Chapter 30 #2
‘Told you. I’ll have to buy them some more tomorrow.’ Fen balled up her own paper bag and passed it to him. ‘Come on, prove it wasn’t a fluke.’
He took aim, threw it in the direction of the bin, and missed.
‘Call yourself a rugby star?’ She grinned. ‘Useless.’
‘I don’t call myself a rugby star. It just used to be my job to play the game.
’ Jamie rose to collect the ball of paper, his hair falling forward as he bent down to retrieve it from the grass, and Fen averted her gaze from the frankly spectacular view of his shirt and jeans stretching across his shoulders and backside.
Returning to sit beside her on the bench, he threw it again, and this time it went in.
‘Fluke,’ said Fen.
The next moment, a squirrel ran down the silvery trunk of a nearby tree, raced across the grass and leapt into the bin. They heard a rustle of paper, then it emerged triumphant with a French fry sticking out of its mouth.
‘Looks like Winston Churchill.’ Taking out his phone, Jamie snapped away before the squirrel shot back up the tree. He showed her the best shot and enlarged it. ‘Want me to send this to you? Now I’m allowed to contact you again?’
It was a cute photo. ‘Yes, please. Oh!’ Reminded by the hairstyle of a woman walking by, Fen produced her own phone. ‘Forgot to tell you, I had the loveliest letter from one of the women on the Venice cruise. Remember Hattie and Kayla?’
‘Kayla with the red and gold spiky hair? Quite keen on me until I got dumped in favour of a young gondolier?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘And Hattie with the ex-husband who was also on the ship with his new woman, until she went back to her chap.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘See? I do remember. Hattie told me when she messaged me on Instagram, asking for your address.’
‘Yes, she told me as well. She and Guy saw the interview you did on TV and wanted to let us know how shocked and sorry they were to hear about Leon. She sent me a few photos too, taken on the ship, with me and Leon in them, and one of you and Leon on the dance floor. I’ll send you that one.
Her letter was wonderful, really long. It was so kind of her to make the effort to write it, because so many people don’t know what to say so they end up not saying anything at all. ’
‘I know.’ Jamie pulled a face and slowly nodded in agreement.
‘Anyway, she said they’d wanted to do something positive, so they held a karaoke night in their local pub to raise money for a cancer charity in memory of Leon, and ended up making nearly four hundred pounds.
Isn’t that incredible? She sent me photos of that too, as well as a letter from the charity thanking them for their donation.
Here they are, I put them all in an online album.
Sorry, I should have sent them to you before.
’ She passed him the phone so he could see everything for himself.
‘I did send copies to Hilary and Greville, but didn’t hear back from them. ’
The stars were starting to make themselves visible now in the sky.
Fen waited for Jamie to finish studying the photos, then read Hattie’s kind letter.
As a PS, she’d concluded: I know we only knew Leon for a short time, but he was one of those happy-go-lucky characters who always lit up a room (or a sun deck!).
His light shone so brightly, it’s still almost impossible to believe he’s no longer here.
If there are any other charity events held in his memory, please let us know, as we would really like to attend.
At last, he looked up and handed back the phone. ‘Yes, send me everything. I’ll write back to her. I’ve been thinking about organising something, so . . .’
In the dim light, Fen saw the glimmer in his eyes as he got his emotions back under control.
Her own throat was tight as she nodded in agreement.
The normal thing to do now would be to comfort each other with a squeeze of the hand or even a reassuring hug, but she couldn’t risk the zing happening again.
Getting to her feet, she took a sip of lukewarm coffee before grimacing and dropping the cup into the bin. ‘Shall we head back now?’
‘Already?’
‘I have some work I need to catch up on.’ It was the excuse she’d prepared earlier. ‘And you have an early flight home tomorrow.’
As they left the park and made their way over to the picturesque Nine Streets area of the city, where independent vintage and designer shops, café bars and restaurants lined the canals, Fen told him about the further messages she and Hattie had exchanged.
