On the day of Mick Gillespie’s book launch, Thomasina was in turmoil.
She had the perfect excuse to go to the cheese shop, but she felt hot under the armpits every time she thought about seeing Jem. Why couldn’t she just sweep in and order what she wanted with confidence? Why did she feel so awkward? Jem was kind and lovely—what on earth could he do to make her feel bad?
She stood outside the shop, looking in the window at the display, golden cheddar and creamy Stilton threaded with navy blue and bright white Brie. She kept half an eye on the queue inside until she could be sure that she would be served by Jem.
He gave a broad grin when he saw her, and her heart lifted.
“What can I get for you?”
“I’m doing some Irish-themed canapés. For the Mick Gillespie evening at the bookshop,” she told him.
“Wow. Well, we’ve got quite a selection of Irish cheese.”
“I want some Cashel Blue, for some baby tartlets,” she told him. “And some Gubbeen, so I can make little cheesy choux puffs.”
“Sounds great.” Jem lifted a wheel of Cashel Blue out of the refrigerator and grabbed the end of the cheese wire. “What else are you doing?”
“Potato cakes with smoked salmon. And Clonakilty black pudding with panfried apple on skewers. And miniature chocolate and Guinness cakes.”
“Wonderful.” Jem handed her the two cheeses, wrapped in wax paper with the shop’s logo printed on it.
There was a silence. The ticket was burning a hole in her pocket. Emilia had given it to her. She wanted desperately to give it to him, but there were too many customers. She couldn’t summon up the courage.
“Twelve pounds seventy,” Jem said eventually.
She paid him quickly and scurried off, scolding herself for her cowardice. Maybe she should go back? Order some more cheese? It was too late. It would look too obvious. He would know she didn’t have the nerve the first time. Why oh why was she so wretchedly wet?
She got back home and started to instruct Lauren on how to prepare the canapés.
“I’m going to teach you how to make flaky pastry,” she told her. “It’s time-consuming, but it’s worth it.”
The two of them spent the afternoon rubbing butter into flour, kneading the dough, rolling it out, cutting up cubes of butter, folding the dough, and rolling it out again. The mixture was smooth and soothing beneath Thomasina’s fingers, and Lauren was a natural pastry maker with an innate understanding of the process: her results were as neat and professional as Thomasina’s. As she looked at the results of their afternoon’s work, Thomasina felt slightly better about herself.
Thank God for cooking, she thought. Cooking never let her down. It was what she did best, so she should focus on that and forget about Jem. She didn’t have to risk making a fool of herself.
—
“You look fantastic,” Jackson told Mia, and it was true. She did. She was only in jeans and a silk paisley top, but she looked much better than she did in all the fitness gear she wore these days, which just made her look like a shiny stick insect.
She’d been wary when Jackson had flourished the tickets. She had looked at him as if it was some sort of trap. He’d hoped she couldn’t resist, especially as he had arranged for his mother to come and babysit for Finn. He was pretty sure that, except for her ridiculous training sessions, Mia hadn’t been out for a long time.
“Are you guys going on a date?” asked Finn. He was in his pajamas, all ready for Cilla to put him to bed.
Jackson didn’t know what to reply. Mia put him straight.
“No. We just happen to be going to the same thing. So we’re going together.”
“Cool.”
Outside, on the way to the bookshop, Jackson turned to her.
“So this isn’t a date, then?”
Mia made a face. “No. That would be weird.”
“Oh.” Jackson was a bit stung by her vehemence.
“We’re going to a thing together,” Mia reiterated. “But not together together.”
Funny, thought Jackson, I thought I’d bought tickets for something I thought you’d like and invited you out. It was typical of Mia to completely recalibrate the gesture and throw out the original intention. But then that was partly what he loved about her. Her relentless goalpost moving.
“You’d be annoyed if I buggered off to the pub, though, wouldn’t you?”
Mia sighed. “Go if you want. When has what annoys me stopped you from doing anything?”
“I don’t want to go to the pub.”
“Then don’t!” She looked exasperated.
Jackson kept quiet. They were going round in circles, like they always had done toward the end. He wished they could go back to the beginning, when they couldn’t get enough of each other, when he made her laugh and she made him weak with longing. Maybe that kind of passion never lasted?
