Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The first inkling Jack had that anything was wrong was during his visit to the pub on Wednesday evening. Devon had invited him to The Half Moon for a drink.
‘Ah, the prodigal son returns,’ said Greta. ‘Evening, Devon. Pint of Ridgeway?’
‘Great, thanks,’ said Devon.
‘Make that two,’ said Jack. Greta gave him a stony look and then addressed herself to pouring the two pints without any of her normal customer banter.
‘How you’ve been?’ he asked. ‘Business good?’
‘Fine,’ she said.
‘How did the Abba tribute night go? Sorry I couldn’t make it. Right in the middle of my exams.’
‘It was a great success. You weren’t missed.’ Her sarcastic smile was missing its usual mischievous twinkle.
A little taken aback, he stared at her, waiting for her to crack a joke or add a teasing continuation, but no, she didn’t so much as look at him when she handed over the two golden pints.
As soon as that was done, she moved to the other end of the bar, where she busied herself restocking one of the fridges.
He frowned. Normally he and Greta exchanged banter; it was a regular routine, teasing each other.
They’d always been good friends and he’d often sat at the bar to chat with her.
Had he upset her? He couldn’t think how.
Maybe something had happened. He was definitely out of touch with all the village gossip.
He and Devon withdrew to a table in the corner.
‘What’s wrong with Greta?’ he asked, settling into the wooden seat opposite his brother.
Devon glanced over at the landlady. ‘I’d hazard a guess she’s pissed off with you.’
‘With me?’ Jack looked the same way. ‘But I haven’t even been here – how can I have pissed her off?’
Devon raised an eyebrow. ‘Dad tells me you want a job.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, taking a delaying sip of his pint, very aware of Devon’s deliberate change of subject and slightly perturbed at his tone.
‘I thought you were staying in Bristol for the summer. What changed?’
Typical Devon, straight to the point.
‘One wonders why you weren’t planning to return – given that Bets has been waiting for you all this time.’
Jack winced.
‘It’s all right. Ella told me you dumped her.’
‘Ouch, you don’t pull any punches. That makes it sound very callous. It’s between me and Bets.’
Devon raised an eyebrow. ‘Bets has been part of the family for a while now.’
Jack sighed. ‘Things … just weren’t right anymore. We were so young when we got together and we’re still young. We want different things.’
‘So why didn’t you stay in Bristol? It would have spared her feelings.’
What if I said I had nowhere else to go?
A sense of self-preservation stopped Jack saying this out loud.
He didn’t want to burden Devon with his problems, or maybe it was that he didn’t want to admit them to his older brother, who always seemed to be so in control of himself, with that consummate confidence and certainty in what he was doing.
Devon was the last person Jack could tell about what a pig’s ear he’d made of things.
Jack might appear confident but inside he was always second-guessing himself.
‘And what happened to the fancy job you had lined up at your friend’s dad’s practice?’
Jack shrugged, despite the sharp jab of failure. ‘It didn’t work out.’
That was an understatement; it had been a spectacular humiliation – discovering the job he’d been offered was a complete sham.
Melissa and her dad might have wanted his qualifications, his first-class degree and his brain, to legitimise their upmarket veterinary equine-specialist practice, but what they hadn’t told him was that his dealings with clients would be minimal because he hadn’t been to the right school.
It had quickly become apparent that the carrot of a partnership that had been dangled would be dangling in the wind forever.
He should have known it was all too good to be true.
‘Didn’t work out?’ Devon scoffed. ‘You mean you didn’t stick it out when it got tough because you had a fallback option.’
The harsh comment was like a punch to the stomach. He shot Devon a mutinous look and wondered what he’d say if he told him the truth. Probably tell him he’d been a vain idiot and had got his just deserts.
‘Do you think you and Bets can work together?’ asked Devon, his face stern, the question very direct.
‘I think so.’
‘Think so?’
‘Look, I can work with her.’
‘That’s not the same thing,’ Devon pointed out. ‘You’re clearly not broken-hearted.’
Jack winced. ‘Thanks.’
‘You were the one that finished things. She’s the one that’s hurting.’
‘I know,’ said Jack with a sigh.
‘You know, she didn’t breathe a word until last night. Ella told me when she came home from the pub.’
‘Ah, is that why I got the chilly greeting from Greta?’
