Chapter 12
JACK
I’m running late.
I got pulled into the book club discussion about Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, then I took over from Nell when one of our customers requested a refund because they didn’t like the paperback he bought last week after reading the whole book.
I mean, who does that? It’s like asking for a refund of a tin of paint that you’ve decorated your lounge walls with only to discover that it wasn’t your thing after all.
Nell can hold her own when it comes to complaints, but this guy was relentless and not listening to a thing she was saying.
He’d calmed when I approached, a look of ‘at last, someone who will understand me’.
Arsehole. And now here I am, on my way to Flicks, jogging in jeans and a new pair of brown boots that could as easily be used by the SAS to increase my tolerance for pain.
Not exactly the cool, calm and collected entrance I wanted.
The trailers have already started as I take in our empty seats, my stomach tumbling towards my uncomfortable boots. I can’t see Maggie. No Henry either.
I scour the room.
A trailer of the next big superhero film is playing.
My eyes bounce across the rest of the faces lit up in flashes of light while the sounds of superheroes landing their knees into concrete vibrates around the room.
There is a row of four women in the middle, all chatting through the not-on-my-watch dialogue.
Towards the back is a couple in their forties, the man on his phone, the woman demolishing her chocolate as she glances angrily at her partner.
Behind our seat are a pair of women in their late forties.
Easy body language, and the way they are interrupting each other tells the story of a long friendship, both women accepting of each other’s habits, both talking animatedly, hands moving rapidly, laughter punctuating their conversation.
Next to them a man is standing up and taking off his jacket – but I can’t see Maggie.
Shit.
That twat will never buy another book from my shop. I give the room another once-over. Still no sign of those heavy curls. The screen darkens, my eyes drawn to the symbols telling the viewers the age certificate.
Then I see her. She’s not in our seats, but further along the row in front of the man, who, now jacketless, has just sat down.
‘Excuse me?’ I say. ‘Is anyone sitting here?’ She raises her eyebrows, cat’s eyes sparking. I look up, taken aback once more by that unsettling feeling that came over me the first time I’d seen her, that sense of knowing her.
‘I was expecting someone, but it looks like he’s ditched me.’
‘My lucky night then.’
She shifts to the right, a cloud of her scent reaching out to me as I sit.
She’s wearing a turquoise jumper, off the shoulder, a pink corduroy skirt resting above her knee-high navy-blue boots, a pair of soft grey gloves, the same type that she wore last week where the mitten part can be pulled back revealing fingerless gloves.
Her hair looks softer than it did last week, curls bouncing as she shifts to the left.
‘So this guy who stood you up,’ I whisper. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Clever. Bookish. Nice’ – I tilt my head waiting for the end of her sentence – ‘teeth.’ She flashes me a grin.
I let out a snort. ‘I bet he had braces as a kid. Had a lisp for most of his early teens.’
‘Maybe. I’d say it was worth it though. The guy has a great smile.’
‘Well’ – I put a hand to my heart – ‘I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.’
‘You’ll do.’
The film has started and our conversation stalls for a few moments as Hugh Grant narrates, explaining that he lives in Notting Hill.
‘Hi,’ she says, eyes on the screen.
‘Sorry I was late. I’m normally annoyingly punctual.’
‘How can you be annoyingly punctual? Being on time can’t annoy someone, surely?’
I think of Vicky’s face when I would be pacing the floor, checking my watch as she finished an email that was urgent, or hunted for a necklace that the outfit wouldn’t be complete without. ‘Depends if that person is laid-back about punctuality.’
She meets my eyes. Hers look a little different, and I recognise the impact of an eyelash curler. Growing up with a sister and having a niece who likes to practise on you leave their mark. I wonder if Maggie opens her mouth when she uses it.
‘I get that.’ She sucks a chocolate, pocketing it in her cheek. ‘It kind of implies that their time is more important than everyone else’s.’
Without knowing it, she’s just summed up Vicky.
My stroke and recuperation was quite the inconvenience, as it turned out.
I’m being unfair, really. It turns out that it was the ‘in health’ part of our impending vows that she was committed to, the ‘in sickness’ part…
not so much. And I guess, she was always going to break me, stroke or no stroke.
I didn’t realise she was going to ruin me financially too.
