“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”
“Actually I have. Yes. Because I don’t want the bookshop to go. And I don’t want you to miss the opportunity to make a few quid out of Mendip, either.”
“Are you sure he’ll agree to it? He’ll be furious if I don’t sell, surely? He’s not going to want me to make money out of him.”
Jackson grinned. “If he doesn’t have that bit of car park, he’ll end up losing money. He’ll give in eventually. I know him. He’s more interested in profit than pride.”
“He’s not going to be very happy with you, is he?”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to work for him anymore. I’m giving in my notice. I’m setting up on my own.” He grinned. “In fact, you can be my first client, if you like.”
“Ah. So there is something in it for you?” Emilia folded her arms. She looked around the shop. It was a disaster. It smelled terrible and she’d had to pull up most of the carpet. She couldn’t imagine order restored.
“You’re going to have to empty the place anyway, to repair the damage. So while you’re at it, you can get it replastered. Do a bit of rewiring. Put in some smart lighting and sound . . .”
Emilia looked at him evenly. “Why should I trust you? You’ve already admitted trying to stitch me up.”
Jackson put up his hands. “Fair enough.” There was silence for a moment.
“How long would it take?” asked Emilia.
—
Mendip was livid when Emilia told him she wasn’t going to sell.
“I know we shook on it,” she said. “But I think I was in shock. I wasn’t well. And now that I’ve spoken to the insurers, and seen what can be done, I think I can salvage things. But I do have a proposal. Which I think will benefit both of us.”
She tried hard not to laugh when she outlined the deal. Mendip sputtered with outrage.
“A hundred grand? For a few square feet of tarmac?”
“A very key few square feet. That will give you four parking spaces.” Emilia was crisp. “Give me fifty grand cash up front and it’s yours by Christmas.”
She wasn’t sure where she’d got her negotiating skills. Certainly not from Julius. But the adrenaline gave her a massive buzz, and to her delight Mendip capitulated eventually.
Andrea was openmouthed with admiration when she heard the details. Even though Mendip was her client, she was jubilant.
“Don’t feel too guilty about it,” she told Emilia. “Mendip drives a hard bargain. It’s good for him for the tables to be turned.”
Emilia smiled. “He’ll do well out of the glove factory. I don’t feel guilty at all.”
—
Mendip was surprisingly calm when he heard that Jackson was leaving him.
“I knew I’d lose you one day,” he told him. “You just had to find the balls.”
“I’m doing a quote for the bookshop refurb,” Jackson told him, hoping he wouldn’t put two and two together.
Mendip nodded and held out his hand. “You’re a good lad,” he said. “You’ll be all right. I’m sorry to lose you.” He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t mind using you. For a bit of subcontracting.”
Jackson walked Wolfie home that night, filled with glee. Things had worked out even better than he expected. He had his first job and a promise of more work. And it was all on his terms.
“Would you babysit for Finn tomorrow night?” he asked his mum. “I want to take Mia out for a meal.”
“Of course, love,” said Cilla, sensing a change in her son. Sometimes she had worried he would go under and lose his way completely, but he was getting it together.
—
The next day Jackson told Mia he had something to talk to her about.
“I need to tell you over dinner. I’ve booked a table at the Peasebrook Arms.”
She was reluctant, but she finally agreed.
“What’s this all about, then?” she asked him, brittle with wariness.
“I’m setting up on my own. I’ve left Mendip. Finally. It’s going to be tough, but I think in the long term I’m going to be better off.”
“Oh. Is that it?”
“It’s a pretty big deal. For me.” Jackson was disappointed she wasn’t more impressed.
She sighed. Jackson frowned. He thought she had tears in her eyes.
“It’s not something to cry about. Don’t worry. I’ll still give you your money.”
This wasn’t going quite how he expected. He’d wanted to ask her to start again. But obviously all she was worried about was where the money was going to come from. She wasn’t interested . . .
She was crying.
“What? What is it, Mia?”
“It’s okay. I just thought—you were going to tell me you were seeing someone else.”
“No!” Jackson frowned. “Not for a minute.”
“Good.” Mia nodded. “Because I don’t think I could handle that.”
“Me seeing someone else? Why would you even care?”
Mia looked down at the tablecloth.
“I—I miss you.”
“Miss me?”
She nodded. A big tear rolled down her cheek.
“I’m sorry for throwing you out. It was wrong.”
“What?” One glass of wine on an empty stomach—did she know what she was saying?
“I was too hard on you, Jackson. But I was scared. Being a mum—being a mum really freaked me out. I know I was difficult. Impossible. Neurotic.”
“You weren’t that bad!” Why was he fibbing? She’d made him feel like the worst husband and father on earth.
He was fibbing because getting Mia back was more important than proving a point. He was fibbing because life was too short and he had been irresponsible and let her down, occasionally. But he’d learned, and he loved his son with a passion, and more than anything, he realized he wanted Finn to have a family. The family he already had.
“I thought you hated me,” said Mia.