They arrived at the bookshop. Inside, it was heaving. There were silver moons hanging from the ceiling. And behind a table, a figure with white hair behind a stack of books.
“Mick Gillespie,” breathed Mia. “Actual Mick Gillespie.”
“He’s about ninety-seven!” Honestly, thought Jackson. There was no accounting for women, or pleasing them.
—
The window of Nightingale Books took June’s breath away. She’d seen it in progress, but now that it was all lit up from the inside, it looked incredible. She pulled her coat around her, standing in the chill air. The window display was crammed with shots from his most famous films. Fifty years of Mick Gillespie playing heroes and villains and sex symbols and icons. He was an icon himself. And amid them hung silver moons, the symbol from the film that had made his name. The Silver Moon . . .
It was almost a shrine.
There were thirty-seven of them in the window. She counted. Thirty-seven Mick Gillespies. And she shivered. He could still do that to her.
Just before she stepped over the threshold, she stood and measured how she felt. It still hurt, even now. That dull tug deep inside her, the one that never left. She imagined it as a tangle of scar tissue that would never be allowed to heal.
She was here tonight as a guest, not a member of staff, because she still wasn’t technically a member of staff—she just did what she could to help as she was needed. She refused to take payment, so Emilia had insisted tonight was for her enjoyment. Mel and Dave were manning the till, and Thomasina and Lauren were passing round the food and drinks.
They’d sold seventy tickets—the shop wouldn’t fit many more—and Mick was sitting behind a wide table, surrounded by copies of his book. Bea had made a throne for him to sit on: a golden high-backed chair that was to be the shop’s special signing chair for visiting authors. At the back of the shop, Marlowe was playing Irish tunes on his violin, adding to the atmosphere. “I used to spend my summers in Dingle,” he told Emilia when she’d asked him if he would play. “Dick Mack’s and Foxy John’s. Not that I can remember much about it. I lived on Guinness and salt-and-vinegar crisps.”
His playing reminded June of the tiny pub in the village they’d filmed in where the locals had often taken over in the evening, entertaining them with their fiddles and whistles and drums.
June took a Silver Moon cocktail: she wasn’t sure what was in it, but it tasted delicious and there was a glittery moon perched on the side of each glass. She needed a drink to take the edge off her jitters, although she wasn’t quite sure how to identify what she was feeling, or even what she was expecting from the evening. Just to be breathing the same air as him felt momentous.
She picked up a copy of the autobiography and joined the queue for it to be signed. June never usually queued for anything . . . The shop was buzzing, and she felt pleased. Julius would be so proud of what Emilia had done. She’d rolled up her sleeves and got on with making the bookshop work. She was there, behind the counter, smiling and laughing with the customers he had built up over the years, but also the new ones who’d been drawn in by the lure of a legend. June hoped more than anything that things would fall into place and the shop would be a success.
It was her turn. Mick Gillespie looked up at her, his eyes as dazzling as they ever had been, his smile making you feel special. June knew that smile well enough. And as she smiled back and handed him her book open at the flyleaf for him to sign, there was no recognition. Not a flicker that he had any memory of her.
“Who will I sign it to?” he asked.
“To June,” she said, waiting for a moment, but there was no reaction. He wrote her name and signed his with a flourish before handing it back to her with another smile. He was so practiced. She managed a smile back, although inside she felt fury. How could she still be furious? It was a lifetime ago.
She joined the till to pay.
“Don’t be daft,” said Emilia. “There’s no way I’m going to make you pay after everything you’ve done for me.”
At the back of the shop, Mick Gillespie turned to Marlowe with a glint in his eye.
“Do you know ‘Whiskey in the Jar’?”
“Of course.”
“Come on, then, boy. Let’s show them how it’s done.” And he stood up, and as Marlowe struck up the tune on his violin, Mick began to sing. And the delighted crowd gathered round and clapped their hands.
“As I was goin’ over the far-famed Kerry mountains . . .”
June abruptly turned and left the shop. After all, she’d heard him sing that song herself, all those years ago in a tiny pub with a dirt floor and an equally appreciative audience.
