Jo pulled her damp hair into a loose ponytail and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was presentable, if a little pale thanks to the late night, but she’d do. Slipping her feet into her Converse, she grabbed her purse, keys and jacket and set off with a spring in her step down the lane.
When she pushed open the door of Harry’s shop, she was surprised to see the chair, from which Harry normally held court, was empty. She glanced around, but the shop was most definitely uninhabited. A sudden fear swept over her – the memory of Harry’s heart attack still very fresh in her mind. She could easily recall the horrible sinking feeling in her stomach when she had arrived on the lane to see an ambulance outside the shop and heard that Harry had been found collapsed behind the counter.
Tentatively, as fear clawed at her, she called his name, ‘Harry? It’s Jo. Are you here? Is everything okay?’ She cast quick glances down the three short aisles of the shop, and even behind the deep freezer that stocked ice cream, ice lollies and frozen peas. There was no sign of him and no reply either. She called his name again, a little louder, and took her phone from pocket, in the event she’d have to make an emergency 999 call for an ambulance.
When she peeped over the top of the counter, half expecting to see him lying splayed on the ground, her heart sang with relief to see that there was no one there. But the relief was quickly replaced with confusion. Where on earth was he then? It was very unlike Harry to leave his shop unguarded at any time.
She called his name a third time, before hearing an almighty crash from the stockroom. Quick as a whippet, she climbed over the counter, sending community notices, posters and ‘For Sale’ index cards fluttering to the ground, and pushed open the door to the stockroom.
‘Harry!’ she shouted.
The room was in darkness and she reached for the light switch. No lights came on, but there was another crash. This time, even louder.
Her panic was almost at fever pitch now. Was he injured? Was there a burglar in this dark room who had taken him hostage and was riffling through the stock in search of something worth stealing.
She was about to dial 999 and get the police to come and check the room for her when she felt the weight of another human bundle into her, pushing her out of the way, before disappearing back through the door into the shop.
Her nerves in shreds, she followed the figure into the light and was stunned to find a man, perhaps in his late twenties, holding a broom handle in his hands, which he was very much pointing in her direction.
‘Take what you want from the till,’ he said, in a northern English accent. ‘But there’s not much there. It’s been quiet.’
She looked at him, raised her hands to show she was unarmed, and then looked at the broom handle. ‘I’m not here to rob you,’ she said, slowly, although her heart was still thumping. ‘I’m here to see Harry, and to buy some bread and bacon. Where is Harry? And who the hell are you?’
The adrenaline flooding her veins was making her tetchy now. Angry even. How dare this person wave a broom handle in her direction as if she were a common criminal? He was the interloper. The outsider. The thing that stood out on the lane, where everyone knew everyone and all their business.
It struck her then who he was and as she watched him – clearly terrified at her arrival in the shop – she felt all the anger and fear drain from her body.
‘So you must be Lorcan,’ she said. It was a statement not a question. ‘Your grandad told me you were coming to stay. He just didn’t say when.’
‘Well, erm… yesterday, as it happens,’ Lorcan said, gingerly lowering his makeshift weapon. ‘And Grandad just nipped home to change his shoes. Said he put on the wrong ones and they were giving him bother.’
Jo sagged with relief, delighted that Harry wasn’t ill as she had feared. She’d grown even closer to him since his heart attack and dreaded the thought of anything bad happening to him.
‘He was wearing the brown shoes?’ Jo smiled, being all too familiar with Harry’s issues with the brown shoes, which she had told him, repeatedly, to just throw away.
‘That’s the problem with you young ones nowadays,’ Harry had opined, launching into one of his famous lectures. ‘You think anything that’s not perfect or that’s got a bit old should be tossed on the rubbish pile, but you’ll learn in time. You’re young yet.’
‘Yes,’ Lorcan replied, incredulously. ‘How did you know?’
‘I think everyone on this lane knows about your grandad’s brown shoes – at least everyone who shops in here does. Which, thinking on it, is just about everyone who lives on Ivy Lane.’