“What?” Jackson was horrified. “No!”
“I thought you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
He looked at her. “I thought you hated me.”
Mia shook her head. “I hated myself.”
“Me, too.” He remembered the feelings of self-loathing after one too many beers.
The two of them looked at each other.
“Come back,” said Mia as the waiter handed them the dessert menu.
“On one condition,” said Jackson.
“What?”
“You have some banoffee pie. You love banoffee pie. You’ve lost way too much weight.”
—
They walked back home, hand in hand.
Mia unlocked the door and led him inside. Inside his home—their home.
“Come here,” said Jackson, and she walked into his embrace.
Jackson stared over her head as he held her. He saw the big black-and-white photos they’d had taken of Finn when he was tiny. The coatrack, with the white coat he’d bought her the Christmas before he left. He heard Finn bound down the stairs and saw him leap off the bottom step, then come to a standstill as he saw his mum and dad in an embrace.
“Mum?” He stepped forward, protective, and Jackson felt pride. He held out an arm.
“Come here, you,” he said, and for a few moments the three of them stood together in a group hug.
Cilla appeared in the doorway of the lounge.
“You’d better drop me home,” she said with a smile. “And pick up your toothbrush.”
On the way home, Jackson asked Cilla how she would feel about selling her caravan.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I’ve started looking round for places to do up. If we sold our place, and you sold yours, we could get
somewhere nice and big. Out in the country. You could move in with us . . .”
Cilla looked very pleased with the idea. “Do you think Mia would like that?”
“I’d have to talk to her about it. But I think she’d love a built-in babysitter.”
Cilla and Mia had always got on. It might work well. They could go out dancing again, him and Mia. Finn would love having his granny to look after him. And maybe, just maybe, there would be another . . . They would do it right next time, and with Cilla to help . . .
“On one condition,” said Cilla. “You ask her to marry you.”
“Mum!”
“That’s what she wants. You mark my words. Security. That’s where you went wrong.”
Jackson shook his head, grinning.
It wasn’t such a stupid idea. And the thing with Cilla was she was usually right.
23
A week later, Thomasina made preparations for that evening’s dinner: a young couple that had not long ago had a baby wanted to celebrate a birthday.
She was in Peasebrook for half past eight, collecting her meat from the butcher, selecting the best vegetables from the farmers’ market. She walked out of the market and back onto the high street. She remembered what Lauren had told her, about Jem wondering where she’d been. It was rude of her, really, not to get her cheese from him. She would go in, she decided. What harm could it do?
Jem was there. There were three of them serving, and the queue was quite long. He grinned at her from the end of the counter, but the timing was wrong and she ended up with someone else taking her order. But she felt better that he’d smiled.
She bought a trio of French cheeses: one soft, one hard, and one blue. She was just putting it all into her basket when Jem appeared beside her and handed her a brown paper bag.
“Here,” he said, putting it in her basket. Then he shot back behind the counter and turned to the next customer.
Thomasina left the shop and starting walking home. Halfway there she couldn’t wait any longer. She lifted the bag out. Inside was a Coeur de Neufchâtel, a tiny white heart-shaped cheese. She smiled, tucked it back into the basket, and carried on walking.
She didn’t stop smiling until she got back to her cottage, where Lauren was ready and waiting: she’d prepped the kitchen and it was gleaming, all the utensils ready and waiting. There was no time to mull over what had happened. They divided the work up between them. Lauren made the celeriac soup with a gloriously rich chicken stock she’d prepared earlier in the week, and she strained and sieved it until it was silky smooth, then set it aside and fried some crispy strips of pancetta to put on top.
The main course was a loin of venison, coated in a mushroom duxelles and wrapped in puff pastry. With it went little copper pots of potato gratin, sliced paper thin on a mandoline, and a smooth cauliflower puree.
Dessert was a delicate pear mousse, light and fluffy, with a warm rich chocolate sauce in the middle.
By half past four, everything that could be prepared in advance had been, the kitchen was cleaned, and Thomasina put the finishing touches on the dining room.
At quarter to five, the phone rang. It was the husband who had booked the table. Their baby was coming down with a cold. They couldn’t leave it with a babysitter. They would pay, of course, but they wouldn’t be coming.
Thomasina put the phone down. She looked at the table for two and then into the kitchen, where her perfectly wrapped loin of venison was chilling. And she knew this moment was a test. She knew that if she didn’t do what she thought she might that she would stay on her own forever, that she would spend the rest of her life cooking for other people’s birthdays and anniversaries. That she would watch them gaze into each other’s eyes. That she would never look at anyone else across her own table.
She deserved to look into someone else’s eyes. She knew she did.
“What are you going to do?” said Lauren. “It’s a terrible waste.”
“Wait there,” said Thomasina.
She walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of wine from the bottle she used for cooking. She drained it in one gulp. Then she dialed the cheese shop. It might be closed. She didn’t know what time it shut. It was ten past five. It could easily shut at five. The phone rang and rang. She was about to hang up when it was answered.