—
Jem stood aside to let the woman out of the bookshop. She hurried past him, her head down. The door shut behind her, and instead of pushing it open again he stood for a moment, then stepped to one side to look in through the window. The shop was crammed full of people, and even through the closed door he could hear the hubbub and the sound of a fiddle playing. His eyes raked through the throng until he saw her. She was moving through the crowd with a large white plate, proffering it with a shy smile. His mouth watered as he remembered the food she had described. Within moments everything on the plate had gone, and she disappeared, only to reappear with another.
Jem felt for the ticket in his pocket. He’d gone to buy one after Thomasina had been into the shop that morning. At the time it had seemed the perfect opportunity to bump into her again and strike up a conversation, but now that he was here, he could see it was far from ideal. There were too many people. She was busy. He would feel awkward and out of place. It was a terrible idea. He turned and walked back along the high street, the mischievous strains of the fiddle taunting him as if to say, Cowardy custard.
—
June walked back to her cottage. She wanted the fresh air. And there, in the sky above, was a full moon, as if it had known about the evening and made a special appearance. She got home, slipped off her high-heeled boots, and put on the slouchy cashmere bed socks she used for padding over the flagstones. She threw some logs on the wood burner, poured a glass of wine, and sat with her legs curled up on the sofa in her living room.
She leafed through his book until she reached the section about The Silver Moon. It had been his turning point, and was a historic film, so there was a hefty chapter.
There was no mention of her. Not a word about the blond-haired extra who’d played the barmaid and his affair with her. Not a hint of the passion he had professed to feel at the time. She was insignificant. The scenery was discussed at length, the genius writer, the visionary director—even Mrs. Malone, the landlady of the cottage they’d stayed in during the shoot, was given a name check. But as far as the rest of the world was concerned, June didn’t exist and had made no contribution.
She went upstairs. In her sparest spare bedroom she had stored a box in the wardrobe.
She pulled it out. Inside was his Aran sweater and the script from The Silver Moon. Beer mats from the pub they drank in. Shells and pressed flowers. She could smell the air if she breathed in deeply enough. She was there, in the drizzle, the scent of damp wool, the taste of his mouth, tinged with whiskey . . .
And the photographs. Faded and curling now, but here was her evidence. Irrefutable evidence. The two of them, arms around each other, laughing into the camera. You could see the chemistry between them, crackling and fizzing, evident even in yellowing black and white. She remembered the little old man with the donkey and cart looking at the camera in consternation but taking the pictures nonetheless. Not exactly David Bailey, but it had been a memory, not a work of art.
And she remembered holding the camera at arm’s length, back to front, and the pair of them lying on their backs, smiling, as she took what would now be called a “selfie,” his dark hair tangled up in her platinum blond.
They had been so beautiful, she thought. There was a purity to the photographs that you never got today. It was the real them, no filter, no adjusting, and she’d worn no makeup, yet their beauty shone through nevertheless.
She laid everything out on the bed. It was all there, their story, in the few artifacts. All the proof she needed.
That had been another her. She’d stopped bleaching her hair, going back to her natural brown, and had put on some weight. No one would ever have known she was Juno.
She suddenly felt angry. He had ruined her for anyone else. She had loved her two husbands in a low-key way, and the divorces had been amicable rather than acrimonious. But she’d never felt the same way about anyone as she had Mick Gillespie.
There was a large brown envelope, too, that she hadn’t opened yet. She lifted it; it was heavy with paper. She opened the flap and pulled out a manuscript: pages and pages typed onto cheap, flimsy paper.
In 1967, Michael Gillespie ripped out my heart and dashed it onto the rocks at Coumeenole Beach. To my amazement, I managed to live without it. And I’m here, living, breathing, and able to tell you the story of what happened when an innocent young girl fell in love with the world’s greatest star. It’s a fable, really. A warning.
It was her story, of what had happened to her. She remembered writing it, two years after she had come back from Ireland. She’d sat at her typewriter and written, long into the night, the words tumbling out at a breakneck pace, so fast she couldn’t keep up with them.
