So let me tell you about Jack Shannon. I’m in a cab, heading for Barnes, which is just a ten-minute drive or so from home. Barnes is lovely, a London suburb that feels like an English country village. It has green spaces and a bird reserve and historic eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture, and even a duck pond. It’s also where Jack lives, in a magnificent four-storey house on the banks of the Thames. We’re meeting in The Bridge Arms, a quaint, traditional place with open fires on cold nights, and fantastic food, although I don’t know how I’ll be able to eat anything this evening. My armpits feel damp, my mouth dry. I’ve been on edge all day, unable to concentrate at work, so much so that Kwee, noticing I’d put a Patricia Cornwell book the wrong side of a Harlan Coben on the shelf (we arrange books in precise alphabetical order), pulled me aside to gently ask what was wrong. I fobbed her off with some excuse about not sleeping very well last night – not a lie – and she let it go, but I eventually asked if I could leave an hour early, pretending to have a bad headache. I needed extra time to get ready. To prepare myself for the evening ahead. And now, it’s ten minutes. Ten minutes until I see him again.
Holy crap. What am I doing?
We’re due to meet at eight. Sunset was just before 6.30pm today, so I suggested the meet-up time knowing it would be properly dark outside by then. Because that’s something you have to take into consideration, you see, when you’re hanging out with Jack Shannon. The daylight, and the darkness.
There are more things, but this is the one you discover first, when you start to get to know him: Jack does not go out in daylight. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. He exists in the dark. He works, and plays, and exercises and lives only between sunset and sunrise.
He’s like a vampire, I thought with shock when he first told me; when I first understood what this lifestyle choice would mean for me, as his girlfriend. And then, as I tend to do, I looked up vampires online and realised that Jack is even more extreme than they are. Most vampires, if they were to actually exist, are only affected by direct sunlight, so they’re OK outdoors in daytime if they stick to shady spots. Dracula, the archetypal vampire, walked the streets of London and Yorkshire six times a day, although the daylight did diminish his powers. But Jack… Jack shies away from daylight completely.
It was something that, remarkably, he managed to hide from me for quite some time when we were first together. We met in a bar in early February, and at that time of year in the UK, of course, it’s getting dark around 5pm. The first thing that struck me when he approached me and began chatting was his looks – Jack is exquisite to look at – but I quickly realised there was a lot more to him than piercing green eyes and incredibly kissable lips. He’s fiercely intelligent, an art lover, and – something that’s very important to me – extremely well read. When he started talking about how important he thought a novel’s setting was, I was intrigued; by the time we’d got into the difference between story and plot, I was hooked. Our first few dates were all at night, as dates often are for two people with full-time jobs, at bars, restaurants, clubs. I didn’t even twig the first time we slept together, which was about a month after we met. We went back to my place after a Sunday night meal at an Italian bistro in Chiswick – I think it was our fourth date, and I simply couldn’t resist him any longer. The sex was mind-blowing, and I was very much hoping for round two the next morning but Jack apologised profusely and told me he had to leave very early, citing a work breakfast meeting. He kissed me goodbye just before 6am, well before sunrise – disappointing, but not too unusual. Work is work, after all. So far, so unextraordinary. It wasn’t until he asked me to come back to his for the night for the first time, six weeks or so into our relationship, that the truth finally emerged.
By then it was late March and the clocks had changed, so the sun was coming up shortly before seven. It was a day off for me, a Wednesday, and we’d been out until after one, so I treated myself to a lie-in in Jack’s luxurious superking bed with its deep, plush mattress and silky high-thread-count sheets. When the alarm on my phone went off at 8.30, Jack rolled over in bed and reached for me; the sex was delicious – slow and sleepy and sensual. I finally dragged myself out of his arms an hour later, desperate for a pee, and when I returned from the bathroom to find he’d fallen asleep again, I crept across to the huge window that I knew overlooked the Thames, keen to see the view my new boyfriend woke up to every day. I quietly pulled back the heavy charcoal-grey velvet curtains and found a blackout blind underneath. I spotted a switch to the left-hand side of the window frame so I pressed it and a soft whirring noise began as the blind began to move smoothly upwards. The early morning light streamed into the room, the river glinting and shimmering in the sunshine just metres away.
‘NOOOOOOOO!’
A sudden roar from the bed made me jump violently, and I whirled around to see Jack dragging the duvet over his head, his face contorted with fury.
‘Shut the bastard blind!’ he screamed and, my heart thumping, I fumbled for the switch. The blind lowered again, plunging the room back into darkness.
‘I’m… I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you. Are you OK?’ I stuttered, taken aback by the ferocity of his anger.
‘Fuck!’ he said viciously, from under the duvet.
I stared in his direction for a few moments, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom. My initial panic began to subside, to be replaced by indignation.