“Peasebrook Cheese.”
“May I speak to Jem?”
“I think he might have gone, love. We shut at five.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t ask for his mobile number. She just couldn’t. “Never mind.”
Disappointment, she discovered, was cold and lumpy and stuck in your chest. Like leftover tapioca.
“No—hold on. He’s just coming out of the storeroom. Jem—phone call for you.”
She heard the phone being put down, and voices and footsteps. She could hang up and Jem would never know. She would spare herself the humiliation. She imagined that would be as hot and burny as the disappointment had been cold.
“Hello?” Jem’s cheery voice came down the line, and she felt his warmth. It gave her courage. She wanted to feel that warmth again, in person. She craved it.
“It’s Thomasina,” she said. “From A Deux.”
“Oh!” Jem sounded delighted. “Hello.”
Thomasina summoned up the last of her courage. “The thing is, I’ve had a cancellation. Ten minutes ago. For tonight’s dinner. Which is all prepped and ready for the oven. I can’t freeze any of it, really. So I wondered . . .”
“You want to return the cheese?”
“No! Of course not. No . . .”
“Ah. You want me to come and help you eat it?” asked Jem.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “I was only joking.”
“There’s celeriac soup and loin of venison and pear mousse.”
“I don’t need persuading,” he said. “What time?”
Thomasina was almost struck dumb. He was coming for dinner. And he sounded pleased about the idea. What on earth had she done?
“Half seven?” she managed. “For eight o’clock.”
“I’ll be there! I’ll bring some wine. See you later.”
He rang off and Thomasina stared at the wall with the phone still in her hand.
Lauren was in the doorway, grinning at her.
“What are you going to wear?”
“I’m not going to dress up.”
Lauren pointed at her. “Oh yes you are. You wait there.”
She came running back in twenty minutes later with a bulging makeup bag, a magnifying mirror, a hot brush, and a bag full of jewelry.
“Come on,” she said. “Upstairs.”
Thomasina followed her into her bedroom obediently.
“Right,” she said, sitting Thomasina down in front of the mirror and handing her a toweling headband. “Put that on.”
Thomasina protested. “I don’t want too much makeup on!”
Lauren ignored her. She squeezed a blob of foundation onto the back of her left hand, then started dabbing it onto Thomasina’s face until she was satisfied she had a perfect base.
“There,” she said. “Not an imperfection to be seen. Not that you have many—you’ve got lovely skin.”
Thomasina thought she looked as if she had a mask on, but she didn’t say anything. She sat in silence as Lauren pulled out endless palettes of color and various brushes. She applied a thick black line of eyeliner to Thomasina’s eyelids, then colored in the sockets with a sparkling charcoal gray. She colored in her eyebrows, taking them up into a graceful arch, then applied a row of individual false eyelashes. She highlighted her cheeks with pale coral. Her mouth was outlined in pale pink, then colored in nude, with a little shimmer on the bow and the plumpest part of her lower lip.
Then she took the hot brush and worked her way through Thomasina’s hair until
it was straight and glossy, then back-combed it and pinned it into a half-up, half-down tumble. She put two large silver hoops in her ears.
“What are you going to wear?”
Thomasina shrugged. “Just my usual black trousers and T-shirt.”
Lauren shook her head. “No, you’re not.”
She stood in front of Thomasina’s wardrobe and flipped through everything, tutting and sighing. When she found something that was to her satisfaction, she put it over her arm.
“Okay,” she said. “I think we can improvise with this lot.”
Lauren rolled up a stretchy black skirt until it was just above the knee, then put a red cardigan over it, leaving the first two buttons undone, then tied a black patent belt taken off an old dress around Thomasina’s waist. Then she cut the feet off a pair of black tights and made her put them on with a pair of black ballet flats.
Then she let Thomasina stand in front of the mirror.
Thomasina clapped her hand over her mouth.
“You look amazing,” said Lauren.
“That’s not me,” said Thomasina, and made to do the buttons of the cardigan up. Lauren slapped her hand away.
“Leave it,” she commanded. “You look totally gorgeous. Like a French—”
“Tart?” suggested Thomasina, looking at herself from all angles.
“No! Film star.”
“I’m going to feel really uncomfy. I won’t be able to cook in this.”
“You’re not going to cook.”
“What?”
“I’m cooking tonight. I’ve watched you often enough.”
“I was going to send you home.”
“Uh-uh. You’re going to be the guest. I’m going to do all the work. If I get stuck, you can tell me what to do, but I don’t want you to lift a finger. I’ve seen you run around people so often, making sure everything is perfect and they are having a great time. It’s your turn for once.”
“But I don’t know how to behave like . . .” Thomasina pointed helplessly at her reflection. The stranger with the big eyes looked back at her.
“Just be yourself.”
“But I’m so boring.”
“No, you’re not.” Lauren shook her head. “You’re amazing. You’re inspiring. Okay, so you’re not a loudmouth show-off like me. But at least what you say is interesting.”
How to Find Love in a Bookshop Page 29