June smiled as she remembered the sound of a real typewriter. Somehow the gentle tip tap of the computer keyboard didn’t have the same satisfaction. She began to read the words, the words of a wounded young girl.
Halfway through, she stopped reading. She found it too sad, the memories. She wasn’t that girl anymore. It was a part of whom she had become, but she didn’t need to go back and revisit the pain. She knew now that everyone had heartbreak in their life at some point. What had happened didn’t make her special or unusual. It was part of being human. A broken heart was, after all, the source material of myriad books. Some of those books had become her comfort, and had made her realize she was not alone.
She slid the papers back into the envelope and sealed it up again.
—
Mick and Marlowe were in full swing. Mick had produced a bottle of Paddy whiskey and was topping up the audience’s cocktail glasses in an expansive “one for you, one for me” gesture, then calling up ballads for Marlowe to play: “The Irish Rover,” “Molly Malone,” “The Rising of the Moon” . . . The atmosphere was bordering on riotous.
Eventually Emilia had to call a halt to the proceedings. She could sense Mick getting slightly out of hand, and she wasn’t sure about the legality of getting all her customers insensible at this hour of the day. So she gestured discreetly to Marlowe to wind things up, and despite Mick’s protests—he would have gone on all night given the chance—the shop gradually emptied, and after much effusive hugging and kissing, Mick headed off to the Peasebrook Arms. Emilia had no doubt he would waste no time making friends in the bar, but she was too exhausted to accompany him herself.
She was cross when Marlowe refused to let her pay him for playing.
“It’s the best fun I’ve had for weeks. Playing the fiddle for Mick Gillespie? I’d have given my right arm for that. I don’t want payment.”
“But I wouldn’t have asked you if I thought you wouldn’t let me pay.” Emilia hated the thought of exploiting anyone’s better nature.
“I know. Which is why it’s okay.”
“But I won’t ask you again.”
“You can pay me next time. But this time: gratis. It was a pleasure. And I did it for your dad.” Marlowe smiled. “You have his magic, you know. People want to do things for you, like they did for him. You’re going to be all right.”
It was just the two of them left in the shop. He put a hand on her shoulder. They were standing very close together. She breathed in the heat from his body mixed with a trace of the whiskey he’d drunk and that bewitching Tobacco Vanille; combined with two Silver Moons, it made her head swim. She swayed for a moment and suddenly he stepped away.
“I must go,” he said, picking up his violin case. “I’m on a flight to Zurich in the morning for an important meeting—I don’t want to breathe Paddys all over them.”
Emilia tried to gather herself. “Well, thank you for playing. People won’t forget this evening in a hurry. They’ll be talking about it for weeks.” She laughed. “I thought things were going to get out of hand. Mick’s a handful even at his age.”
“He’s a legend all right,” said Marlowe in a mock-Kerry accent, buttoning up his coat. He leaned in to kiss her, only just brushing her cheek, and then he was gone.
—
Bea went home after the event feeling slightly high on the buzz. Everyone had raved about her windows; she’d had her photo taken in front of them with her arm linked in Mick Gillespie’s, and she felt like her old self. She hadn’t felt like Bea since the day she’d left Hearth. Mummy Bea was a slightly alien creature she still didn’t feel comfortable with.
So she was full of it when she got back home, babbling on to Bill, who had got home from work early for once in order to babysit. But he just seemed grumpy and disinterested.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Bill. “Stop wittering on about that bloody shop, will you?”
Bea’s mouth dropped open.
“Wittering?” she said. “I try very hard not to witter, thank you very much.”
“I’m sorry. But it’s not as if you’re even being paid. And I don’t think I can listen to another word.”
“Well, in that case, you can listen to me witter about what Maud ate for lunch. And what shape or consistency her poo is. Because that’s what most new mothers talk about. I’m not as lucky as you. I don’t have reams of people to talk to about interesting things. So I’m sorry if I seem a bit obsessed, but Nightingale Books is the most exciting thing in my life right now—”
She hadn’t realized her voice was getting higher and higher with indignation. Bill put up a hand to stop the flow.
“I’m off to bed. It’s nearly midnight. And I have to be up at six. Sorry.”
And he walked out of the room.
