by Emma Jackson
Chapter Six
I was grateful for the mellow buzz of the whisky when I stepped out onto the high street. I’m sure it was half the reason I wasn’t heading straight home and hiding under the covers after the epic day I’d had to deal with…also probably why I felt hungry. The air was scented with smoke and spice and the irresistible allure of pig fat. My stomach growled in response and I began a slow walk around the street to try to find the hog-roast stall, skirting as close to the bonfires as I could but not really gaining any heat as each was surrounded by a circle of people.
The drumming performance had long since ended but there was usually more than one band playing into the night and as I went to cross over from the memorial island, a group of musicians began heading in a pack down the centre of the street, their instruments on their backs.
‘Miss Keenan,’ one of them, a tall teenage boy with curly brown hair, called to me. He paused, letting everyone file past him and waving to me with his free hand – the other holding on to the strap of his guitar. It took me a second to recognise him, but it was the use of my surname that clicked it in place for me.
‘Callum?’ I’d given him guitar lessons when I was still living at home, doing my music tutor training. It’d been six years ago; he’d been thirteen. No wonder it was hard to place him. A little bubble of pride welled up in my chest. ‘You’re still playing.’
He nodded emphatically and came over. ‘I am. I loved your lessons. I’m in a band now. We’re about to do a set here.’
‘That’s brilliant.’ I studied his face and saw a pinch of tension around his eyes as he glanced down the street to where his bandmates were nearing the small stage. ‘Have you played many gigs yet?’
‘A few.’ He let out a shaky breath. ‘Fewer people than this normally though. Are you staying for a while? Will you come and listen to us?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ I told him, and he smiled again.
‘Great, I’d better run.’
‘Of course, go, go. Break a leg.’
He jogged off through the crowd, his guitar banging on his back, and I took a deep breath. I’d taught him for a year, and he’d been lovely and enthusiastic, and I really, really hoped his nerves didn’t get the better of him. I didn’t know what it was like to have children obviously, but I imagined being a teacher was sometimes like being a parent. You did your best to teach them and it was fun and sometimes hard work and then when they were ready to go off and do things independently a bit of your heart went along with them.
For the first time in months, I admitted to myself that I missed the tutoring. Working in that music shop, demonstrating on instruments to customers and advising them had been salt in the wound and I’d go home itching to play but also so frustrated that I only had a tiny sliver of my day to dedicate to it. Whenever Peter caught me being grumpy about it, he told me that he never understood why I’d taken the job anyway. He’d said he would support me to be a music tutor and he just wanted to see me happy.
But that wasn’t how he acted. The stress of the financial trouble he’d got himself into and was trying to hide from me leaked out constantly. Looking back, I was always getting mixed messages from him; he’d say one thing but act a different way. Not a recipe for a great relationship. And I think all that confusion and resentment infected my love of teaching. Trying to figure out the roots of the problem and fix it so I could move forward with my life felt like trying to unpick a knotted up bunch of Christmas lights. I couldn’t work out where the ends were, whether I was making more of a mess of it as I pulled, breaking the lights as I went along.
Perhaps seeing a student perform was what I needed. I shouldn’t have been staying even later at the festival. I really needed to try and get back to the hotel by the time Marvin was closing up the bar and with any luck my mum would be arriving back soon, but just a couple of songs couldn’t hurt. I’d get something to eat and wander down once they were set up and started playing.
I walked around the stalls along one side of the street and managed to snag one of the last carvings off the hog roast, wrapped in a bun with apple sauce. It was a heavenly mix of salt and fat and sour-sweet sauce.
‘No, Joseph, I told you we can’t buy it. It’s Christmas in a couple of days. You’ll be getting presents then and not throwaway tacky things like that.’
I looked up from a jewellery stall as I recognised Henry’s voice close by and saw him and his son a couple of feet away from a table with novelty, flashing reindeer antlers.
