Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty
Jess knew that Felicity’s party had gone on late into the night, because when she woke up on Sunday morning, there were a lot of slightly incoherent messages from Lola on her phone, proclaiming her undying love for everyone: Jess, Wendy, Roger, Spade and Braden and their Market Misfits – even her Fitbit step sessions with Malik. Jess decided she would reply later, in case her best friend hadn’t put her phone on silent after finally slumping into bed.
She showered and put on a blue dress with orange fish swimming across the fabric. She wanted to get to the market before Wendy, so she could spend time in the shop while it was empty and get a sense of how best to organise it for autumn: how she could maximise its potential, make every item sing, imbue every customer who walked through the door with a cosiness they wanted to take into their own homes. The hares could have pride of place on the very bottom shelf, except for Halloween week, when she would allow them a moment in the limelight.
She tiptoed carefully through the quiet flat. They rarely bothered to close the living-room curtains, and early morning sun was streaming in through the window, dust motes dancing in the beams of light. She put bread in the toaster, got out the butter and marmalade, and scrolled through her phone. There was a message from her dad, sent last night after she had fallen, exhausted, into bed.
Loved seeing you on Tues! Why don’t you bring Lola and Malik round one Sunday for a barbecue? It’s been ages since we’ve seen them, and I’ll even open the studio doors. Dad. xx
Jess waited for the tight clench in her stomach, the urge to push the phone and his invitation away, but it didn’t come. She spread butter and marmalade on her toast, and replied.
Malik will go insane at your train set! Let me see if Wendy will let me have a precious Sunday off, and I’ll check dates with L and M. It was really lovely to see you too. xx
When she’d finished her breakfast, she padded quietly down the stairs and out into the pale, early morning sunshine. She walked along roads with only the lightest traffic, the pavements dusty, pigeons cooing while they pecked for morsels in the cracks. The world was waking up slowly, but Jess felt more awake than she had done in days.
She had decided, after Ash’s no-show yesterday, that she had to try again. She didn’t know whether to start with a gentle trickle of messages he couldn’t ignore, or go all out with a return visit to his flat, but she wasn’t giving up on him. He was one man in a city of millions, and the sensible part of her brain said she should move on, that their meeting on the bench had been the final act. Usually, by now, she would have consigned him to history.
But yesterday evening, surrounded by her friends, and people she considered her family, she had realised that if she tried and failed to win Ash back, they would look after her. She had good people around her, and she wanted him to be one of them: she wanted him to have those people around him too.
She waited at the lights for a taxi to pass, a slumped figure in the back seat on an early trip to the station, or on the way back from an epic night out. The greasy spoons were open already, the salty scent of bacon wafting into the air, the metal screech of rising shutters accompanying her as she crossed the road.
She entered the market down the side alley, where she’d watched Ash holding onto Braden all those weeks ago. There was activity at some of the food stalls, hotplates turned on and coffee machines fired up, ready for hungry workers on the way home from night shifts, desperate for a latte and a sausage sandwich.
Jess smiled and waved at the people she recognised, and wondered if, in a few months, she would know more names; if, now that she was more open to it, her market family would continue to grow.
She walked into the main space and Roger called over to her. ‘Wonderful day yesterday.’
‘It was lovely,’ she called back. ‘I know Felicity appreciated us being there.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it: a chance to spend time with everyone away from here. I think you and I left earlier than most.’ He chuckled.
‘We’re going to be perkier than some of the others, that’s for sure. See you later!’ She waved goodbye, then walked along the side of the market, burrowing in her handbag for the keys to No Vase Like Home. Lit by the early morning sun, the shop looked fresh and sparkling – as if everything was covered in fairy dust. Her prints were colourful and enticing, and she’d noticed Wendy moving the candles the other day to give her more room.
Now Enzo was safe, Wendy had told Jess she could be a proper supplier, that she’d pay for batches of her prints upfront, and she would expect new designs on a regular basis. Jess had readily accepted, because it gave her the best of both worlds: getting to work in a place she loved, but being creative in her own right, seeing people pick up and fall in love with herdesigns. She wondered if she should branch out: create a range called Subtle Superpowers, take the miraculous mini-skills she and Ash had come up with – that she was still coming up with – and make prints of those, too.
She bent down and picked up a hare. This one was on its hind legs, and looked ready to start a fight.
‘Are you a witch?’ she asked, gazing into its stony eyes.
‘I might have drunk too much yesterday, but that’s a bit harsh.’
Jess spun round to find Wendy grinning from the doorway, the purple smudges under her eyes enhanced by her pallor. ‘Sorry!’ she squeaked.
Wendy waved her away. ‘You’re entitled to the moral high ground, because you left Felicity’s at a sensible time. But I will need at least three of Kirsty’s muffins today – if she’s alive – and coffees every half-hour.’
