Pulling off her rubber gloves and pushing her hair back from her now sweaty face, she clambered down the stairs and opened the door to find Jo standing, beaming face, make-up still perfectly done, with a covered plate in her hands.
‘We thought you might be hungry – so I’ve brought you some lunch. Just a bit of everything from the carvery.’
The smell was mouth-watering – and Libby’s tummy groaned loudly in anticipation. This was definitely something more appetising than some out-of-date crisps.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she smiled. ‘I mean, I’m glad you did – but you didn’t need to.’
‘Ah, nonsense. I know you’ve limited facilities over here and we couldn’t have you getting too hungry and maybe collapsing on us now, could we?’
‘I appreciate the gesture,’ she said, taking the plate from Jo and smiling. ‘Do you want to come in for a bit? I mean, it’s a case of sitting on bare floorboards and the rooms now smell strongly of bleach, but you’re more than welcome.’
Jo shook her head, before jerking it in the direction of The Ivy Inn. ‘Naw, I’d better get back. It’s busy over there today. Can’t be giving Noah something to complain about. But enjoy your lunch – just drop the plate over when you get a chance.’
She waved a cheery goodbye and crossed the road – leaving Libby to take her dinner upstairs, where she opened a bottle of water, sat on the floor and started eating. It wasn’t the most salubrious of surroundings – not by a long shot – but in that moment she felt happy and content in her own little bubble.
Looking out the window, she noticed Jo leave the pub with another covered plate and walk up the street towards Harry’s shop. In that moment, she was wowed by the sense of community in her new street – and nothing else mattered.
16
Watermelon
The plate of roast beef – melt-in-the-mouth tender – roast potatoes, carrots, cabbage Yorkshire pudding and a healthy serving of gravy would normally have been enough to send Libby into a food coma for the better part of the afternoon – but, as it happened, it was just what she needed to give her the energy to get through the rest of her afternoon scrubbing and cleaning.
When six o’clock came, she locked up both the shop and the flat and, after throwing her bag into her car, she carried the plate Jo had left with her back over to the pub. The lunch crowd had thinned out and what was left was a group of jovial drinkers enjoying the embers of the weekend with cold glasses of wine and frosted beer glasses in front of them. Noah was holding court behind the bar – and, to Libby’s dismay, there was no obvious sign of Jo. It would’ve been so much easier if she was there and Libby didn’t have to so much as break breath with Noah. He was simply a complication she didn’t need just now.
She walked to the bar and sat the plate, along with her freshly washed knife and fork, on the counter top. She cursed the fact she had put her bag in her car as she could have tried to get away with writing a quick thank you note to Jo instead of waiting until Noah was done telling one of his long-winded stories to the delight of his listening fans.
He glanced over to Libby and raised his hand to gesture that he would be with her in just one minute, so she took a seat and stared longingly at the cold bottles of wine in the fridge that looked oh-so tempting after the day she had put in.
A long soak, a glass of wine, perhaps even an hour in the garden reading a book – she had the latest Marian Keyes novel and she was dying to get stuck in – was exactly what she needed and she longed for Noah to hurry up so she could thank them for dinner and be on her way.
She felt a physical swoop of relief when, seconds later, she saw Jo emerge from the office behind the bar and smile in her direction.
‘I brought these back,’ Libby said, gesturing to the plate and cutlery on the counter, as Jo walked over. ‘Thank you so much. It was absolutely delicious. Can I settle up?’
‘There’s no need,’ Jo said. ‘Consider it a…’
‘Welcome to the street?’ Libby laughed. ‘There have been so many welcomes to this street, I need to pay for something!’
‘I was going to say a neighbourly gesture. We like to look after each other around here.’
‘You do a very good job of it,’ Libby said, as she recalled how she saw Jo taking a plate of food up to Harry.
‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ Jo said, leaning over the bar. ‘It’s not me. It’s Noah – he’s very determined that we all do our bit. He’s always wanting to give something back to the community. Sometimes I have to remind him this is a business not a charity. But I can understand why he feels the need to give back too, you know?’
Libby was about to ask Jo exactly why did Noah feel he owed Ivy Lane so much, when Paddy wandered out from the back office and jumped up on Jo, demanding cuddles.
Jo ruffled his fur before smiling back at Libby. ‘I think I’ll have to take this one out for a walk. If you’ll excuse me.’
‘Of course,’ Libby said. ‘I just wanted to return your plate and thank you again.’
‘I’ll pass that on to Noah,’ Jo said as Paddy started to whimper, desperate to get outside. Jo laughed and told the scruffy dog to calm down. ‘You’re supposed to be Noah’s dog, you know!’ she faux-scolded the dog. ‘But it will be me picking up your poop again today, won’t it?’
Paddy’s tail wagged furiously. He didn’t seem too bothered about who was going to lift his poop as long as he was getting outside to run about.
Stopping off at the pub had been a mistake. The loss of momentum caused Libby to feel just how very tired she really was. She said goodbye to Jo and Paddy, gave a quick wave to Noah and left, virtually collapsing into her car.
Libby’s bottom had barely hit the bottom of the bath, her aching muscles just about started to ease in the warm soapy water and her wine glass had not yet even touched her lips, when her phone rang. She knew she should have left it in her bedroom – or, even better, she should have switched it off. But she hadn’t. She had brought it into the bathroom and put it on the little stool beside the bath where her wine glass and book also rested.
Of course, she wasn’t obliged to answer it. But she knew by the ringtone – ‘Bootylicious’ by Destiny’s Child – that it was Jess calling and she imagined that after last night she would want to chat to her.
Libby pulled herself up to sitting and reached for her phone, sliding her finger across the screen to answer it. ‘Jess,’ she said, ‘everything okay?’
There was a slight pause. ‘Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to ask you,’ Jess said. ‘I didn’t see you this morning and you went to bed early last night.’
‘It wasn’t that early,’ Libby said, stretching her legs in the water to soothe a knot in her calf muscle. ‘And I needed to get to the shop this morning and you were both out for the count.’
There was a pause.
‘Are you cross with me?’ Jess asked.
Libby wondered if she was cross with Jess. She definitely felt something, but she couldn’t name it. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.