Chapter 32
We pulled back from each other and Cooper’s frown neatly mirrored my own. The interruption, cutting off our first kiss, was most unwelcome, to say the least.
‘Who the hell is that?’ Cooper muttered, then looked pained, probably thinking about Adelaide. Cooper got up and I followed him back into the gloomy living area. Charlie shot past us both, barking manically at the sudden intrusion.
To my shame, I was about to say ‘Who cares? Ignore it!’ when the banging came again, even louder. Accompanied by an irritatingly familiar voice.
‘Oh, my God!’ I groaned. ‘It’s Richard.’
‘The soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend?’ Cooper looked torn between annoyance and amusement. ‘How does he even know you’re here?’
‘God knows, but I really don’t want to deal with him right now.
’ No, right now I wanted to thread my fingers through Cooper’s grey-dusted hair and kiss the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, run my hands under his jumper and just be here with him.
Richard had taken enough of my time already, three whole years of it.
Couldn’t I have just an hour or two before he had to make his presence known again?
‘What do we do?’ I asked softly. ‘He might not know for sure that I’m in here – he’s probably bluffing.’
‘I have you on the “find my phone” app,’ Richard called through the door. ‘There’s no point pretending you’re not here!’
How was he doing that? This was probably the first and only time in our relationship where I suspected him of being able to read my mind. He’d really picked his bloody moment on that one. I made a mental note to delete that app and possibly make an entirely new account, just to be safe.
‘I don’t think we can hide in here forever,’ Cooper said, clearly slightly amused by the tantrum Richard was throwing outside, sputtering and harrumphing at his door like he was a middle-class wolf and we were the two little pigs.
‘We could try?’ I whined.
‘We could… but I haven’t done a food shop in a while and the boat’s engine’s knackered, so we’d be stuck in here starving to death. Probably better to face it head-on.’
I gave him a look.
‘I realise that’s incredibly hypocritical,’ he said, raising both hands in surrender. ‘But even so.’
The knocking and bellyaching were suddenly replaced by a general scuffling and muted conversation.
For a second I thought I heard Emma out there, and prayed she was seeing Richard off so I wouldn’t have to deal with him right now, in front of Cooper.
Then the female voice outside rose imperiously and I realised it wasn’t Emma. It was Adelaide.
‘… will you move? My brother’s in there, I don’t care what you…’ Someone slapped the boat’s door with the flat of their hand. ‘Jarvis! Jarvis Cooper, I know this is your boat – come out and face me like a man, or I’ll wriggle through a porthole!’
I looked at Cooper. He looked at me.
‘Jarvis?’ I sputtered, struggling not to full-on giggle.
‘Tabitha,’ he said pointedly, though his ears were turning pink.
‘Still think I should face it head-on and open the door?’ I asked, folding my arms.
‘I… yes. I think we both should.’ Cooper looked at the door, then winced. ‘Or we could switch things round on them? I take yours, you take mine?’
‘If it were a physical fight, I’d say you’re on, but I think we should probably talk to them,’ I sighed. Then I held out my hand for his. ‘But we can do it together? Moral support?’
‘Is that not going to upset him, a lot?’ Cooper looked more amused at the prospect than reluctant.
‘I think it probably will but it’s no worse than what I walked in on,’ I pointed out.
Cooper took my hand and we moved towards the door.
Opening it was like coming out of a cinema screening at midday.
For a moment there was so much bright autumnal light that the two figures on the deck were blurry dark shapes.
Then they resolved into a red-cheeked Richard, and Adelaide, who looked markedly more put-together.
She was carrying a bottle of apple juice and I realised she must have gone into the newsagent’s to buy it, and any of the busybodies currently gossiping in there would have told her about the boat.
Even if they’d only told her when it had shown up, that had to be enough of a clue for her to look into it.
She looked surprised to see me. I felt a small flush of pride, maybe I was actually good at subterfuge.
Conversely, Richard looked grimly satisfied to have his suspicions confirmed and he even shook his head at me as I stood with Cooper in the little doorway.
Richard ignored Adelaide entirely, though I caught her giving him a look of distaste out of the corner of her eye.
Clearly, she wasn’t impressed with his performance.
‘Jarvis.’ Adelaide’s shoulders slumped a little and she raised a half-smile for him. ‘Do you have any idea the places I’ve been trying to find you?’
‘I know, Addy… I’m sorry,’ Cooper said. ‘I wanted to—’
‘I knew it,’ Richard interrupted, lip curled. ‘I knew you were lying about him the moment I saw those clothes. How long has this been going on then, hmm?’
Trapped behind our legs, Charlie barked at Richard. Something I wished it was socially acceptable for me to do, honestly.
‘Oh, for God’s sake – I haven’t been seeing Cooper behind your back,’ I snapped, even though technically I had sort of nearly kissed him before Richard started banging on the door.
But that was slightly different – I had been about to break up with Richard.
Bloody well would have if he’d bothered coming home or been there when I woke up. He was on borrowed time as it was.
‘Sure, I believe that,’ Richard scoffed. ‘You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘And what do you think I am, if you really thought I’d buy that you were out with Rob, after you told me he was spending a fortnight in Tenerife!
’ I couldn’t keep my voice from rising, ringing out over the canal and sending a moorhen thrashing across the water as if terrified of being included in our drama.
That or it was off to spread the gossip to its little moorhen friends.