‘And you know about me too?’ he asked. He looked as confused as if he’d just stepped into some alien world. His brow was furrowed and Jo was sure he’d broken into a bit of a sweat. He pushed his blonde, wavy hair back from his face and looked at her.
‘Oh yes. We know all about you,’ she said.
‘You do realise how sinister that sounds when it’s said in a Northern Irish accent?’ Lorcan asked, but there was, at least, a hint of humour there.
‘Oh yes. I realise. It’s a tool we like to use here with the blow-ins from time to time.’
As she looked at him, she could see shades of Harry in his mannerisms. The way he tilted his head to the side, the curve of his smile. He may have been a good fifty years his grandad’s junior but they definitely had the same twinkle in their eyes. Jo could see at once that Harry must’ve been very handsome in his youth. Although she doubted he would have opted for the same baggy jeans and oversized sweatshirt that Lorcan wore. Not that Jo was paying too much attention to what he was wearing, or what he looked like. Or that he wasn’t at all the childlike wet wipe she had been expecting.
‘It’s very effective,’ he said. ‘But, if you want to know, I went to see if there were any cans of energy drink, and the lights just went out. I think a bulb has blown. And then I knocked something over, I couldn’t see what. That’s about the time I heard you screaming and shouting and come hurtling after me.’
‘I was hardly hurtling after you,’ Jo said, her defences up. ‘I was checking if Harry was okay. We care about him here, you know. Especially since his heart attack. We’ve been looking after him.’ She hoped that the bold Lorcan, with his floppy hair and his blue eyes and the hint of a tan that seemed at odds at this time of year, would get the dig. That she, and the rest of the residents on Ivy Lane, had stepped in to care for Harry where his own family had not. Harry, of course, wouldn’t hear a bad word spoken about either of his two sons, their wives or his grandchildren – of whom Lorcan was the oldest and, as such, held the title of ‘favourite’.
‘Well, there’s no need,’ he said, brushing over her concern. ‘It was just me, wanting a super caffeine fix.’
‘I hate to break it to you, Lorcan, but you won’t find any energy drinks in this shop. Your grandad isn’t a fan of the concept. He’ll happily tell you why, at length, if you ask him. You’ll have to make do with a can of cola, or fizzy orange.’
The look on Lorcan’s face was similar to that of Clara when she was told she absolutely could not have a bar of chocolate just before bed. Clara had an excuse for childlike behaviour. Lorcan did not, and he had just reinforced her negative opinion of him.
‘I’m Jo, by the way,’ she said, and held her hand out to shake his, having decided that despite her feelings towards him, she should still practice good manners. ‘You’ll find we’re actually quite a nice bunch here and we hold your grandad in extremely high regard. I work a couple of shifts here, every now and again when needed. As you might know he’s getting older and doesn’t always keep well. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to do what is needed to look after him, you know. Since he’s all on his own with little family support.’
He stared at her, and ignored her outstretched hand. She took that as a sign her message had been received.
‘I really should just get what I came for and be off. I’m on bacon sandwich duty this morning,’ she said.
Lorcan nodded. He did not banter back and forth. He did not ask where she worked, or where she lived. He did not ask who she was making the sandwiches for. He simply rang up her order, took her money and handed over her change. He did at least say thank you, even if there was a begrudging tone to it.
‘Well, at least you’ve had a welcome to the street you’re not likely to forget,’ she said as she left.
The expression on Lorcan’s face said it all. He was not amused. Not one bit. In fact, his expression was so sour that Jo wondered how on earth he shared any of the same genetic make-up at all as Harry – the very lifeblood of their community.
She mulled that over as she walked back up the street to the pub and Noah’s flat, where both he and Libby were now awake and looking as if their very future existence relied on a bacon sandwich, stat.
‘I’m on it,’ she told them before she regaled them with the news about Lorcan, the intruder who wasn’t an intruder, the broken light bulb and his total sense-of-humour failure. ‘For a moment, I thought he was actually quite good-looking but that was before he’d opened his mouth,’ she said. ‘It all went south from there.’