‘I can manage that.’ Jess grinned. ‘Breakfast muffin?’
‘I could murder a breakfast muffin.’ Wendy turned on the storeroom light and the radio. ‘And I’m sorry, about yesterday.’
Jess stopped in the doorway. ‘What did you do?’
‘No, I mean that Ash didn’t show. I had thought...’ She sighed. ‘I really thought he’d come.’
Jess swallowed. ‘Me too. Let me go and get those muffins.’
‘And a smoothie,’ Wendy called after her. ‘The greenest, healthiest-looking one. I’ll pay you back!’
The morning was busy, the warm sunshine and gentle breeze perfect for enjoying all of Greenwich’s delights, and Jess didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about hares or shop redesigns or anything else, especially with Wendy’s constant grumbling and her need to take frequent breaks away from the shop floor so she could sit down.
She’d left her propped up behind the counter, and was burrowing among the storeroom shelves for a sea-salt candle that a customer had asked for, when all the clocks struck midday. It was such a familiar sound that she barely noticed it any more, but the gentle chimes reminded her it was their time. It had been their time.
‘Jess, come out here,’ Wendy called.
‘Just a sec,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m elbow-deep in the candle box.’
‘Jessica Peacock,’ Wendy said, and Jess jumped, then turned to find her boss in the doorway.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Are you feeling sick? Need another break?’
Wendy shook her head. ‘I’ll find the candle. You get out there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘You are a proper grump when you’re hungover,’ Jess said, and slipped past her boss, laughing at her consternated expression and then, stepping into the sun-bright shop, came to a stumbling stop.
The woman waiting for her candle was next to the counter, but there was someone else standing just inside the doorway. Jeans and dusty Vans, a grey T-shirt, his hair falling over his forehead. He was holding two coffee cups in a cardboard carrier.
‘Hey,’ he said. His smile was tentative. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
A shocked laugh slipped out of her. ‘You’re not late. Though I don’t... I hadn’t planned on... I didn’t know that you—’
‘Off you trot,’ Wendy said, waggling the sea-salt candle.
Jess mouthed ‘thank you’, then she walked over, took hold of Ash’s T-shirt, turned him round and manoeuvred him out of the doorway. He stuttered out a laugh, and let himself be pushed.
Her mind was a blur. She thought about the park, the riverside, the heath – all the places they’d been together, somewhere that would be quieter. But her heart was beating in her throat, and she couldn’t wait, so she stopped them almost immediately, in front of the large picture window of No Vase Like Home, the sparkly twigs visible through the glass, and turned to face him.
‘Have you thought of a subtle superpower that was too good to message me?’ She didn’t know how else to start this; what to say to him that wasn’t an overblown declaration of her feelings, which might well send him running back to Holborn.
‘Not me,’ Ash said. He was gripping the coffee carrier with both hands, and he looked tired, with his Sunday stubble and cracked lips. To her he’d never looked more beautiful. ‘I met someone this morning. A woman who told me her mini superpower was knowing when strangers needed advice.’
Jess’s mouth fell open. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’ Ash nodded. ‘Those were her exact words – a mini superpower. At first I was pissed off with her for even talking to me – for telling me off for swearing – but then she said that, and I realised.’
‘What did you realise?’ Jess croaked out. She was finding it difficult to breathe. A couple barged past them and she pulled Ash closer, tucking them against the front of the shop.
He held his hand out between them, his palm facing up. He had a graze there, and it looked recent. ‘I realisedthat I have been a monumental idiot, and that I have got this all so wrong: the whole “deciding to go through this on my own” thing. I am not cut out for martyrdom, as much as I felt like I shouldn’t ask for anyone’s help. For your help.’
Jess slid her hand on top of his. His skin was warm, and his fingers curved gently around her wrist. ‘I could have told you that,’ she said. ‘When we met last time, I told you I agreed with you that this wouldn’t work because of timing or circumstance or... whatever it was. But I realised, almost as soon as you left, that I didn’t agree, but—’
‘You respected my wishes,’ Ash said. ‘Even though I was being obstinate.’
‘The most obstinate. But you were hurting, too. I knew that.’
He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘I was. But I-I’ve realised another thing, too, since then. That there is always going to be bad timing and difficult circumstances. Life doesn’t let you press pause so you can get to know a person without the real world getting in the way.’
‘If it did, then you wouldn’t be getting to know them properly, would you?’ Jess was warming to his theme, because it felt like all the conversations she’d been having in her own head over the last fortnight. ‘There is no relationship utopia. There’s only messy, everyday life, with all its ups and downs, its hurts and high points, and if you get to navigate it...’ She stopped.
‘Jess?’ He squeezed her hand, his gaze warm and concerned.
