‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be. You should probably just go ahead and cancel everything.’
I felt guilty for pulling him away from work like this. Flapping my hands in front of his face, I tried to get his attention, but he swatted me away like an annoying fly.
‘No, no. If he complains about rescheduling the meeting just tell him the deal’s off. I can’t work with people who aren’t willing to be flexible. Okay, sure, that’s great.’ He ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket.
‘You don’t have to cancel things for me. I don’t want you to miss anything important on my account.’
He took my hand. ‘This is important. Being here for you is important. Now stop complaining and tell me where we’re going.’
*
As usual the approach road to the ferry was heaving with cars and lorries and we hadn’t moved for at least twenty minutes. I was sick of staring at the anatomically detailed drawing of some male genitalia on the back of the large van in front and I was running out of safe conversation topics. We’d covered the weather – ‘grey and wet’. We’d covered the scenery – ‘grey and uninspiring’. I had very little left in my ‘just friends’ conversational arsenal. When the traffic in front of us began to move I almost cried out with relief.
The staff on the ferry were very efficient and quickly loaded us on board. The line of vehicles we were parked in was close to the edge of the ferry, which meant it would be easy to just get out, fling the ashes overboard and then jump straight back in the car. I didn’t want to attract the attention of the ferry staff just in case they tried to stop me.
‘Okay. Let’s get this over with.’ I unscrewed the lids of the jars and pushed open my door. Jack got out of his side and came around to help me. I scurried over to the edge, ready to dump the contents of the jars over the rail, but Jack grabbed my arm.
‘Wait, wait. What’s the hurry? Don’t you want to take some time, say goodbye? Say something?’
Did I? Should I? ‘I don’t know what to do, Jack. I’ve never done this before,’ I hissed. A few people nearby turned to look at us, the strange woman with the sweetie jars and the handsome man trying to stop her from flinging them over the side.
‘Look, I’m not sure if we’re even allowed to be doing this. I told Matt that I thought we’d need to get proper permission or something, but he’d said not to bother. Which is all fine and dandy since he’s managed to wheedle his way out of coming. Jammy bugger.’ I cursed my brother and his ancient plumbing.
‘Just hold on a sec, okay?’ Jack opened the car door and leant inside. After a few seconds I heard music playing; it was beautiful, something instrumental. Then he went round to the boot of the car and produced a bouquet of white roses, pulling two from the arrangement and bringing them to me.
‘Here you go. One for each of them.’
‘Where did you get them? That bouquet…’
‘Was for you. I was going to give it to you if you’d accepted my invitation to lunch.’ He looked nervously down at his feet.
‘Oh, Jack, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’
‘What are friends for?’
At that moment, it took all of my self-control not to throw my arms around this kind, amazing man. But I couldn’t – for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I was currently clutching two jars of ashes with no lids on. Instead I went to the rail; Jack took one of the urns from me as I took a deep breath and slowly turned the other urn over. The contents were immediately caught by the wind; they rose away from me, and all I could think to say was goodbye. Jack handed me a rose and I dropped it over the side, watching it get caught in the waves created by the ferry. It bobbed along in the muddy water by the side of the boat and then disappeared towards the back. I let out the breath that I hadn’t even been aware I was holding and reached for the second jar; the plaque on the front told me it was Mum’s. A piano began playing, the sound coming from somewhere inside the car; the music was so serene, it seemed out of place on this dirty, fume-filled ferry.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t do this?’ I said, suddenly. ‘Maybe she deserves more from me?’
‘More?’
‘Yes, more. More consideration, more care, more love. I didn’t give her enough of that, of any of it, when she was alive. Maybe I can do that now, try and make up for everything. Shit, I don’t know. Why the fuck is this so hard?’ I shouted, but my voice was lost to the wind. Jack put his hand on my shoulder.
‘Take your time, Abigail. There’s no rush. What do you want to do?’