‘But look, you get a nose with it too.’ I could barely hear Joseph’s croaky voice, although he was obviously better enough now to be out but bundled up in a thick scarf and hat.
‘It’s rubbish. I can’t afford to waste my money on junk that will just get used a couple of times before it’s chucked away.’
‘Everyone at school got one when I was sick.’ Joseph heaved a sigh and coughed into his hand, giving his dad a puppy-eyed look.
‘No.’ Henry was firm and grim. ‘We need to go home. We’ve stayed out too long as it is. Come on.’
‘Can we just look over there?’ Joseph pulled Henry across the road and I moved along the mingling line of people to the table they’d been standing at. It was a fiver a go for each of the reindeer antler sets, which was a bit of a rip-off and I could understand Henry’s reluctance, but I also remembered what it was like to miss out on stuff when you were a kid.
I finished off the last bite of my roll and bought one on impulse, hurrying through the crowd to catch up with them before they left.
‘Hiya, Henry, Joseph.’ I found them by the antique shop with the big Christmas display in the window.
‘Hi, Beth.’ Joseph smiled at me and looked at his dad, but Henry just gave me a tight nod.
‘It’s good to see you’re feeling better.’ I brought out the antlers from behind my back. ‘Listen, I bought these earlier, but I think the headband is a bit small for grown-ups. Would you like it?’
His eyes lit up and he reached for them, but Henry’s hand came down between us.
‘No. He doesn’t want them.’ His voice was cold. He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice further. ‘We’re not charity cases for you to pity. Who do you think you are?’ The curl of his lip made me swallow hard. ‘I want Joseph to understand the value of things and working hard,’ he continued. ‘Not everyone can be handed things on a plate by their parents and I’m glad. It means he won’t grow up to be entitled and spoiled.’ He moved away again, taking Joseph by the arm and turning away. ‘Come on. We’re going home now and no arguments.’
I watched them go, standing in an awkward spot on the edge of the pavement, so I was jostled by people moving past me. The little teeth in the headband of the reindeer antlers dug into my cold hands and I willed the pain to keep the tears at bay. My toes were going numb, the hog-roast sandwich sat like a lead weight in my stomach and I wished I could just go home but I’d promised to watch my former student play, so I had to stay for a little bit. They were nearly ready to begin their set and some people were gathering in a semicircle at a distance from the stage.
I wasn’t really seeing, just scanning the crowd, wondering how to keep myself busy while I waited, when my gaze snagged on someone familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Nick Cartwright. He was standing on his own just like me, on the other side of the road, watching the festivities but not actually part of them. It would’ve been easy for me to avoid him, just slip into the crowd and disappear, since he wasn’t a member of my fan club either, and yet… I couldn’t quite manage to take my eyes off him.
He was wearing a tailored charcoal coat much more suitable for the weather than his leather jacket from yesterday. But it was old, rumpled, a touch faded; it looked supremely comfortable and warm. He had the collar lifted so it cut a line across his neck and jaw – and between that and the glasses and windswept hair, he looked like…like a noir film poster or something: poetic and sensitive and handsome and also kind of…bruised.
; He turned his head, as though he felt me watching him and his gaze landed on me like a spotlight.
I waved and began making my way over to him before I’d really thought it through. He may have been acting like I was an anonymous member of staff earlier, showing that same arrogance as his brother, but I could be the bigger person. Maybe what Stephen had told me about them losing their mum this year was making me read more into it than I should have, but irrespective of whether he was feeling sad at that precise moment or not, it wouldn’t hurt to be a friendly face in a crowd of strangers.
‘Hi.’ I joined him near the inset doorway to the greengrocer’s.
‘Hi. Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ I blinked at his soft tone and frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
He lifted his shoulders, hands still in his pockets. ‘You looked sad…and you’re supposed to be out with Stephen. His dates don’t usually end so early in the evening. I didn’t expect to see you until the morning.’
My eyebrows rose up to meet my hairline. ‘Is that a fact now?’