Richard’s mouth clamped shut and his eyes flicked from me to Cooper and back again. I could see him looking for an excuse or a way to turn this around and get angry with me all over again – for ‘spying’ or ‘checking up’ on him and I didn’t want to wait for that.
‘Richard, I made a mistake taking you back,’ I said, as firmly as possible. Cooper’s hand in mine made it easier to look Richard in the eye and make him hear me. ‘I think I was right the first time.’
‘Are you breaking up with me?’ Richard sputtered.
‘I think that’s fairly obvious,’ Adelaide surprised me by interjecting. ‘Now can you piss off so I can talk to my brother?’
Richard glared at her, then back at me. ‘We’re not over until I agree we are!’ Richard stamped on the deck and I caught Cooper’s wince out of the corner of my eye as the heel of Richard’s shoe left a dent in the old wood. ‘And I think you need to take responsibility for your part in…’
‘You screwing someone else on her handmade blanket?’ Cooper said, reaching up and leaning against the doorframe in what I realised was an attempt to look taller than Richard. Bless him. ‘What happened, she left an impractical boot on the floor and you tripped and fell into someone else?’
A laugh squeaked out of me and Richard shot me a poisonous look.
Behind him I saw Adelaide’s eyebrows fly up.
Clearly, she hadn’t expected so much extra drama when she confronted her brother.
But she didn’t seem displeased. If anything, there was a smile struggling to escape through her huffy demeanour.
‘Maybe if she spent more time on me and less on her fucking knitting, I wouldn’t have gone elsewhere,’ Richard sniffed.
‘Crochet,’ Cooper and I said at the same time. I squeezed his fingers and he nudged against me. Richard looked at the pair of us in disgust.
‘Whatever!’ Richard clenched his fists. ‘That’s still no excuse to go off and screw the first… homeless river dweller you come across. God, have some self-respect, Tabs. He’s ancient.’
Adelaide’s startled laugh was like a blackbird’s call, and she covered her mouth immediately. Cooper glared at her and I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought they might be married. That was pure sibling communication. The universal language of ‘oh sure, you can find it funny, but just you wait’.
‘I’m only thirty-one,’ Cooper muttered.
I slowly removed my hand from Cooper’s so I could wrap my arm around his waist. Cooper, after a slight pause, slipped his around me too.
I glanced up at him and it all felt so right.
So easy. I couldn’t believe I’d spent so long agonising over Richard and whether leaving him was the right thing to do or not.
If it was that hard, and we hadn’t even reached the marriage and kids discussions, didn’t that tell me what I needed to know?
It hadn’t felt right and I wasted so much time trying to work out why, when really the answer was simple.
It felt wrong because it was. We were all wrong for each other.
And everything that had happened with Cooper since he’d arrived had been telling me he was right for me. From his tatty books and easy smile, the banter and his penchant for Dolly. We weren’t the same but, as Emma said, that wasn’t important. He just got me and I got him.
Richard looked like he was about to bite through his own tongue. ‘This is a new low, even for you. You have no idea what you’re… is that my fucking jumper?’
‘Well… mine now,’ Cooper pointed out. ‘Cheers for that, by the way – it’s great.’
‘It’s actually really nice,’ Adelaide put in. ‘Which is surprising, because you usually just order in bulk from the M&S sale page, like someone’s grandad.’
‘Thanks – it’s cashmere,’ Cooper said, with a smile like a cat looking at the sun. ‘Tabitha made it.’
‘For me!’ Richard snapped.
‘For my boyfriend,’ I retorted. ‘And you stopped being that when you cheated on me.’
‘So, what, you took me back for a few days, now you want to bin me off and make this… drifter your boyfriend?’ Richard said scathingly.
‘I…’ I stammered, face flaming. ‘I mean… we hadn’t really discussed if… but if he was open to it…’
‘He is,’ Cooper said quickly, like he was telling me a secret, giving my waist a squeeze. ‘He’s very open to the idea. Super bloody open.’
I turned towards him, my pulse singing in my veins. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah,’ Cooper’s eyes flicked to my mouth and my heart skipped like a stone over the water.
A loud splash made both of us jump. I turned to see Richard floundering in the water, spitting and cursing as he tried to thrash his way to the bank.
‘Honestly, Jarvis – you can’t steal a man’s girlfriend and then take your eye off him – obviously he’s going to try and push you overboard – it’s not like he’d stand a chance in a fair fight,’ Adelaide chided, brushing water droplets from her leather jacket and stepping away from the side of the boat.
I couldn’t believe she’d pushed him, but I wasn’t exactly annoyed about it.
If he’d managed to shove Cooper, I’d have gone over with him.
‘I wouldn’t call it stolen – I was basically donated,’ I said, looking down as Richard dug his fingers into the wet bank and struggled to climb out of the water. ‘He gave me away really.’
‘Oh… shut up,’ Richard growled, as he got to his feet, which squelched in their expensive loafers. ‘Just wait until I tell your parents about this. They’ll probably have you sectioned.’
I ignored him. If he wanted to go crying to my mum and dad about how I’d broken up with him, that was just one more reason to be glad I’d done it.
Mum might try to talk me round but I didn’t fancy Richard’s chances with Dad.
Especially not once I told him that Richard had tried to shove Cooper and, by extension, me, overboard.
Richard stormed off down the towpath, dripping water and shedding wet leaves as he went. The pitiless laughter of ducks following him out of sight. Then it was just me and Cooper and Adelaide, standing on the deck of The Lady Di.
‘So then,’ she said, ‘are you going to invite me in?’