‘Yes, you’re going to find it difficult. Bets is very popular round here. You’ve changed the status quo. It’s going to take some getting used to. The two of you were an item for nine years. That’s a long time.’
‘I know.’ Jack picked at his beer mat, shredding the rounder corners with his fingernail.
He clenched his hand under the table, cross with himself for being such a fool. For letting his head get turned. Melissa and her father had even mocked the way he’d dressed, which he now realised was his deliberate attempt to try and make a good impression at the new job.
‘Evening, Jack,’ said Dave, one of the darts-team regulars. ‘Is it true you and Bets have gone your separate ways?’
Jack glanced up at the wiry man’s face.
‘Yes,’ said Greta appearing behind him, scooping up empty glasses from a nearby table. ‘He dumped her.’ She gave him a malicious grin. ‘So if you wanted to ask her out, Dave, the way is clear.’
Dave blushed bright red. ‘She’s far too good for me.’
‘And you’re too old,’ snapped Jack.
‘I’m not that old. I only turned forty last month and some women like an older man with financial security.’
Pain twisted in his gut at his less than charitable thoughts – he was hardly in any position to feel possessive of Bets. He’d let her down and now he knew how that felt. The tables had been well and truly turned. The familiar sense of shame doused him as thoroughly as a cold shower.
‘Sorry, mate. She’d be lucky to have you.’
Devon stared at Jack. Maybe he’d been a bit too effusive. Bets deserved a really good bloke. She was a smart cookie. He swallowed. She’d seen what he hadn’t a long time ago when she’d voiced her disquiet about his housemates. He’d laughed at her fears, told her she was imagining things.
Sometimes, he mused, things came back to bite you with a vengeance.
‘So how is it going with Ella?’ he asked, pleased to be able to change the conversation away from his own pitiful love life.
‘Great,’ said Devon with a smile that lit up his whole face.
‘The real deal?’ asked Jack, aware of being a tiny bit envious.
‘Hell, yeah. She’s it.’
‘Really?’ Jack was surprised; the two of them hadn’t known each other for very long and both had recently come out of long relationships. Mind you, what did he know? He’d been with Bets for years.
‘Yeah. I can be myself with her. She gets me, doesn’t put any pressure on me to be anything but what I am. I realised I’d been trying to be something else to fit in with Marina and it made me bloody miserable.’
Was it a family trait, Jack wondered, feeling that you needed to fit in with a particular sort of crowd?
‘And she’s hot,’ said Devon with a grin before downing the rest of his pint.
Jack considered. ‘I’ll let you be the judge of that. If I make any comment, I’m only going to get myself into trouble.’
Devon grinned. ‘I’m secure in my feelings.
She’s hot and I know she thinks I am. We’ve got all the chemistry going on.
She was going to rent one of the barns but Magda’s extended her cruise, so she’s staying in the cottage for the time being, but I’m going to ask her to move into the end barn with me.
I’ve spoken to Dad and he’s happy for me to do that. ’
‘Wow. Moving fast,’ commented Jack. ‘How do you know it’s right?’
Devon gave him a considering glance. ‘It’s a feeling. At the end of the day, I always want to go home to her. When I wake up in the morning, she’s the person I want to see. In the middle of the day, I’m excited to know that I’m going to see her later.’
‘You don’t feel … you know, cramped, or that she’s reliant on you.’
‘Ella is the least needy woman I know, after Bets of course.’ Devon’s stare was impassive.
Jack winced. ‘Bets isn’t needy.’ But he’d worried that she’d wanted too much from him and that he would let her down.
‘No, she isn’t. She’s pretty self-sufficient. She’s had to be, you’ve not been around for a long time. She’s going to be fine without you, you know.’
‘Thanks for the blunt speaking,’ said Jack, only a touch bitterly.
‘What do you want me to say? She’s been pining for you and can’t live without you?’
‘No, but … without being a dickhead. The plan was always for us to settle down together once I finished uni.’
‘And you got cold feet?’
‘Not cold feet. I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do anymore for both of us.’
‘I get that, I do, but I also think you could have let her down a little more gently and that perhaps you knew all this a while ago.’
Jack had nothing to say to that. Devon was right.
He’d been too much of a coward to upset the status quo.
It had suited him to leave things as they were until it had reached pinch point.
Finishing university had forced him to come clean that he hadn’t intended to come home – and the irony was, here he was.