to stay somewhere to be with them. It’s never happened before. Usually it’s completely the opposite.’
Noah’s stark expression lifts slightly, and I see the compassion and kindness I was used to seeing in his eyes begin to flood back into them.
‘You surprise me,’ he says, not moving in his seat.
‘It’s true. And for someone to ask me to stay with them in a place I actually like is a double bonus. And I do like it here in St Felix. It’s so beautiful and joyful, and being here makes you feel beautiful and joyful too.’
‘So you do actually want to stay then?’ Noah asks, as if he needs to confirm everything so he doesn’t get it wrong again.
‘I think so – if I can make it work I do. If I can find a place to stay and I can continue to freelance from here then, yes, I think I’d very much like living here.’
Noah nods. ‘I’m glad you changed your mind. If that’s all?’
His tone surprises me. What have I said now?
‘What is it? I’ve just said I’d like to stay here, haven’t I?’
Noah stands up and goes over to the door.
‘Yes, you’ve told me you’d like to stay if you can find somewhere to live and make your job work, and how beautiful it will be living here, and those reasons are all admirable and I’m pleased for you, really I am.’
‘But…?’ I just don’t get why he’s being all weird.
‘But it’s quite clear I don’t feature in any of those reasons. So, although I’m delighted for you that you’ll be staying on in St Felix, forgive me if I don’t get out a bottle of champagne to celebrate.’
He opens the door.
I glare at him for a moment, and then I stand up and march across the office. Noah obviously thinks I’m going to head straight out of the door because he opens it a little wider for my exit. But instead I grab the door and slam it shut.
‘Now you listen here!’ I tell him, seizing him by the shoulders and slamming him up against the wall.
I’m not sure who is more surprised by this action, Noah or I. Noah isn’t exactly small, and pushing his tall, muscular body up against the wall has taken more strength than even I knew I had. I continue to summon this strength as I speak to Noah.
‘It’s taken a lot of guts to come here and tell you all this,’ I say, removing my hands slowly from his shoulders. ‘Admitting I was wrong and opening my heart up to you. So the least you can do is show me some respect by actually understanding what I’m trying to tell you.’
‘Which is…?’ Noah asks, straightening his glasses where they’ve been knocked a little to the side with the force of my shove.
‘That I care about you,’ I say, my voice calming, as my heart quickens. ‘That I like spending time with you, and I’d like to spend more time getting to know the real Noah, the one you keep hidden from everyone.’
I blink as I look up at Noah. That speech was as much of a shock to me as the physical force that had spilled from me moments ago.
‘The real Noah? I don’t know who you’ve been spending time with but there’s only one of me.’ Noah smiles, obviously trying to lighten the tension between us.
‘No, there isn’t only one of you. There’s antiques shop Noah, and then there’s bedroom Noah, and then the one I know the least about, policeman Noah.’
‘You make me sound like a children’s book character.’ Noah smiles again, but instead of smiling back I find myself enraged again.
‘Stop it,’ I tell him. ‘Stop trying to hide from me. You can’t expect me to open up to you and then you just pull away again.’
I stare up at him, suddenly realising that what Noah says next is going to be crucial to what happens between us. He seems to realise the same.
‘Policeman Noah is the someone I used to be,’ he says quietly. I stand back from him slightly to give him space. ‘You saw a little of him in Brighton, but I stopped being him years ago.’
‘Why, though? You seemed so happy when you were back with Simon and Adam.’
Noah pulls himself away from the wall and proceeds to prowl around the room.
‘If I tell you, I’ll tell you quickly… but there’s to be no pity.’ He looks at me, waiting for my agreement.
I nod.
‘Take a seat then,’ Noah says, gesturing to the red leather armchair I’d sat in the first time I was here in this office.
I do as he asks.
‘As you know,’ Noah says, suddenly becoming very formal as he paces around his office, ‘I used to be in the police force in Brighton.’
I nod again.
‘Then I was offered promotion to the Met in London. With hindsight, I probably should have never left Brighton – I was happy there,’ he adds, almost wistfully. Then he shakes his head, forcing himself back into his formal mode again. ‘But promotion is promotion and so I moved to London.’
‘Sure,’ I say, waiting for him to continue. It was odd sitting here in the leather chair with Noah pacing around me. He was being so proper and official I almost felt like I was being questioned for my story in a police interview room.
