‘And maybe turning thirty is making me reassess some things. I’m trying to figure out what I want from life, but this is not the time and place for this conversation. We have work to do. Have you picked up the champagne order for tonight?’
‘Shit,’ Noah said. ‘I knew there was something. Okay. I’m on it. I won’t be long.’
With that, he was gone and Jo felt as if she could breathe again, but there was no denying there was now a growing sense of unease gnawing at her. Everything was changing, and maybe this was the perfect chance for her to change too.
4
My Best Friend’s Wedding
By seven in the evening, everything was fully prepared for the engagement dinner. The function room upstairs in the bar had been transformed into a romantic wonderland. Fairy lights hung from the exposed beams. The lighting was soft, and the candles were ready to be lit on each table and on the wall sconces. It wasn’t a space they used very often, but they hoped to use it more. Indeed, Noah and Libby wanted to hold their own wedding reception there. It was just the right size for an intimate family wedding, and as Jo made the final checks to the room, she could see how it would make the perfect venue.
Erin was now relaxed and felt in control, and Noah had set up a table to greet the guests with glasses of champagne, served into vintage champagne saucers that he had sourced. All Jo had to do was make sure the happy couple-to-be were indeed happy, and get all their guests sitting down to dinner and then she was free to go home. She was more than pleased to be leaving before they all started drinking. Jo wasn’t sure that she had the patience for that. All day, Noah’s words had nipped at her. That she had seemed off kilter. The strength of her reaction to Erin’s news had also troubled her. What she wanted more than anything was just to get out into the fresh air and try to figure out what was going on in her head.
Paddy would be only too willing to be her companion on a long walk along the walkway at the banks of the River Foyle and it was the perfect night for it. The sun had just started to set and she knew it would be lighting up the ripples of the river as it wove its way out to sea. It was the kind of evening when the walkway would be busy with evening strollers all enjoying the spring sunshine. It was bound to lift her mood. It usually did.
So when she left, just after eight, the happy couple looking impressed, she set out along the river and tried her best to talk through her issues with Paddy. But while he was a great listener, he wasn’t so great with advice. Instead he’d just look at her with his sad doggy eyes and occasionally proffer her his paw to shake. It was a great comfort, of course, but it didn’t lift her mood as much as she hoped. She wondered whether some chocolate would help. Maybe she had PMT and chocolate was the exact cure she needed for her ills. So, as she walked Paddy back to the bar, she decided to stop off at Harry’s Shop – a small corner shop that had been a feature on Ivy Lane for decades.
She tied Paddy up outside, and pushed open the door to see Harry sitting behind the counter. A broad smile broke across his face.
‘Harry,’ Jo said. ‘What are you doing working at this time? You’re supposed to finish at teatime!’
Well past retirement age, Harry was determined to work in the shop for as long as possible. However, after he scared his friends on Ivy Lane senseless by having a heart attack, right there behind the counter the previous summer, they had badgered him into slowing down and hiring help.
He smiled. ‘Lucy is running a bit late. So I’m staying on. And, sure, it’s quiet anyway. I just tell people where to find stuff and they do it. They do most of the work for me. I might be old, and I might have a dodgy heart, but even I’m capable of using a till without doing myself an injury.’
Jo knew better than to argue with Harry. His health scare hadn’t cowed him one bit and his stubbornness was legendary.
‘You know we just worry about you, Harry,’ she said, as she scanned the shelves of chocolate and sweets.
‘I know you do. And I appreciate you for it, but there is no need. Besides, I have some very exciting news,’ Harry said.
Jo looked up from the Crunchies and Flakes and noticed that the smile on Harry’s face was as broad as she’d ever seen it. ‘Well, are you going to tell me or just sit there grinning?’ she asked him.
‘My grandson Lorcan’s coming to visit! He’s going to stay for a month or two.’
Much had been said about Harry’s solitary grandson in the past. He was, she thought, in his mid-twenties, lived in England and, from what Jo could tell, behaved like a spoiled teenager. Harry had talked about his love of computer games and his collection of Star Wars toys with incredible fondness as if Lorcan were a schoolboy and not a grown man. But what had turned Jo against him most was that he hadn’t come to see Harry when he’d had his heart attack.
Of course she would never have said to Harry that she didn’t think much of his beloved grandson, but her opinion was quite clear-cut.
‘That’s lovely news,’ she said, with a fake smile plastered on her face. ‘And he’s staying for so long? That will be nice for you. Is he thinking of moving here then?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t know, to be honest. I just know he’s had a relationship break-up and wants to get away for a bit, so it seems natural that he comes here.’
‘Does he not have a job over there that would miss him?’ Jo asked, and immediately regretted it. She didn’t want Harry to think she was judging Lorcan, even if she was.
Luckily, Harry just seemed to be happy to have any excuse to talk more about him. ‘I think they’re keeping his job open for him. He’s taking one of them, what’s the word…?’
‘Sabbatical?’ Jo suggested and Harry looked at her as if he was hearing the word for the first time.
‘Nope. I don’t think that’s it. But it’s like an unpaid holiday thing.’
Jo nodded with a smile. ‘Well, it will be lovely for you to see him,’ she said.
‘It will. He might even work a few shifts for me. Maybe he’ll get a thirst for running a shop? I’m not getting younger, you know.’
‘We do try to tell you that, Harry,’ she replied. ‘So when is he coming over?’
‘I’m just waiting to get details of his flight. But soon I think.’
‘Well, I’m happy for you,’ she said and she meant it. It was nice to see Harry so excited about something. She only hoped that Lorcan would not be as feckless in real life as he appeared to be from what she knew of him so far.
5
Who’s That Girl?
Friday night was the night on which the Campbell family watched Clara’s favourite film of all time, The Princess Bride. Clara was always allowed to stay up just a little bit later, but Jo was much later home than she had intended to be and Buttercup and Westley had already ridden off into the sunset together by the time she got in. Clara had been carried up to bed, her own Buttercup under her arm, and the dinner that her mum had prepared for Jo had dried to a cinder in the oven.
Although she felt bad for even thinking it, Jo was glad, for once, that she had missed bedtime with Clara. She’d make it up to her later, of course. But all she wanted in that moment was to take the family-sized bag of Maltesers she had bought in Harry’s shop, the bottle of wine she’d brought home from the pub and escape to soak in the bath for an hour.