What an aggressive, over-the-top reaction, I thought. Up until then – although, to be fair, we’d only seen each other half a dozen times – Jack had been the perfect new partner. He was sweet and attentive and calm by nature, and this was suddenly a whole new side of him, one I wasn’t sure I liked.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said again, crossing the room to sit down on the bed. ‘But wow, Jack. Did you have to yell like that?’
He sighed, and emerged from under the duvet, his hair ruffled. He reached for my hand.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have explained, before you opened the curtains. I was planning to, but I fell asleep, and then I overreacted. I shouldn’t have shouted.’
And then he told me the astounding truth. Told me that for years now – years! – he’d shied away from daylight, going out only after dark and sleeping during the day. Last night was one of his occasional exceptions.
‘New girlfriend and all that. Didn’t want to put you off me too soon, you know? I normally work at night and go to bed in the morning,’ he said. ‘Look… something happened to me, a long time ago, on a bright sunny day. It… it traumatised me, I suppose. I don’t want to talk about it, Heather, not now. I’ll tell you one day, OK? But… Anyway, this… this thing, this way of life, I suppose it came on gradually. At first I started staying indoors in summer, and then… I don’t know. But the last few years… I just prefer it. I think of it as being on permanent nightshifts, you know? Sleep during the day, do everything else at night. It works for the company too, with so much of our business being abroad now. Much easier to arrange online meetings with New York or Tokyo or Hong Kong, stuff like that. It’s just how it is. You’ll get used to it.’
He smiled at me then, but I was gaping at him, unable to take it in. A hundred different questions and scenarios were running through my brain.
‘But… what about holidays? What about shopping? How do you—?’
Then I thought about his body, his muscular torso, the caramel colour of his skin against white sheets.
‘And… and you’re so fit, and you’re tanned, Jack! You have a suntan! How…?’
He laughed loudly, releasing my hand and leaning back on his pillows.
‘OK, one thing at a time! Holidays, I don’t bother. Haven’t for years. I’m too busy anyway. Shopping isn’t hard. I don’t really like having staff in the house, but needs must; I have a live-in housekeeper who mostly keeps the same hours as me but also does anything that requires going out in daylight, so that works. She generally does the food shops too, but if I fancy anything random that isn’t in the kitchen, well, we live in the UK, Heather. Twenty-four-hour supermarkets? The rest I do online. Clothes, all that stuff. It’s not hard, come on. And I’ll show you round the house in a bit. I have everything I need here. A gym, a sun bed. Yes, I know, I know. Who uses sun beds anymore? But I’m careful. And I take Vitamin D too. It’s fine. It works.’
I was still staring at him, my thoughts racing.
But if we get married? What about the wedding? The honeymoon? Even though I knew it was ridiculous to be wondering about something like that when I’d known this man for only a matter of weeks, my mind was still forging ahead. Picnics in the park, Sunday afternoon walks, long, lazy lunches? None of it; he can’t do any of it. This is insane. How can anyone live like this?
‘But… Jack, this is awful. We can get you help if it’s got this bad. It’s just a phobia, that’s all. I’ll help you. I’ll find someone—’
‘NO!’
He growled the word so fiercely I jumped again, scuttling backwards and almost falling off the bed.
‘No,’ he said again, a little more quietly, and he reached for my hand once more, gripping it tightly. ‘Thank you, but no. This is not a phobia, Heather. It’s a lifestyle choice now, OK? I can go out in daylight, if I want to. I just choose not to. And as I said, you’ll get used to it. Things are quieter at night. London traffic is lighter. You can do everything faster and easier. Trust me, you might even start to enjoy it. Now, come here.’
He leaned forwards and kissed me then, his tongue slipping into my mouth, both hands moving to my hair, pulling me close. For a few moments, still reeling from the shock of what I’d just heard, I resisted, my body rigid. But… well, this is one of the things that is good about Jack Shannon. He’s so good in the sack it’s almost absurd. Within seconds, and despite having so recently left his bed, I felt yet again as though my insides were melting, my desire for him obliterating all rational thought.
Well, it’s certainly different… I remember thinking, as he pushed me back onto the duvet, his body hard and hot against mine.
In retrospect, of course, I know I should have walked out that morning and never gone back. I should have questioned him more; demanded to know exactly what had triggered his bizarre way of life; told him it was completely incompatible with mine, incompatible with that of any normal person. But, for some reason, Jack already had me a little fixated. It had been so long since I’d met anyone who turned me on like he did, who fascinated me like he did.
So what if he lives a little differently? I told myself. Normal is boring, right?
And so I decided to stay. As it turned out, not for very long. We dated for just those four months, in the end, because there were other things I soon discovered about Jack Shannon that were even darker than his strange nocturnal lifestyle – no pun intended. If only I’d known then that the hours he keeps is possibly the least disturbing thing about him. But his other… eccentricities, let’s call them for now, took a little longer to reveal themselves. And even when they did, he had ways of making me doubt myself, of making me wonder if it was me who had the problem, me who was acting oddly. I got out eventually, but I stayed with him way, way longer than I should have.
And now I’m going back.