‘So, to cut a long story short,’ Noah continues, not making eye contact with me, ‘I was undercover on quite a big job. Drugs,’ he says firmly, as though that explained everything. ‘But then things went a bit off course.’
‘Go on.’
‘My partner, who was also undercover with me… they… Well, they…’ Noah stops pacing and swallows hard. ‘They double-crossed me,’ he says rapidly, as though getting it out in the open quickly will make it easier to hear.
‘And?’ I ask gently, acutely aware this was something very painful Noah was dragging up just to please me.
‘Let’s just say the gang I was undercover with didn’t take too kindly to the news I was actually a police officer and not one of them.’
‘What did they do?’ I ask quietly, knowing whatever it was it wasn’t going to be good.
‘They roughed me up a bit.’
‘A bit?’
‘Okay, a lot. They beat me so badly they left me for dead, and abandoned my body in a back alley behind some bins.’
My heart twists inside me as my hand covers my mouth. ‘Oh god, no.’
Noah nods, looking at me now.
‘But you survived. How?’
‘I don’t know really, it’s all a bit hazy. I must have fallen in and out of consciousness for a while, but then I think someone found me and called the emergency services. The next thing I knew I was in hospital – intensive care, a drip, the whole caboodle,’ Noah explains matter-of-factly, but I’m still horrified.
‘What do you mean you think someone found you? Didn�
��t they wait with you? Tell their story to the police?’
‘No, no one could ever trace them. But I knew someone was there, Ana, because they spoke to me for ages, kept telling me it was going to be all right and to hang on in there. They saved my life, but I was never able to thank them. It was like they just disappeared, right before the paramedics turned up. They said I was on my own when they got there.’
This was so awful. I couldn’t bear the thought of Noah lying abandoned in an alley all alone, afraid and in pain. I wonder who the person might have been who’d kept him going, and why they’d left without anyone seeing them.
Noah is still looking uncomfortable. He swallows again, and I sense there is more to come.
‘What is it, what haven’t you told me?’
‘You should probably know,’ he says calmly in a low voice, ‘that the partner who double-crossed me wasn’t just my partner at work, she was my partner at home too.’
My eyes open wide. I can barely believe any of this, let alone this latest bit of information. ‘You were double-crossed by your girlfriend? No way!’
Noah nods silently.
I take a moment to digest this. Noah’s girlfriend had been the one to blow his cover? That had to be the worst form of betrayal. She must have known what would happen to him. What sort of scum would do that to any human being, let alone Noah? He was so kind and lovely.
‘I should add,’ Noah says, actually looking ashamed, ‘we shouldn’t have even been working on a case together. It’s not only frowned upon in the force, it’s actually forbidden. I should have trusted my instincts.’
‘No!’ I cry. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault. You trusted someone and they let you down. It was her, not you.’
This whole story had explained so much to me about Noah, why he was anxious and edgy in one situation, and then so confident and happy in another. The self-assured, easy-going Noah was the real him, the mouse-like nervous Noah was a persona that had been forced upon him by someone else’s selfish and ultimately vicious act. No wonder he was slow to trust, and so hurt when his trust had been thrown back in his face.
By me.
I feel my hands ball into tight fists at my side.
Noah sees me. ‘There’s no point in you getting angry about it,’ he says, smiling kindly at me. ‘It was a long time ago now. My life has moved on to better places, and’ – he pauses and comes over to me, kneeling down by my chair – ‘better people.’
‘I’m not only cross because of what happened to you,’ I tell him, my eyes full of tears. ‘I’m angry with myself for letting you down again.’
‘What do you mean? You haven’t let me down.’
‘I did after we spent the night together. You put your trust in me, and I didn’t tell you what I really felt. I was too scared to.’
‘Ana,’ he says, cupping my face in one of his hands. ‘That doesn’t matter now. You’ve been honest with me, and I’ve tried to be honest with you about everything. Now you know why I am the way I am, do you still want to be with me?’
I shake my head. ‘You silly thing, of course I do! What do I need to do to show you… This?’ I say, leaning forward and kissing him very firmly and extremely passionately on the lips. ‘Well?’ I ask, eventually pulling back from our kiss to look at him. ‘How about that?’
Noah grins. ‘Let’s just try that again,’ he says, pulling me to him this time. ‘I need a tiny bit more reassurance.’
While Noah and I kiss again, I’m aware of a tiny bell ringing somewhere, but so caught up am I in our passionate embrace, I can’t tell if it’s in Noah’s office or the shop.