‘I’d have understood, you know. If you’d had second thoughts.
’ Maggie’s voice brings me back. It’s tender, cautious.
Hugh Grant’s monologue about where he lives continues in the background as he strides along the streets of Notting Hill.
The flirtatious atmosphere has dimmed, something like insecurity dipping her eyes before they meet mine.
‘Are you kidding? I’ve been looking forward to this film all week.’
‘Lies,’ she says shaking her head, curls skating along the pale skin of her shoulder.
‘I never lie. Well not never. I once told my fiancée she looked nice when she had her eyelashes done…’ I enact spider legs with my fingers in front of my eyes. ‘But that was a kindness.’
‘Fiancée?’ she questions gently.
‘Ex. Ex-fiancée,’ I clarify.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s fine. Well, you know’ – I scratch along my jawline – ‘not fine. Nobody wants to be dumped a month before their wedding, do they? Pretty tragic, isn’t it?
’ I’m being flippant, but the look she gives me, the sadness cuts through my chest. It’s been months since I’ve mentioned Vicky to anyone, and yet here I am.
‘Wow. So when you say fiancée, you really mean fiancée. Like not let’s get engaged, post it on Insta then never actually plan the wedding. You were one top hat and tails away from the aisle?’
‘One tux away… actually.’ Her eyes widen as she registers my meaning. I shrug. ‘I didn’t see the point in buying a new suit last week.’
‘Can I ask what happened?’ She shakes her head as if the action will rub out her question.
I think of the days and weeks after the stroke.
Vicky was at my bedside, there to help me through for the first few weeks but then…
she became more distant. There were excuses not to come over, to not attend the hospital appointments.
Then: ‘You’re not the same man I fell in love with,’ she’d said.
And I wasn’t. I’m not. That man doesn’t exist any more.
Kudos to Vicky. She realised it before I did.
‘It’s fine. We didn’t fit any more. I changed and…’ I shrug. ‘She didn’t. That’s about it.’ That and the fact that she took the money she’d invested in the new shop with her. I push that thought aside.
‘I’m sorry. That it didn’t work out.’ Maggie looks genuinely upset. More upset than Vicky did when she told me it was over.
‘Thank you, but it was for the best.’
There is a pause and for a moment, I think she’s going to reach out and touch me but instead, her hands fold in her lap and she puts on a brave smile, shifts in her seat, and angles further away to the left.
‘I loved the book by the way. Addie LaRue? So beautiful and relatable.’ She frowns as she lifts her gloves and gives me a knowing look. Something changes in her demeanour, a kind of eagerness to hear what I have to say but something else.
I change the subject. ‘I watched—’
‘The English Patient?’
‘Yes.’
‘And…?’
Her eyes spark with a challenge but then I nod. ‘You were right.’
‘Hah! Told you.’
We get a ‘shush’ from the friends behind, and grimace at each other, sinking down into our seats.
The film is good but I’m finding it hard to concentrate with her next to me.
Ten minutes in and we’ve had our second meet-cute: Julia Roberts has met Hugh in his bookshop and then they’ve bumped into each other on the street, orange juice spilt all over her top.
‘Classic,’ Maggie says quietly, grinning up at the screen as she pops another chocolate into her mouth.
‘Who knew finding love was so easy?’ I whisper, leaning towards her a little but still keeping a respectful distance.
Maggie turns her head. Her eyes widen a touch and I realise the implications of that sentence.
I rush on. ‘If I’d known I just needed to be clumsy with my orange juice, school would have been a whole lot easier. ’
‘Huh,’ she replies, gently nodding, then she whispers, ‘It would have made my life easier, too.’
‘Good job we didn’t go to the same school and have this superior knowledge back then. It would have been orange juice chaos.’ What the frick am I actually talking about? Orange juice chaos?
‘Shush!’ one of the friends from behind reiterates. Maggie shakes her head at me and points to the screen, a finger on her lips. I glance back at her, but her lips are clamped, holding in a laugh.
As Hugh looks for his glasses and takes Julia Roberts to the cinema in a pair of snorkelling goggles, Maggie shifts in her seat, pulls out her phone and frowns at the screen.
I risk the wrath of the friends behind.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Sorry… I need to take this.’
She unfolds herself from her seat, apologises to the women behind and makes a hasty exit.