Bea was astonished. She crossed her arms. She wasn’t going to let Bill get away with this. She wouldn’t tackle him now, but she was going to call Thomasina in the morning. Book them dinner at A Deux, and have it out once and for all, on neutral territory, in private. She was not going to stand here and watch her marriage go down the tubes.
—
Mia and Jackson walked back from Nightingale Books in the lamplight.
Mia had drunk three cocktails and was quite garrulous. Jackson supposed that as she barely ate anything these days, they must have gone straight to her head. She was a little unsteady on her feet as well, and as they reached the edge of the town he took her arm. She didn’t seem to mind. She leaned on him as they walked up to the house. He thought it felt a bit like the old days. She’d never been great at holding her drink—unless she was dancing. He always used to bring her orange juice and headache tablets in bed the next morning if they’d overdone it. He had looked after her, he thought. He hadn’t been all bad.
“You’re going to have a head tomorrow,” he teased her. “Your patients better watch out.”
She giggled and snuggled in closer to him, and he put his arm round her. It felt good to have her there. He realized he hadn’t hugged anyone except Finn for a long time. She probably thought he was playing the field, out with a different girl every night, but he wasn’t. Far from it.
But the minute they got inside the door of the house, Mia went quiet and cold.
“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said, but it sounded automatic rather than genuine. “I’m off to bed. Thank you for sitting, Cilla.”
And she was gone.
Jackson was flummoxed. He looked to his mother for an explanation.
“Ten minutes ago she was babbling about what an amazing evening she’d had. Suddenly she’s like an ice queen.”
Cilla looked knowing.
“She’s scared.”
“Of what? Not me, surely.”
“She feels a fool,” said Cilla. “She knows she was wrong to kick you out, but she doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“Why can’t she just say she was wrong?” Jackson was puzzled.
Cilla sighed. “You don’t understand women, do you?”
“No,” said Jackson. “But if that’s what she feels, what am I supposed to do?”
“Woo her back.”
“That’s what I thought I was doing.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think I didn’t get the instruction manual.”
“You’ll be all right.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Jackson hugged his mum. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll just go up and give Finn a good-night kiss, then let’s get home.”
Ten minutes later he bundled his mum into his Jeep, popped Wolfie in the back, and walked round to the driver’s door. At the last moment, he looked out and saw Mia peering out of her bedroom window. As soon as she saw him looking, she dropped the curtain and was gone.
—
In the quiet of the empty shop, Emilia gathered up the last of the cocktail glasses that were scattered around and took them upstairs to wash them and put them back in the box to be returned to the wine merchant.
It had been a wonderful evening. It had lifted her heart. So many people had turned up to see Mick Gillespie, old customers and new. There had been a real buzz in the air.
Of course, Emilia knew that she wouldn’t get a star like him to come along to the shop every week. And the novelty would probably wear off. But it had given her a glimpse of what could be done, and they had rung more through the till that evening than they did in a week because people had bought other books as well as Mick’s. Dave and Mel had worked hard to make the display tables as enticing as possible so people would make impulse purchases, and they had.
Of course, there had been one thing missing. Her father would have loved it. But she was determined not to think like that anymore. Julius was gone, and she was clomping about in his shoes, trying them on for size. Sometimes they felt either too small or too big as she stumbled around.
Nights like this, though, made her feel as if his shoes fitted perfectly.
She was about to switch off the lights, when she saw a jumper on the back of a chair. She went to pick it up, and as the soft wool slithered through her fingers, she knew immediately whom it belonged to. She pressed it to her face and breathed him in and felt her tummy flip.
She folded it up hastily and put it behind the counter, firmly resisting the temptation to take it to bed with her.
—
Just before midnight, June heard the wind pick up and the rain begin. It was wild; she shut the curtains tight, grateful that she’d had her little cottage double-glazed when she moved in full-time. She went into the kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea, then heard a mighty rapping on the stable door. She froze, wondering who on earth it was at this time. It wasn’t as if she was on the way to anywhere. She decided she would ignore it.
Then she heard shouting. An indignant roar that carried through the gale. A roar she would have recognized anywhere.
“For the love of God, would you open the door?”