‘Nobody thought for one second that Kayla’s fling with her gondolier would last, but they’re still going strong.’
‘It’s amazing.’ Jamie nodded in agreement.
‘Hattie says they’re crazy about each other.
Kayla’s been selling loads of her belongings online to make money so she can fly to Venice every month.
She’s been teaching herself Italian and has met all of Angelo’s family, who weren’t sure at first, but now they love her.
And Angelo’s come over to Oxford too, to meet everyone.
He was there at the karaoke night and they sang “You’re the One” together.
Brought the house down, apparently. It’s just the maddest thing, the first time they clapped eyes on each other, they both knew.
Everyone expected them to crash and burn, but they haven’t.
It was absolutely love at first sight,’ Fen concluded. ‘And it still is.’
Because six months later, Angelo was still here, she didn’t say aloud.
He wasn’t dead. You could envy other people with happy lives and wonderful partners, but you couldn’t resent them for it.
Bitterness wasn’t the way to go. Bitterness didn’t make you feel better.
This was something Disa had told her, and of course, as usual, she was right.
Everyone was allowed to be happy some of the time, but in this life there were never any guarantees. What you had one day could be snatched from your grasp the next. Tragedy was potentially only ever a split second away.
They arrived back on Herengracht an hour later. As they reached Tonia and Hendrik’s house, Fen stopped walking and said, ‘This is me.’
Jamie turned to face her, then looked up as a flock of birds swooped overhead. She sensed he was as unsure how to proceed as she was, seeing as she’d been careful to avoid any physical contact since the earlier close shave with the demon cyclist.
‘Right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, thanks for this evening. It was really good to see—’
The bottle-green front door flew open, stopping him in his tracks and making both of them jump.
‘Yay, you’re back!’ Tonia gave a whoop of delight and skipped down the short flight of stone steps towards Jamie. ‘Hello, I’m Tonia, so lovely to finally meet you – I’ve heard so much about you from Fen!’
Fen watched as she flung her arms around him.
It was true, she’d talked about Jamie during the last few weeks.
Thankfully, Tonia might have heard a fair amount about him, but she didn’t know about the zings, because Fen hadn’t mentioned those to anyone, not even her oldest friend in the world.
Some things were far too shameful to admit.
But Jamie’s temporary awkwardness had magically vanished.
He was now kissing Tonia on both cheeks and telling her he’d heard all about her too, as effortlessly relaxed as he always was on TV.
While she waited for the greetings to be over, Fen turned to admire the way the lights from the street lamps were reflected in the ripples on the water of the canal.
Until she heard Tonia saying, ‘Come on in, you must join us!’
‘He can’t.’ Fen spun round. ‘He has to be at the airport by seven.’
‘Pfft, that’s ages away,’ Tonia scoffed. She turned back to Jamie. ‘You’re not going to leave us now, are you? We have Dutch beers and the best bitterballen, and the babies are in bed, I promise!’
‘That’s a lot of B’s,’ Jamie remarked. ‘But yes, sounds great. Although Fen said she had work to do.’
‘Sounds like some kind of feeble excuse to me.’ Tonia turned to her. ‘Didn’t I say I’d like to meet him? How often do I get the chance to chat to someone famous?’
Fen knew when she was beaten. ‘You met a Chuckle Brother once.’
‘When I was sixteen, and only because he was buying a multipack of Hula Hoops in the supermarket.’ Tonia dismissed the encounter with a shrug. ‘Anyway, this one’s better-looking.’
Fen said, ‘How did you know we were back, anyway? Have you been peering out of the window for the last three hours?’
‘Of course not. Remember when you first arrived and we didn’t want you getting lost in the back streets so I installed that location app on your phone? I’ve been following you online all evening. How was the Vondelpark?’
She was impossible. She was also making her way up the steps, beckoning for Jamie to join her. And now he was looking back at Fen, saying, ‘Is this OK with you? I won’t stay long.’
What else could she do, other than shrug, say lightly, ‘You’re the one with the plane to catch,’ and follow him into the house?