‘Uh, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I just meant at breakfast. At the hotel. Because you work there. Not because it was inevitable you were going to spend the night with him. Which is completely your choice obviously.’ He groaned and scrubbed his hand back into his hair, giving it an admonishing tug.
‘Are you okay, Nick?’ I laughed. This was a completely different side to him. He was still being tactless but without the grumpiness, which I could now acknowledge probably stemmed from extenuating circumstances. Without that edge, it was almost sweet, rather than annoying.
‘Yeah…’ He blew out a breath when he realised I wasn’t offended and released his hair. If he spent all his time tugging at it like that no wonder it was such a mess. ‘I’m not the charming brother obviously.’
I stopped laughing but my smile stayed. ‘Charm is sometimes overrated. I find myself warming to the idea of awkward honesty lately.’
His vivid blue gaze caught mine and held for a long moment. My breathing stilled until he tore his eyes away to look down at his feet. Clearly it was my turn to drop the clangers again – what had I just unintentionally implied? And had he picked up on it?
He cleared his throat and looked back at me. ‘How did it go then?’
‘Maybe you should ask Stephen about that.’
‘There’s two sides to every story.’
‘There’s no real story though. He was fine, a perfect gent…’ I pressed my lips together and grabbed the zipper at the top of my jacket, tugging on it, before I elaborated. My own hesitation annoyed me. There was no reason not to tell him. It was the truth and Stephen was likely to fill him in anyway. ‘I shouldn’t have gone on the date in the first place. I just got out of a long-term relationship. I’m not ready to unleash myself on the dating world yet,’ I added lightly.
His eyes studied my face and a hint of a smile crooked up at the corner. But rather than asking why I’d said yes, as his brother had, he just nodded and said, ‘Fair enough.’
A group of middle-aged women came down the road, arms linked and laughing, their cheeks rosy, and we both stepped back, inadvertently moving into the seclusion of the doorway. We were only inches apart and I could feel myself swaying towards him. That coat really did look snuggly and inviting.
‘I left him at the Rose and Crown with a bottle of very nice whisky, if you wanted to find him,’ I volunteered, trying to get my mind back on the conversation.
‘We had dinner earlier – I think we’ve spent enough time together for one day. He’ll text me if he wants company.’
‘D’you not get on very well?’ I couldn’t help asking – having none myself, I had an unhealthy fascination with sibling relationships.
‘We do. Normally. There are just a couple of things we’re disagreeing on at the moment. And we haven’t seen each other much recently.’ His frown was deep, making a crease between his eyebrows like a shadow from the bridge of his glasses. ‘I’m away a lot and this year’s been…tricky.’
This could have been the point where I offered my condolences about his mum but the fact that he’d purposefully avoided saying it made me hold my tongue. What I actually wanted to do was lift him out of his worry. I wanted to see him smile; a full-on, open, happy smile.
‘Look at us, we’re actually having a semi-ordinary conversation. Have we declared peace now?’
‘Did I miss the bit when we were at war?’ He tilted his head and his mouth crept up again at the corners, but it wasn’t a proper smile – not yet.
‘Maybe. You did say you were jet-lagged but you must remember the incident with the angel. You were pretty miffed.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ A hint of a blush touched his cheeks again. I’d always thought of cuteness being the opposite of hotness but with every hint of vulnerable sweetness Nick revealed I found my opinion changing. ‘I was going to tell Stephen but just thinking about it made me realise what a petty moron I was being.’ He nodded with sudden, definitive strength. ‘So, I guess the answer’s yes. If you’re prepared to forgive me, it’s a truce.’
‘You’re forgiven. Truce.’ I offered him my hand instinctively, forgetting the internal upheaval shaking hands with him had caused last time.
But it was too late because he reached out and took it. This time I noticed how long his fingers were, how they wrapped around mine so easily and gently, the pocket of warmth trapped in between our palms and how it penetrated my skin and travelled up my arm.
Before he let go, he brought his other hand up too, squeezing mine with both of his for a moment before he let go. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head.