I knew the answer to that question without having to think. ‘I want to go back,’ I said. ‘I want to go back to before everything turned to crap and I want to somehow be able to make it all better.’ I choked the words out between sobs; people were looking but I didn’t care. ‘I want to have her back so I can tell her how sorry I am for everything I said, everything I did. I want to tell her that I understand and that it’s all right.’
Jack pulled me closer to him. ‘She knows, Abigail, she always knew. She was your mum and whatever she did, she did it because she loved you.’
He held me tight while I sobbed into his shoulder, whispering words of comfort into my ear. When I had no more tears left and my sobs had turned into the occasional hiccup, he held me at arm’s length and looked at me.
‘What did she want, Abigail?’
‘This,’ I said and I shook my mother’s ashes out over the river. The wind whipped them into a whirling mass and then they were gone. I threw the rose out, further away from the side of the ferry, and watched it ride the current as we moved past. I felt cold and I wrapped my arms around myself to try and counter the chill.
‘Let’s get back in the car,’ said Jack.
I nodded. It was over; I’d done what she wanted. So why did I still feel like the worst person in the world? We got back into the car. I was shivering and my teeth were chattering hard enough to crack the enamel. Jack turned the heater on and then reached across to turn off the music.
‘Don’t turn it off. I like it.’
He sat back in his seat. Neither of us spoke for a long time; I was glad. I didn’t want to fill the space with pointless chit-chat.
‘Who is this?’ I asked, as the music ended.
‘Ludovico Einaudi. Do you like it?’
‘It’s beautiful.’
We went back to listening to the music. The sky outside had gone very dark, as if someone had thrown a blanket over the sun, and within minutes the slight drizzle that had been falling was transformed into fat raindrops. They landed heavily on the roof and the windscreen, practically drowning out the music. Jack had to shout to be heard above the noise.
‘Where the hell did this come from?’
The downpour was so heavy it was almost biblical; I could barely make out the shapes of the other cars and lorries around us. It was like being in a car wash – that feeling of being trapped by the water, you couldn’t open the doors or windows, you were in your own little universe. I loved that feeling; just for a few minutes nothing could get to you. I saw a film once, where a woman drove into a car wash but never came out. The car came out but somewhere in the middle of the rinse cycle she had just disappeared. The police were baffled, and the general feeling was that something horribly gruesome had happened to her, but I always liked to imagine a different scenario. In my version of the story, the woman in the car wash was somehow magically transported away from her ordinary life to a faraway tropical paradise. Someplace where the drinks had umbrellas in and hammocks always swung gently in the breeze. I pictured that woman on a long, white sandy beach, sipping her drinks and wearing bougainvillea flowers in her hair. Lucky girl.
By the time the rain slowed down, we’d reached the other side of the river and the ferry staff were offloading us. The rain had left everything looking brighter and cleaner; even the genitalia graffiti on the van in front had been almost washed away. Jack had hardly spoken a word in the last ten minutes, taking hi
s lead from me, I suppose, but the silence was starting to get to me a bit.
‘Thank you for today,’ I said.
‘It’s no problem. Glad to have you back – you were lost in thought there for a while. Where did you go?’ He turned slightly in his seat to face me, but I kept staring straight ahead. I couldn’t look at him.
‘Hammock. On a white sandy beach, wearing flowers in my hair and not much else.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him swallow and fidget a bit in his seat. What on earth had possessed me to add that last bit? Stop playing around, Abigail.
‘I think it’s our turn, Jack.’
His face lit up with a smile, and then he realised what I meant – the ferry master was directing us off the boat. He cleared his throat and started the car.
‘Sure, yes, of course.’
I watched his strong hands put the car into gear and manoeuvre us smoothly onto the pier.
‘I need to get back to the café. Flo will be wondering where I’ve got to and she’ll need help with the lunch rush.’ Who was I kidding? We hadn’t had a lunch rush for ages.
‘Of course. I’m assuming you don’t want to make the return trip back on the ferry?’
I shook my head; I never wanted to get back on that bloody thing ever again. Jack nodded his agreement and we drove away from the pier.