She marched across, slid back the bolts, and turned the lock. She opened only the top half, in case. And there, framed in the doorway, was Mick Gillespie, soaked to the skin.
“Thank Christ for that. Will you let me in?”
“Give me one good reason why I should?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Because it’s pissing with rain and I’m soaked through and I’ll get pneumonia. They told me at the hotel it was only ten minutes’ walk,” he grumbled.
“How did you find me?”
“You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes. And the people in this town aren’t very discreet.”
“You recognized me, then?”
“Of course I did,” he said. “But I didn’t know what to say. You didn’t say anything, so I thought it was best left, maybe. But then I thought you wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t wanted to see me.”
“You’re a better actor than I thought. I didn’t think you had a clue.”
“I’m trained, remember.” His smile was teasing. Those bloody crinkly eyes . . .
“Come on, Juno. Let me in, will you? I’m frozen.”
She was just about to open the door and stand aside. Take his wet coat, hand him a towel, and pour him a glass of wine. Then she remembered a young girl standing in the rain, all those years ago, soaked to the skin, distraught and shivering. He was going to have to try harder than that.
“Sorry, but it’s late. I was just off to bed.”
He looked taken aback. “But I’m soaking. I can’t walk back to the hotel in this state.”
“Sure you can.” She pulled an umbrella out of the stand by the door and handed it to him. “There you go. You can bring it back to me in the morning.”
And she shut the door. As she walked up the stairs to her bedroom, she realized that the spell she had been under for so many years was broken. He no longer had a hold over her. How many times had she dreamed of this moment over the years? She couldn’t begin to count. And now there he was, Mick Gillespie, walking back to his hotel in the rain. She threw back her head and began to laugh.
—
She was astonished at midday the next day when a taxi drew up outside her cottage. Mick emerged, bone-dry and dressed in what looked to be his Sunday best—cream cords, a tattersall check shirt, a silk cravat, and a pair of shining brogues. He walked up the path and knocked again on her door.
She opened it, one eyebrow raised, her lips twitching with amusement.
“No one’s ever done anything like that to me before,” he told her. “I could have got pneumonia.”
“Well, you didn’t. So that’s all right.”
He looked at her for a long moment, appraising her. She stood tall. She wasn’t going to let him get the better of her ever again.
“I’ve talked the girl who did the food last night into cooking us lunch,” he said. “Roast lamb. And rhubarb crumble. She took a bit of persuading because it’s her day off, but you know how persuasive I can be . . .” He gave a self-deprecating grin.
June rolled her eyes. “You’re very presumptuous. I might have plans.”
“You don’t, though, do you?”
He was still impossibly handsome. He was still irresistibly charming. He was still overwhelmingly charismatic. June felt herself drawn to him, although this time she was ready for him. This time she was a match. Besides, what else was she going to do today? Go into Peasebrook for the Sunday papers and take something out of the freezer? There was nothing wrong with that, of course. But lunch with Mick? Now that she’d taken control and shown him she was in charge, she couldn’t say no.
“Give me five minutes to get changed,” she said.
“Ah, there’s no need. You look grand.”
She was in a sloppy jumper and leggings and Uggs with her hair in a scrunchie. No way was she going out to lunch in that.
“Come in for a minute,” she said.
He came in and looked around the cottage in approval. June knew it looked good. She’d spent a lot of time making it comfortable and stylish, and she had a great eye for art and antiques. She’d perfected the designer farmhouse look: the gleaming pink Aga, the flagstones warmed by underfloor heating, the French kitchen table, the chunky wineglasses stamped with a bee.
“You’ve done well,” he said.
“I have,” she said, not ashamed to be proud of her achievements. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”
And in ten minutes, she came down in a silk tunic dress and high-heeled suede boots, her hair down and just a touch of makeup. He reached out a hand and held hers.
“Jesus, you always were a fox,” he said, and she laughed.
—
Even with short notice Thomasina had worked her magic. Her cottage was small—just one main room, which you walked straight into from the front door, and where the table was laid. She had bought the best cutlery and china she could afford: knives and forks with mother-of-pearl handles, and pale cream china with an ornate French pattern. The snowy white linen tablecloth and napkins gave an air of formality, but other than that, the room had a warmth that wrapped you up, with its dark red walls and the rich Egyptian-style carpet. Clusters of candles gave a rosy glow.
