Chapter Thirty-Five
Damien didn’t truly know where he was heading until he arrived at the brightly painted shop, with its red windowpanes, and its yellow shutters.
Though there were a few people seated inside – an elderly couple at the window, and a young man in a fine hat near the door – it wasn’t busy, which Damien was glad for, for it meant he didn’t feel quite as guilty knocking his knuckles against the half-moon window at the back.
Mr Jane’s face appeared in the glass. ‘Stomach problems?’
‘Much, much worse than that.’
Mr Jane raised two bushy eyebrows. ‘I have just the thing,’ he said, and disappeared from sight.
Damien took the corner seat, slinging his coat over one of the painted wooden chairs. His heart pounded. His lips burned.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. He should have been coming up with an escape plan. A way to extract himself. He should have been thinking about that – and yet instead he found his mind skittering back to the docks. To the soft press of Ava’s lips against his.
Had it been a mistake, the kiss? It hadn’t felt like one. It had gripped something deep in the pit of his stomach – quietened the ticking sensation that coiled in his chest.
Because she doesn’t know who you are, hissed the voice again – his father’s voice. She doesn’t know how you’ve lied to her. But she will … and when she finds out …
He pushed a breath through his teeth, ignoring the seeping cold that was worming its way beneath the damp wool of his coat, into his chest.
And then …
And then what? She would think it was all a lie – even the moments that hadn’t been. She would see it as a betrayal – because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Betraying her confidence. Working for Lillian, taking her coin – all so that he could leave here. Leave Liverpool.
Leave her.
And then he would go back to being alone again. He would go back to wearing one face for the world, and another in private. He would go back to his rules, his order, and the hollow feeling inside him would grow once more.
At that moment, Mr Jane placed an enormous teapot on the table, alongside two cups and saucers, and a bottle of amber liquid, which he uncorked with a satisfying pop. Then he poured the tea, adding a generous splash of rum to Damien’s cup.
‘So, tell me,’ said Mr Jane. ‘What’s troubling you?’
Damien pulled the cup towards him, wrapping his hands around the warm porcelain. ‘I think I’ve made a mistake,’ he said quietly.
‘As has every other human on this earth,’ said Mr Jane. ‘What did you do?’
Damien looked up at the man – at the scar that tracked down his face like webbing – and the words died on his lips. ‘Something foolish.’
For perhaps that was what the kiss had been. Foolishness.
‘Well, this’ll right whatever’s wrong,’ Mr Jane said, pouring a slightly less generous splash of rum into his own teacup.
‘So this is a time-spanning teapot?’ Damien asked humourlessly. ‘One that can rewrite all my sins?’
Mr Jane’s eyebrows arched, and he slid into the seat opposite Damien. ‘Is there a particular sin you’re wanting erasure for, or is it—’
‘All of them,’ said Damien, lowering his voice as he brought the cup to his lips.
‘Well, it’s good,’ said Mr Jane, fixing Damien with one of his searching stares. ‘Not sure it’s that good, though.’
‘No rum is that good,’ said Damien, taking another drink.
Mr Jane nodded, tapping one enormous finger against the porcelain of his cup. ‘But if she cares for you,’ he said carefully. ‘It won’t matter.’
Damien felt the liquid burn his throat. Felt the alcohol settle in his stomach and begin to thrum there. ‘If who cares for me?’
‘The woman,’ said Mr Jane. ‘For I’ve seen that fish-eyed stare in a man before. There’s a woman.’
Damien kept his expression carefully neutral. ‘There’s no woman.’
‘No?’ Mr Jane’s lip twitched upwards infuriatingly, as though he and only he were privy to some great secret. ‘Then you have another reason for wishing to rewrite your history?’
‘Given my history I could have a hundred reasons,’ said Damien. ‘A thousand.’
‘Still, I reckon there’s only one,’ said Mr Jane, hiding his smile behind his teacup. ‘Why don’t you tell me about her?’
‘There is nothing to say,’ he lied.
For there was everything to say.
She was the only one who had looked past his disguise, and seen the real him.
And she hadn’t judged him for it.
The only one who could stopper the hole that’d grown within him.
And her eyes.
She was the only person he’d ever known whose eyes changed colour. Grey when she was frustrated, or focused, or serious. But when she was sad, they would turn the most beautiful, brilliant shade of cerulean blue.
‘I see,’ said Mr Jane, one eyebrow raised askance. ‘But she’s why you want to scrub out your past?’
Damien didn’t answer, though he felt his cheeks colour a little in response.
‘Can I let you in on a little secret?’ Mr Jane said, leaning forwards, tilting the table ever so slightly towards him. ‘Our past is what shapes us. You wouldn’t be who you are without all those things you did.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ Damien muttered. ‘For it makes me precisely the wrong kind of person.’
Mr Jane’s eyes widened slightly, and he took a long sip of his drink.
In his bear paws, the porcelain cup looked as though it had been made for dolls.
‘You know,’ said Mr Jane. ‘I had a chap in here who said the same thing, once. Thought he was rotten through and through because he’d done rotten things. ’
Damien drained his cup, and ignored the teapot entirely – filling it with rum alone. ‘And let me guess,’ he said. ‘You plied him with liquor too, until he felt a whole lot better about himself.’
‘No,’ said Mr Jane. ‘But do you know what he got told?’
Damien watched the amber liquid in his cup ripple. ‘Hopefully that he was a monumental fool.’
‘He got told that everyone has a future before them. We just have to choose it.’
Damien huffed a humourless laugh between his lips. ‘And he believed that?’
‘Not at first,’ said Mr Jane. ‘But eventually. And I’ll tell you now – if she cares for you, then—’
‘She can’t care for me,’ Damien said quickly, for the very thought of it had lit something deep in the pit of his stomach, something searingly hot. ‘She doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know—’
The half of what he’d done. Who he was.
‘Then show her,’ said Mr Jane firmly. ‘And know that she’ll see the man you are today, and not the one you were yesterday. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Damien stitched his lips into a line. ‘Not really, no.’
‘I’m saying don’t bewail your past. Look ahead, instead. To your future.’
‘What future?’ Damien muttered, taking another sip and feeling the alcohol sting his tongue.
‘Whatever future you wish to make,’ said Mr Jane, tapping his knuckles upon the table. ‘Because it’s a choice, you know. Whether you believe it or not. So choose.’
Damien looked past him then, to the scarlet leaves dancing in the wind behind the teashop’s window, at the rhythmic way they fluttered back and forth.
Choose.