As my taxi drives away, I feel a moment of sheer panic.
Oh shit, shit, shit…
I wipe my clammy palms on the smooth ponte fabric of my figure-hugging black dress and feel a swirl of nausea in the pit of my stomach.
But I have to do this, don’t I?
The commitment’s been made. They’re all depending on me now, Amber and Nathan and Felicity. And, as I keep reminding myself, I’m not alone in this. I have them, my invisible army, my back-up. And I know what to expect, this time. I know Jack. I know how he behaves, and what he does, and who he is. I can handle it. It’s OK. It’s going to be fine.
Breathe, Heather. Breathe.
I inhale deeply, once, twice. I take in the cool night air, centring myself. And then I proceed the few short steps to the front porch of the inn and push the door open. The warmth and light and noise envelop me instantly and I pause, taking it in, this traditional British pub on a Saturday night, full of families and friends and couples all out eating and drinking and laughing and chatting. Surely nothing bad can happen here, in this big, lively establishment where everyone’s simply out to have a good time, to celebrate getting through another week, to mark a birthday or anniversary maybe. Well, maybe not everyone’s here to party. My eyes flit from face to face: to a group of young women laughing raucously as they clink prosecco glasses, and then to an elderly man sitting alone at a corner table, raising a half-empty pint to his mouth, his eyes sad. I watch him for a moment, wondering what his story is, and then suddenly I feel a prickle on the back of my neck, and I know he’s here. Jack. He’s here, and he’s watching me.
I turn my head to the right, and there he is.
He looks… incredible. Even from this far away, I can see his intense cat-like eyes, fixed on mine. He has a new smattering of stubble, a neat beard of sorts, and his thick, dark hair with its streak of grey at the front is swept back from his lightly tanned forehead. He’s wearing a dark jacket with a white T-shirt visible underneath it.
I smile.
He doesn’t smile back.
Instead he nods, and then my feet are somehow moving towards him, my heart rate climbing as I wind my way between the drinkers. My head swims.
Still the most attractive man I’ve ever met, I think, and immediately berate myself. And yet even in those final days before I walked away the first time, my desire for his touch never quite evaporated. I hated that. How could I still want a man like him to touch me? And yet now, even though Jack might be a hundred, a thousand, times worse than I ever dreamed back then, I can already feel it. As I reach his table and he stands up to brush my cheek with his lips, I breathe in the spicy, familiar scent of him and I feel that little fizz of desire somewhere deep in my belly. I hate myself all over again.
Get a grip, woman, I think fiercely as I slide into the chair opposite him. You’re here to do a job, to play a part. Get a grip.
‘Hi Jack,’ I say. ‘It’s so nice to see you.’
He regards me coolly for a couple of seconds, his eyes roving from my hair to my breasts, then, finally, meeting mine again.
‘As I said when you messaged, it was a bit of a surprise to hear from you,’ he says. ‘It’s been a while.’
I nod.
‘Nearly two years,’ I say. ‘Jack, I’m so sorry, about the way it ended. I suppose I just wasn’t in the right headspace for a relationship back then. But I’ve often thought about you. This might sound cheesy, but I sort of feel you were… well, you were the one that got away. Unfinished business, if you like.’
I can feel my heart thumping in my chest as I say the words I’ve been rehearsing all day, using the same phrase Nathan used when he talked about me and Jack. Will it work? Will a man like Jack really let me back in again? He’s staring at me intently, and my scalp prickles. Which way is this going to go?
‘So, thanks for coming,’ I add. ‘And you look hot, by the way.’
I give him a cheeky grin, the one he always used to say he loved. For a moment he just continues to stare, expressionlessly, and then suddenly his face relaxes into a broad smile.
‘You are a little minx,’ he says. ‘But you look hot too, so yes, I forgive you. Everyone deserves a second chance. I took the liberty of ordering champagne. Drink?’
I hadn’t even noticed the bottle sitting in an ice bucket, two glasses beside it. I grin again and nod.
‘Never been known to refuse champagne,’ I say, and as he pours I try to quell the mixture of unease and elation that’s rushing through me.
It’s worked. Step one. You’ve done it, I think, as I accept the glass of amber bubbles and clink it against his. It’s only then that I notice his hand. He’s holding the glass in his left, the same hand he used to pour the champagne. His right hand is resting on the table, a jagged scar across the back of it, the fingers oddly twisted. I want to look at it properly, but I tear my gaze from it, and meet his eyes instead.
‘Cheers,’ I say.
He’s scrutinising me again. His smile is gone, his expression intense. I stare back, feeling a strange tingle in my chest.
God, he’s handsome.
Is this desire, reignited? Or something else? Trepidation? Fear?
Why is he looking at me like this?
‘Cheers, Heather,’ he says.
There are a few moments of silence, and my chest tightens. I wonder if he can see the tension in my body, the wariness in my eyes. Then his lips curve upwards, into just a hint of a smile.
‘Oh,’ he adds. ‘And welcome back.’