Chapter 22
As we pulled up outside the café I started to feel nervous, as if I were at the end of a first date. And what an awful first date it would have been. Hey there, good-looking man from my past, wanna go and scatter the remains of my parents? Then maybe catch a movie? What a showstopper. But we weren’t on a first date, I reminded myself, we were just friends. I looked across at Jack and I was slightly cheered by the fact that he looked nervous too. He’d switched the engine off but had returned his hands to the steering wheel, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. Was he waiting for me to invite him in? It seemed only polite after everything he’d done for me.
‘Would you like to come in, for a coffee or something?’
‘Don’t you need to get back to help Florence?’
‘Well, yes, but you can keep me company in the kitchen, if you like?’ Perhaps he doesn’t want to come and have a coffee, perhaps he’s just trying to be polite? I thought. Maybe he has better things to do? Of course he has better bloody things to do, Abby, don’t be ridiculous. ‘Don’t feel like you have to. I-I mean, I’m sure you’ve got more important stuff to be doing,’ I stammered.
‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here right now.’
A feeling of relief took me by surprise; I hadn’t wanted him to drive away and leave me, but I was damned if I was about to admit it.
Unsurprisingly the café was practically empty when we came in, just a few people sitting at tables nursing their mugs of tea or eating sandwiches. Lucy was at the counter serving a customer and she gave me a cheery wave when she saw me.
‘That’ll be three pounds fifty, please,’ she said to the lady in front of her. It was Pam, the owner of the nail salon next door.
‘Cheers, darlin’,’ she said, handing over the money then turning to me. ‘Hello, sweetheart, how’s it going? Everything all right?’
‘I’m good, thanks. How’s business?’
‘Not great, to be honest. If it wasn’t for my regulars I’d be up shit creek. It’s getting a bit hard to drum up trade round here.’
‘I know what you mean. Apart from the morning coffee rush, such as it is, and the customers we see at lunchtime, it’s dead. I’ve been having to try and find other ways to prop this place up.’
‘And what about him?’ She tipped her head in Jack’s direction; I noticed he’d taken a seat at our old table by the window. ‘Is he helping to “prop you up”?’ She put air quotes around the last bit. ‘He’s lovely. Where did you find him? Not from round ʼere, is he? Look at the suit – I can tell good quality tailoring when I see it.’ She was staring and making no attempt to hide it.
‘Actually, he is from round here. Or used to be, at least. He’s an old friend from way back.’ Her perving was starting to annoy me, but she seemed quite happy to hang around and ogle.
‘He’s gay,’ said Lucy, leaning over the counter. Pam looked disappointed.
‘Typical. All the good-looking well-dressed ones usually are.’ She let out a sigh, giving Jack one last look before she grabbed her sandwich and left.
‘Lucy! Whatever did you say that for?’
‘She was ogling your man, Mum. She needed to be warned off.’ She gave me a cheeky wink.
‘He’s not my man, don’t be daft. We’re just friends, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.’ She smiled knowingly and then grabbed a cloth to wipe down some tables. Pushing through the doors that led to the kitchen, I found Flo sitting on a stool, reading a magazine.
‘How did it go?’ she asked. I shrugged off my coat and hung it by the back door.
‘It was all right. I’m glad I didn’t go on my own.’
Flo put down her magazine and watched me as I retrieved my apron from the workbench and started putting it on. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. I knew how her mind worked.
‘This wasn’t a romantic date or anything, Flo. Just a mate helping me out.’
‘I didn’t say anything, did I?’ She tried her best to look innocent, but it wasn’t working.
‘What’s left to do, then?’ I said. Flo narrowed her eyes at me but said nothing. I started loading some dirty plates and cups into the dishwasher and then went to the sink for a cloth to wipe the workbench; it wasn’t even dirty.
‘There’s nothing to do. Lucy gave me a hand after you left, and we managed. We weren’t exactly rushed off our feet.’
‘I was going to make Jack a coffee. Do you want one?’