She served June and Mick champagne with a splash of her homemade blackberry liqueur, and they settled down to melting roast lamb with creamy onion sauce and the crunchiest roast potatoes either of them had ever eaten. Mick produced a bottle of Gigondas with a flourish—June suspected he probably traveled with his own private wine cellar, but she didn’t complain. She could feel herself go woozy with the pleasure of it all: the cozy room, the wonderful food, and, not least, Mick’s attention. It was just as she remembered, a hazy golden cloak spun from his honeyed words, only this time she wouldn’t allow herself to be completely taken in.
Of course, he apologized for what he’d done, and she couldn’t help but be disarmed.
“I was a shite,” he told her. “But it was the best thing for you. I’d have played merry hell with you and you’d have ended up hating me. Or killing me. I really wasn’t a very nice person in those days.”
“And are you now?”
He tipped his head to one side to consider her question. “I don’t think I’m all bad.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“You’re a nice person, that’s for sure. You always were. People like you don’t change. Unless they get damaged by people like me. I hope you weren’t.”
“Nobody as awful as you, no.” They smiled at each other.
Mick raised his glass.
“Well, here’s to old times’ sake. It’s very nice to see you.”
“I suppose you were just bored in your hotel room?”
He looked a bit taken aback. “No. I wanted to see you. I’ve very fond memories of our time.”
June put down her glass. “You know I wrote a searing exposé,” she told him. “About how cruelly you treated me.”
“Really?” He made a face. “It would be the perfect time to publish it. Everyone seems to be obsessed with my past at the moment.”
“No. It’s staying firmly locked away. It was just a therapeutic exercise.”
“Writing’s therapy, for sure. I was amazed what I dredged up when I did the book.”
“So you’re trying to right wrongs now?”
“Jesus, I haven’t enough time left on this earth to do that.” He roared with laughter. Then stopped and looked at her. “Just one wrong will do me for now.”
She held his gaze. She wanted to laugh. He was incorrigible, even at this age.
“June . . .”
His voice was low and urgent. The invitation in his devilish blue eyes was unmistakable. She felt a thrill inside her. She reminded herself of the anguish he had caused her. Yet to turn him away would be boring. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been propositioned. She deserved some fun as much as the next person.
And he hadn’t been selfish in the bedroom, that much she could remember. She felt her cheeks pinken slightly at the memory as she picked up her glass again. She was going to make him work for it. She leaned forward with a smile.
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Gillespie?”
—
Jackson couldn’t settle that Sunday.
Ian Mendip had called him to hassle him about the bookshop.
“It doesn’t usually take you this long to get into a girl’s knickers,” he complained, and Jackson hung up on him. He’d blame the bad signal in Peasebrook.
He walked over to his house. Mia was heading out on a twenty-mile bike ride as part of her triathlon training, and he’d offered to look after Finn. He didn’t see it as a chore—why would he?
“Nice bike,” he said, as she made everything ready—gel packs and water bottles and repair kits.
She looked at him. “It’s all I’ve got,” she said. “I don’t spend money on clothes.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” said Jackson, because he hadn’t. Why was she so defensive? Why did she make it so hard for him to be nice to her? He looked at her, in her ridiculous tight black Lycra and the helmet that made her look like an alien, and thought how vulnerable she looked. His heart gave a little stumble.
“Good luck,” he said. “Call me if you get tired and need picking up.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said firmly.
He leafed through the book Emilia had suggested he read with Finn. The Little Prince was a curious book, and a lot of it he found puzzling, yet it seemed to have all the wisdom in the world in its pages.
He put the book down and leaned his head back. The story had helped him see the truth. He had been too young to love Mia properly. He had driven her away with his behavior. He could see that now. She didn’t trust him. Of course she didn’t. He’d been immature, and feckless, and selfish.
He stared at the wall. He’d given up, he realized. He’d given up on his hopes, his dreams, his relationships. He’d become involved in something that made him hate himself more than he did already.