She swallowed, tried to even out her voice. ‘If you get to navigate it with people who you care about, and who care about you, then that’s so much better than doing it alone.’
‘Exactly. So.’ He let out a long, shuddering breath. ‘I came here to apologise for what I said, and the way I behaved: for upsetting you so much, and for not replying to your message about Felicity’s house sale.’
‘That’s OK.’
He squeezed her hand again. ‘It’s not. None of what I did was OK. And I also wanted to say that – well, to ask – if you might be prepared to forgive me? To take me on, with all my mess and my dark bits, my stubbornness, and also, if you’d let me take you on, too? Because I am here for all of you. I think that I might love all of you, and I don’t want to do these hours on Sunday, or any day, without you.’
Jess swayed, her shoulder pressing against the window. ‘You love me?’
‘I do.’ Ash dropped his head. ‘I just said that I might love you, but that isn’t right. It isn’t strong enough. Jessica Peacock, I am in love with you, and I’m sorry I walked away, and that I didn’t tell you about my dad, and for all the hundreds of things—’
‘I love you too,’ she rushed. She took the coffee carrier and put it on the floor against the wall, then closed the gap between them. ‘Let’s stop being sorry about things that have already happened, and be happy about this, instead.’ She pressed her hands on either side of his face, his stubble prickling her palms, and felt his arms come around her waist. She leaned up and in, her lips inches from his. ‘About the fact that we’re stupidly in love with each other, and we’re actually going to let ourselves be, too.’
‘I’m down with celebrating being stupidly in love,’ he said. ‘But is now the right time—?’ She kissed the words out of his mouth, running her hands up into his hair, while he tightened his hold on her, bringing their bodies flush. They kissed to the soundtrack of the market at lunchtime, shouts and laughter and the melodious notes of a wooden wind chime on one of the stalls.
Eventually, she pulled back to look at him, his grey eyes shining and his cheeks flushed, his lips pink from where they’d been reminding each other how well they fitted together.
‘Do you know what?’ she said, lacing her fingers through his.
‘What?’ His voice was deep and rumbly and perfect, threaded through with the wonder that she was feeling like an earthquake.
‘I think for us, Ash – for you and me – all the time is the right time. It just took us a while to realise it.’
‘I’d agree with that,’ he murmured, and kissed her again.
Wendy came out of the shop ten minutes later, staring at them with a mix of feigned irritation and barely disguised glee.
‘You’re scaring the customers away,’ she said. ‘Nobody is going to come into the shop while you’re re-enacting a Richard Curtis finale on the doorstep.’
They pulled apart, but Ash kept his arms around her waist.
‘Sorry, Wendy,’ he said, not sounding sorry at all.
‘Ash is great at film re-enactments.’ Jess grinned. ‘Hasn’t he told you?’
Ash coughed out a laugh.
‘I’m very glad to have you back,’ Wendy said. ‘But just to manage my expectations, are you planning on kissing out here for the rest of the day, and taking up all my best colleague’s time?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ash said, turning to Jess. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you could help me in the shop for a bit, then, when you get bored, spend some time wandering around the market, catching up with everyone, and then we could go to mine when I finish at four thirty?’
‘I can see that working so well,’ Wendy said dryly, but she stood back to let them both into the shop ahead of her. Jess retrieved the coffee carrier from the floor. ‘I’m not paying you though, Ash.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Ash said.
Wendy straightened an hourglass on a shelf and narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m going to keep a close eye on you, and you’re not allowed to be in here alone together. Any coffee runs – that’s down to one of you.’
‘Understood,’ Jess said.
‘Yes, boss.’ Ash squeezed Jess’s hand. ‘Shall I go and get us some lunch?’
‘Wonderful idea,’ Wendy said. ‘Something carb- and fat-laden for me, please.’
He gave her a quick salute, kissed Jess on the cheek and left.
When he’d gone, she gazed out at the market, the stalls full of brightly coloured, enticing objects: hats and bracelets and art prints and trinkets that you didn’t even know existed until you turned up here, and then, after a few minutes with a stallholder, a slick demonstration given or impassioned story woven, you realised you couldn’t live without.
‘He couldn’t give up your hour, then?’ Wendy said lightly.
‘Apparently not.’ Jess turned to her boss. ‘Maybe there were still some of Olga’s hats he hadn’t tried on.’
Wendy laughed. ‘I think he’s picked his favourite thing in this market, and it isn’t one of Olga’s hats.’ She tapped the counter and strode into the storeroom. The radio filled thespace with an upbeat pop song.
Jess stayed by the window, looking out at the stalls and the customers, waiting for Ash to come back with their lunch. She was counting down the minutes to four thirty, when they could escape together and go back to her flat, start making up for all the time they’d lost. It wasn’t just one, happy hour she had to look forward to with him: she had him for good, and she wasn’t going to take a single second for granted.