Chapter Twenty-Eight
Erin had put together platters of sandwiches and cakes for Joe’s birthday gathering, as she did every year.
Since she was a child, she’d been attending the small party Joe insisted on holding to celebrate another trip around the sun.
‘Life is hard,’ he always said, ‘So we should celebrate every win, large or small.’ He’d even had everyone around when his birthday fell soon after Nuala’s death.
‘She wouldn’t want me to stop celebrating being alive, just because she’s not here with me,’ he’d said, although it was a subdued affair, and Erin suspected he regretted trying to carry on as normal when his world had a fresh, un-stitchable tear in it.
Now, five years on, Erin and Jack arrived at Joe’s thirties semi, set back from the road that connected Blackheath and Kidbrooke, half an hour before everyone else.
She averted her eyes from the house attached to the other side.
She’d grown up in that house and it pained her every time she noticed a change to her family home’s exterior.
When the family who lived there now had replaced the front door, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from weeping.
It was as though the imprints of her parents’ hands had been discarded, like their very existence meant nothing.
She knew it was irrational, but she couldn’t help feeling like every new coat of paint on the window frames, covered up a part of their past. She’d learned it was easier to look away.
They unloaded the trays of food from the boot of Erin’s trusty old Ford Focus, and knocked on the door.
Joe threw it wide and greeted them with open arms. From the second she walked into Joe’s hallway, Erin felt like she’d gone back in time.
She was nine years old again, following her father as he greeted Nuala with a hug and a loud kiss on the cheek.
She could almost smell Nuala’s floral perfume and hear her mother’s laughter as Joe recounted some story about the gig he’d played the previous evening.
The music was still the same, soft jazz filling the air now, just as it always had.
Turning, she was almost surprised to see her own adult son beside her.
Back in the moment, she followed Joe through to the kitchen at the back of the house and lay the trays down on the spaces on the worktops that weren’t already filled with glasses and bottles.
She took in the various spirits, some of which had labels that looked older than her.
‘Blimey, Joe, are you expecting hoards of drunken sailors this year?’
‘That lot was in the back of the cupboard,’ he said. ‘I need someone with better eyesight than me to read the expiry dates on the labels.’ He patted Jack on the back. ‘Go on, son.’
‘Does alcohol go off?’ said Jack. ‘Isn’t it a natural preservative?’
‘If it’s been opened it does,’ said Erin.
She’d been on enough food safety courses to know exactly how poisonous out-of-date food and drink could be.
She lifted a bottle of rum with a sealed cap.
‘This one should be all right, but definitely not this.’ She tapped the neck of a half empty bottle of Martini Rosso, which was more brown than red.
‘That was Nuala’s favourite,’ said Joe with a long exhalation.
‘Sorry, Joe, but if she was the last one to drink it, then I think it needs to go down the sink, along with this, this, and this.’ She lifted other questionable bottles and moved them over to the aluminium sink.
‘Let me smell it before you chuck it away,’ said Joe. The cap scratched as he unscrewed it. He put it to his nose and breathed in, his expression turning wistful.
Erin put her arm around him. ‘You okay?’
‘I’m grand.’ He tipped the liquid into the sink and the fruity, spicy scent drifted up to Erin’s nostrils.
She remembered hugs and kisses that smelled like that after evenings dancing as Joe and his friends played impromptu concerts in their front room.
A longing to go back to that time tightened around her waist like a belt.
She released Joe and took a parcel wrapped in bright paper from her bag. ‘Here’s your present.’
Joe turned it over in his hands, then shook it near his enormous earlobe.
‘I wonder what this could be?’ he said, winking at Jack, who knew as well as he did that it would be a book.
It was always a book. Mary always let Erin choose a novel from a local bookshop for all their friends for their birthdays, and Erin had carried on the tradition.
‘Open it and see,’ said Jack. He watched them as he moved around the kitchen, peeling cellophane off the top of the sandwich platters and rolling them into a ball between his hands.
Joe unpicked the sellotape and revealed a blue cover with a yellow gate and an inverted teardrop shape with You Are Here printed in the middle.
‘David Nicholls,’ said Joe. ‘Lovely. Thank you.’ He embraced Erin and pulled Jack in too.
Erin breathed in the smell of his hair gel mixed with the familiar, fresh laundry scent of her son and in that moment she could almost believe all was well with the world.
‘I hope you like it,’ she said. ‘It’s tender and funny and the characters are spot on. I absolutely loved it. One of my top five reads of last year.’
‘Does it have a happy ending?’ Joe asked.
‘Why don’t you start at the end and find out, like a normal person?
’ Erin laughed, then thought about Riley and stopped immediately.
‘Has Riley been in touch?’ Riley had promised to perform a poem for Joe’s birthday, but she probably didn’t feel much like performing or celebrating after their talk earlier.
There was a knock at the door and Jack left them to answer it.
‘No, why?’ said Joe.
‘I’m not sure she’ll make it tonight because—’ She stopped speaking when Riley appeared in the kitchen, looking stunning in a vest and a black tulle skirt so full it nearly touched both sides of the kitchen at once. ‘Hello, love. How are you doing?’