He thought about Emilia in the shop, and how she’d chosen the book for him. He really admired her for what she was doing at the shop and hated the thought of Ian getting his hands on it. He didn’t want anything else to do with Ian’s plan. Nightingale Books was a force for good, and Mendip was a greedy monster. If Ian sacked him, then so be it.
It was as if Jackson was in the bottom of a dark well, and there was a light at the top, and he had to climb up to it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to find when he got up there, but he felt sure things would be better.
He took Finn out to the skate park, trying to make sense of the thoughts whirling round his head. Yet he knew he needed to make an effort, and that somewhere there was an answer. He didn’t just have to stumble along, doing things he didn’t want to, at the will of everyone else.
Suddenly everything seemed so clear in his mind—what he wanted from life.
He wanted the chance to be a good partner to the woman he loved and had never stopped loving. He was a good father, he knew that, but he wanted to be a father in a proper family, not a single dad kicking a football or standing in the skate park.
What would she say? How could he convince her he had changed? He had no proof, except for the fact that he felt different. That someone—Emilia—had, without knowing, shown him the way. Mia would laugh if he tried to explain it.
She would think he was trying it on, trying to get his feet back under the table, trying to get back into their lives because it suited him.
He had to ask her. He had to man up and fight for what he wanted. He’d learned from his mistakes. For once, he actually wanted responsibility and security.
He picked up a couple of pizzas from the corner shop on the way home. They scoffed them in the kitchen, not even stopping for plates, eating them right out of the cardboard boxes.
Jackson was in the middle of tidying the kitchen when Mia got back from her ride. She looked exhausted.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said brightly, and looked askance at the remains of the pizza, one eyebrow raised in disapproval of its fat and carb content.
It was now or never, thought Jackson.
“I miss you.”
Mia blinked. “What?”
“I miss you. I miss us. I don’t understand why I’m stuck in a caravan with my mum—much as I love her—and you’re obsessed with . . .” He waved a hand in the air. “Driving yourself into the ground with all that fitness and healthy eating.”
She crossed her arms. She looked away. She looked as if she was going to cry.
“We should have gone out today as a family,” he went on.
“But we’re not a family anymore.”
“Yes, we are. We always will be. Because of Finn. You’re his mum and I’m his dad and he’s our son.”
“Don’t use Finn as a weapon, Jackson.” She walked away to put the kettle on, turning her back on him, and Jackson felt a lurch of disappointment. So much for being brave.
“I’m not. I would never do that. I want what’s best for him, and you, and us.”
“For you, you mean.” She glared at him. “You want what’s best for you. You always have.”
Jackson flinched. Although he was used to Mia’s barbs, they never hurt any less. She was being even more defensive than usual, though.
A sudden thought occurred to him.
“Is there . . . someone else?” He imagined some sinewy cycling fanatic planning endless bike rides on a fitness app.
She gave a bark of laughter. “No, of course there isn’t. I don’t want somebody else, Jackson. I’m trying to figure out who I am, after everything you put me through. Build a new life.”
Without him in it. That much was clear.
“Can’t we build it together? I’m trying to change, too. I’ve got plans and dreams. And I want you to be part of them. I want to make life better for us all. You, me, and Finn.”
Mia looked at him.
“You’ve always talked a good talk, Jackson.”
“It’s not just talk, though.”
Mia looked fierce.
“Forget it, okay? It’s not happening. Stop putting me under pressure, Jackson. It’s not fair.”
He knew when Mia had reached her limit. He didn’t want a scene.
He nodded. “Okay . . .” He walked out of the kitchen and went to find Finn, who was playing on his Wii in the lounge.
“See you soon, mate.” He hugged his son to him. As long as he had Finn, that was all that mattered. If Mia couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive him for his transgressions, that was fair enough. But he was still Finn’s dad. She couldn’t take that away from him.
He walked back to the kitchen to say a final good-bye. Mia looked up, startled and guilty. She was eating a piece of their cold pizza as if it were the last slice of pizza on earth.
“Bye,” said Jackson, resisting the urge to say something cutting. Because he didn’t feel bitter. He just felt sad. But he thought perhaps the pizza showed a chink.