‘Your hands are freezing; don’t you have any gloves?’
‘I do,’ I said eagerly, juggling the spurned reindeer antlers as I dug the gloves from my coat pocket and slid them on. Sure, Beth, cover up the evidence – that will make the horniness disappear. ‘I was eating one of those hog-roast rolls, didn’t want to get woolly fluff in it.’
‘I see. Definitely worth the sacrifice of a limb.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose with his knuckle and pointed down at the reindeer antlers. ‘That explains the gloves, but why aren’t you wearing your headgear?’
‘Impulse buy.’ I smiled wryly. ‘I don’t think I’m brave enough to wear them.’
He raised one eyebrow and gave me an assessing look. ‘Not sure I believe that.’
‘That I just bought them—’
‘No. That you’re too self-conscious to wear them.’
‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure how to take that. It felt like a compliment – it was a good thing not to be self-conscious wasn’t it? Well…I thought it was anyway, so I jammed them on my head, pressing the button on the side to turn them on and see what he really thought. ‘What d’you think?’ He pressed his lips together and studied them, the red lights reflecting in his glasses. ‘You want to make an excuse and leave now, don’t you?’
‘No.’
I raised a dubious eyebrow, and his mouth curled up a little further than the last time.
‘No. Of course not,’ he insisted.
I’m not sure if it was the whisky or just fatigue kicking in but my determination to get him to smile doubled down. As my gaze travelled over his face, I noticed a sprig of green leaves and white berries fastened to the archway above his head. Mistletoe: my heart sped up. I wouldn’t have imagined a greengrocer’s doorway to be the most romantic of places but I had to admit, the thought of pointing it out to Nick and landing a kiss on him, was very, very tempting.
Still, we had only just called a truce. That would have been fast work, even for me. I’d let myself be caught up in a whirlwind with Peter, full of that same rush of lust that kept assailing me whenever I was near Nick. I needed to learn to check my impulsiveness.
And then the band struck up, giving me a perfect distraction tactic: a medley of strings striking a drawn-out introduction chord before drums and a gravelly voice joined it, and the music came toget
her and descended, gathering speed, as they plunged into the first song of their set.
‘I’m going to watch the band. D’you want to join me?’
He followed me as I wheedled my way to the front and centre of the crowd near the stage, finding a spot to stand in right next to me.
I spotted Callum to the left and behind the lead singer, but he didn’t notice me. He was frowning down at his guitar with a look of concentration I recognised well; shaggy hair hanging over his face while his fingers flew and one of his feet stomped to the rhythm.
I clasped my hands together and bit my lip. That little bubble of joy was making its presence felt in my chest and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to be in danger of crying again, but for a much better reason than Henry’s bad opinion. Callum was good. He was really good, and the band were fantastic too. We were close enough that the drumbeats were skull-rattling and with the jingling of the bells and fiddling of fiddles it was like being brainwashed by Christmas…in a good way.
I had to move. It was too much. My feet started tapping and then I started clapping. I only realised my response was getting a bit exuberant when I elbowed Nick in the chest.
‘Sorry.’ I turned to look at him and he was already watching me.
He shook his head, easily dismissing it and then he smiled and oh, it was so worth the wait. It crept up slowly and then drew wide, wide, wider still, white teeth and blue eyes warm and crinkling at the edges.
‘You can’t keep still,’ he said. ‘You’re like a toddler who needs a wee.’
My laugh was another big release of built-up tension. ‘I just like dancing.’
His smile stayed there, blinding me and making it impossible for me to turn my head away, and then he broke his gaze from mine, looking down at the ground, darting a glance at the people nearby. I stopped clapping along to the music, trying to figure out what I’d said now. ‘Nick, are you all right?’
His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath, falling into place further back, his spine straighter – it was like he grew another inch in the seconds before he looked up at me again. He leaned his head down nearer to mine and his warm breath gusted against my cheek, sending a tingle down my neck.