The ringing stops, and then there’s a different sort of ringing, but this time it’s definitely the shop’s telephone that’s making the noise, because the tone is more muffled than before.
‘Noah!’ someone cries, banging frantically on the other side of the door. ‘Noah, get out here quick. Juliet is on the phone, and she says she needs to talk to you about Frankie and Lou.’
Thirty-Nine
I’m silent as I stare at the sight in front of me. It’s so beautiful and so perfect I’m almost lost for words.
‘Something wrong?’ Malachi asks, watching me. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘No, nothing is wrong, quite the opposite, in fact. Everything is very, very right.’
We’re standing in the backyard of Bob’s Bangers looking at Daisy-Rose, but it’s not the Daisy-Rose that I’d gazed upon when I first arrived in St Felix and stood with Malachi on this very spot – this vehicle is a very different one indeed.
Instead of the rusty, ramshackle, worn-out old VW camper van which I’d wondered about saving at all, I’m looking at a flawless, shiny, sparkling reincarnation.
‘Malachi,’ I say, running my hand over Daisy-Rose’s metallic burgundy paint that’s sparkling under the bright midday sun. ‘How have you done this?’
‘A lot of sweat, a few tears and a smidgeon of Malachi magic,’ he says, grinning. ‘You like it then?’
‘Oh my goodness, it’s amazing. The transformation is incredible. Look at this chrome,’ I say, hardly daring to touch it in case I leave fingerprints. ‘It’s so shiny, and her new number plate – I adore that – where did you find it?’
Malachi taps the side of his nose as we gaze upon the number plate at the front of the vehicle: ANA 80.
‘It’s perfect,’ I say, grinning at it. ‘And those tiny daisies you’ve painted on her too. They’re so pretty. I love them.’
‘I thought you might,’ Malachi says, looking pleased. ‘Now do you want to see inside?’ he asks, sliding open the side door. ‘It’s pretty neat, even if I say so myself.’
We climb in together after Malachi has opened up the matching striped pop-up top in the middle of Daisy-Rose’s cream-coloured roof, so we can stand up easily inside without hitting our heads on the ceiling. He then proceeds to demonstrate tiny hidden cupboards, a compact little fridge and a spotless hob.
‘And the bed,’ he says, pulling at a small leather handle attached to one of the back seats, ‘is right here.’
Before my eyes a huge, very comfortable-looking mattress appears made up of the back and base of the red leather seat. It fills the width of the van, and Malachi informs me it’s the full-size rock ’n’ roll bed we talked about. ‘You’ll need to get your own bedding,’ he adds, almost apologetically. ‘I didn’t quite have time for that. Come on,’ he says, jumping up on to the mattress. ‘Try it out.’
For once I don’t hesitate. I understand how Malachi works now, and I’m more than happy to be his friend. I feel comfortable in his presence, and more importantly I trust him. Eagerly I climb on to the mattress next to him.
‘This is great,’ I say, bouncing up and down a little. ‘I bet this will be super-comfortable to sleep on.’ I look around at the interior of the van again. It’s absolutely spotless. ‘Malachi, I still don’t understand how you’ve managed to do all this in such a short space of time, but I’m so pleased you have. She looks amazing, she really does. Not only have you done me proud, but you’ve done Daisy-Rose and Lou proud too.’
Malachi looks touched by my words.
‘You should have a drive in her later, before you take her on her big trip tomorrow,’ he suggests. ‘She won’t need too much getting used to, but she will feel quite different to begin with if you’re used to things like power steering.’
‘Yes, I’ll definitely do that. Will you come with me?’
‘On your test drive, yes. But not to see Frankie – I think it should be you and Noah who do that, don’t you?’
It seemed like forever since Juliet had rung the antiques shop a few days ago to speak to Noah, but the moment was still etched in my mind as clearly as if it had happened only minutes ago.
Noah and I had stared at each other for a few seconds before he had dashed out of the door and across the office with me close behind.
Then for an infuriating few minutes where I could only hear one si
de of the conversation, Noah had spoken to Juliet, nodding and smiling at various intervals, leading me to pray that we had at last found someone that might lead us to Lou.
‘Well?’ I ask, when he finally puts the phone down. ‘What did she say?’
‘Frankie is alive and well, and living in… you’ll never guess?’ Noah teases.
‘Where?’ I demanded, jumping from one foot to another in anticipation.
‘Newlyn.’