‘No, thanks, sweetheart. I’ve just had a cuppa and at my age if I drink too many I’ll be running to the loo every five minutes. Why don’t you take Jack upstairs for that coffee? It’s much nicer up there. Your flat doesn’t smell like bacon fat and old Lenny.’
Lenny was a regular. He lived in the care home down the road, but he came in every day and sat in the corner for a few hours, nursing a single cup of tea.
‘We can stay down here,’ I said, ‘what happens if you get busy?’
Flo raised one eyebrow at that remark. ‘Yes, well, if coachloads of hungry people suddenly descend on us, I’ll give you a shout.’
Looking back out to the café, I saw that Lucy had stopped clearing tables and was now sitting down opposite Jack. He was laughing at something she’d just said; what could she be saying to him? I hurried over to their table and interrupted them, hoping to stop Lucy before she could embarrass me.
‘What are you two talking about?’ I asked, in an overly chirpy voice.
‘Nothing. I was just filling Jack in on what goes on around here. Which isn’t much,’ she said, more to him than to me.
‘That’s not true. You’re always out with your friends.’
‘I am, you’re not.’
‘Don’t be silly. I go out, I do things, I’m just busy with this place, that’s all.’ I waved a hand around the empty café. Lucy and Jack smirked at each other. ‘Oh, shut up, the pair of you. Do you want that coffee or not?’
‘I definitely do.’ Jack stood up and took Lucy’s hand. ‘It was nice to talk to you, Lucy. I hope I’ll see you again sometime.’
Lucy shook his hand enthusiastically, grinning like an idiot. ‘Me too. I’m sure we will.’
‘Let’s go upstairs to the flat.’
‘Lead the way, Abigail.’ He placed his hand in the small of my back as we walked and I felt a jolt of electricity flicker up my spine. Stay down here, Abby, you idiotic woman, don’t go upstairs. My rational mind was engaged in an epic struggle with my heart, as I tried to suppress all thoughts of what might happen if we were completely alone upstairs. I told myself I was an adult and I’d made the decision for us to just be friends.
I knew Jack respected that decision, but I couldn’t deny that there was still something between us.
‘Everything okay?’ Jack asked.
‘Yes, of course. Everything’s fine.’ We walked across the café to the stairs that led up to my flat.
‘Have fun, you two. And don’t feel like you have to rush back. Me and Lucy can look after everything down ʼere. Can’t we, love?’ Flo called out. Lucy popped her head around the kitchen door and gave me a thumbs-up.
‘’Course we can. You two kids go and enjoy your coffee. I’ll help Flo clear up and when we’re done I’m going to Flo’s for tea.’
‘Are ya?’ said Flo.
Lucy gave her a knowing look. ‘Yes, remember?’ She came out of the kitchen and put an arm over Flo’s shoulders, leaning down to whisper something in her ear. Flo replied and whatever she said made Lucy giggle.
‘Yes, that’s right, she is,’ said Flo. ‘I thought it would be nice for us to have a bit of time together before she leaves.’
‘And then after that I’m going to see Heather. Won’t be back for ages,’ Lucy said, emphasising the ‘ages’. I chose to ignore their silliness and left the pair of them cackling away like Macbeth’s witches.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Jack as we made our way up the stairs.
‘I think that was a not so subtle attempt at a swift exit.’
‘I see.’
I could hear the smirk in his voice and I stopped abruptly and turned to face him. He was two steps below me so we were practically nose to nose.
‘Behave, Jack. Or else you can stay downstairs in the kitchen with Flo.’
He held up his hands in mock surrender. Satisfied that I’d made my point, I carried on up the stairs.
Once we were inside the flat, I started to feel a bit nervous but Jack made himself very comfortable at my kitchen table, just watching me flap about.
‘Coffee or tea?’
‘Tea would be great.’
‘I just need to find the teapot. Why don’t you go through into the living room and I’ll be with you in a second?’ Please go into the other room and stop looking at me like that, I thought.
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 24