Riley plonked a bottle of wine on the counter. ‘I am a single woman once again.’ Beyond the darker than usual eyeliner, her eyes were watery.
‘So …?’
‘Yep, Chegs and that skank are getting it on. He tried to deny it, but she was all like, “Don’t you think she deserves to know the truth, Lawrence?”’ She did a perfect impression of Teagan’s irritating voice.
Erin watched her, waiting for a return of the tears from earlier, but she seemed fortified, somehow. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘The boy’s a fool,’ said Joe. ‘He doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Riley.
‘Prick,’ said Jack. ‘Drink?’
‘Hell, yes. Let’s get this party started.’ Erin watched her as she took the glass of white wine from Jack, and was reassured that, even if she wasn’t okay now, she would be. She was resilient. She’d had to be, poor kid.
The others arrived soon after, along with some of Joe’s old friends and ex-bandmates.
Erin was nervous about seeing Adam after the moment of connection she’d felt when they were alone in the café and afterwards in the street.
The sensation of being safe when he was beside her had felt good at the time, but in the intervening days, she’d realized it wasn’t ideal.
It made her vulnerable. She shouldn’t need a man to make her feel safe.
One reason she’d almost rolled over and given up on the café was because she was too cowardly to fight.
She needed to be stronger in her own right, more like her mother.
Seeing Riley’s relationship implode added to her resolve, so she needed to put a spike in it now.
Saving The Bookmark would take up all her focus and energy, and she couldn’t let anything derail that.
She said a quick hello to him when she bumped into him in the hall, then made her excuses and busied herself offering drinks and food to the people gathering in the long room Nuala had knocked through to give the house more light.
She wanted to ask if he’d made any decisions about Oliver, but wasn’t sure how to be around him after what passed between them without giving him ideas, so she decided avoidance was her best strategy.
He seemed happy enough chatting with Susan and Hafsa, so she left them to it.
Before long, a collection of elderly men and women opened instrument cases and sat on dining chairs at the back end of the room, which had started out as a dining room.
The other party-goers gathered at the end that was the sitting room, drinks and sandwiches in hand, ready for the traditional performance by some of the best jazz performers of their time.
Lulu, an octogenarian singer with a voice so tender it always made the hairs on Erin’s neck stand up, waved her arms to shush the group.
She always wore sparkly dresses, and the red and black number she wore today kept falling off one bony shoulder.
She’d lost a lot of weight since last year’s party and Erin wondered if she was unwell.
The thought made tears gather behind her eyes.
Why did people have to get sick and die?
Why did everything have to change? ‘Before we start the musical shenanigans,’ said Lulu, her voice notably huskier than Erin remembered it, ‘we’ve got a special guest performer,’ she said. ‘Where’s Riley?’
Riley moved next to Lulu. ‘Hi, everyone.’ Her fingers furled and unfurled at her sides.
‘I had planned to write something fitting for the man of the hour.’ She met Joe’s eye and they shared a smile.
‘But circumstances …’ She put her hand to her mouth and whispered, ‘Dumping cheating, shit-head boyfriend, got in the way.’ The crowd made various noises from sympathetic ‘ahhs’ to a shout of, ‘Want me to kill him for ya?’ from a man with a pork-pie hat and a trumpet dangling by his side.
Riley bowed to the man, and mouthed ‘thank you’, before turning her bright eyes back to the group.
‘So, I’m afraid I can only offer something I wrote on the bus on the way here.
You are worth so much more than this, Joe, but I hope it’s better than nothing.
’ She took a breath, then narrowed her eyes.
‘What makes a man?’ She tapped her chin.
‘That’s a question for our time, I’ll explore it now, in the medium of rhyme.
It’s not flesh, it’s not blood, those are animal traits.
It’s not going down the pub, drinking beer with your mates. ’
‘Isn’t it?’ said the man in the hat, chuckling. He looked cowed and put a finger to his lips when Riley arched an eyebrow in his direction.
‘It’s in here.’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘It’s in here.
’ She cupped her scalp. ‘In your heart and your head. It’s not what you can lift, or get up to in bed.
We’ve lost sight of the things that matter, that are true, and those things, my dear friend.
’ She pointed at Joe. ‘Are what we all see in you. You are gentle, you’re kind, and you fight for what’s right.
You value laughter and love, that’s why we’re all here tonight.
’ She crooked a finger for Joe to join her.
He stood and moved to her side, a shy grin on his face.
Riley put an arm around him and continued, ‘Because, Joe, my friend, you’re the very best of men, and like everyone here, I’m proud to call you my friend.
’ She kissed his cheek and the crowd whooped and applauded.
Erin jumped at the sound of a sharp whistle near her ear.
She turned to see Adam at her shoulder and immediately flushed at the proximity.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she gave him a quick smile and rushed forwards to embrace Joe and Riley.
The warmth that flowed through her from just standing next to him was a worry.
If she was going to protect herself, then she would need to stay as far away from that man as possible.