8
While You Were Sleeping
Jo got home just after nine that evening. She planned to go straight to her room, switch on her laptop and email her manuscript to Libby before she had the chance to change her mind. She wouldn’t even have a quick read of any of it first, she would just open her email, attach the file and press send.
But when she went upstairs to her room, she found Clara, fast asleep and curled into a little ball in the middle of her double bed, her red curls splayed on the white pillow. Her skin pale against the moonlight shining in the window, and her lips were pursed in a little pout. Jo wondered what filled Clara’s dreams. Did she play out the scenes from her favourite books or films? Did she imagine she was Princess Buttercup and her Westley was coming to rescue her?
Jo’s heart was filled with love for her and she wondered if it was a good thing she would have to move out of her flat permanently. It would be hard to imagine living somewhere where Clara didn’t occasionally sneak under the covers for comfort.
Jo startled when she heard her mother behind her. She had just come out of the bath and was wrapped in a towel, another, turban-like, on her head. She looked exhausted and immediately Jo’s protectiveness of her kicked in.
‘Everything okay?’ Jo whispered.
‘Tough day,’ her mother said. ‘Madam was like a bag of cats all afternoon. She refused her dinner, and any alternative I offered her, and then she refused – point-blank – to have her bath. She was so incredibly grumpy and cheeky and nothing I could do would bring her out of it.’
‘Maybe she’s sickening for something? You know she always gets cross when she’s getting sick. I’ll keep an eye on her overnight – let her sleep in here.’ She reached out her hand to feel Clara’s forehead for signs of a fever, but her skin was cool.
‘Jo, come and talk to me in my room,’ her mother said, and Jo followed, curious as to what her mother would say.
She sat on the bed and averted her eyes while her mother slipped into her pyjamas.
‘It’s not a cold, or a sickness. When I was making dinner, she asked if she could put on a movie and, of course, I said okay. I was sure she’d watch The Princess Bride again, or Toy Story. But when I came into the room, she was glued to that remake of Annie.’
Jo’s heart sank. She guessed what was coming.
‘So we had a very difficult conversation about why she doesn’t see her birth mum any more and why she probably wouldn’t see her again.’ Her mum’s voice cracked as she spoke. ‘She asked if her mammy didn’t love her. She doesn’t have much of a memory of her, you know. And she asked why her mammy wouldn’t come back, or her daddy too. I took out her life story book – you know, the one we made when we were adopting her – and went through the story, but she just got very sad, and then very angry. I know she was just testing me, and looking for a reaction. But, God, it was tough and my heart aches for her. No child deserves that pain in their life.’ Jo watched her mother dab at her eyes. It was heartbreaking to see her so emotional, and while she knew that Clara’s anger and many questions were perfectly natural given her past, she knew her mum cared so deeply about each of her charges that she felt their pain too. Especially when it came to Clara.
‘But, Mum, a huge part of her life is that she got you and Dad, and me too, of course. She got good parents. A good family. She is lucky. You don’t treat her any different to how you treated any of us. Except, maybe, you love her a little more.’
‘I love you all the same,’ her mum cut in.
‘I know you love us all. We couldn’t ask for better. I just meant that you give your undivided time and energy to Clara now, which is exactly as it should be. She doesn’t have to share you with anyone. She doesn’t want for love and attention, but it must be hard for her. How was she when she went to bed?’
Her mother sighed – one of those huge sighs that come right from your soul. ‘By then she was crying and I was crying, although I did my best to hide it from her. I did leave her in her room, but she must have sneaked into yours. I wish I knew how to make it better for her.’
‘But, Mum, you make it better for her every day. She just has to go through it and she’s still so young. I wonder, maybe, if Noah could talk to her a little? He knows what it’s like to move into a whole new family. I know it was different and he was older… but…’
Jo thought back to the day a moody, broken teenager arrived to stay with them, his family having been wiped out in a horrible accident. She had helped him come back out of his shell and learn how to laugh again. Even though he was older than her, their bond was immediate and she couldn’t ever imagine her life without him in it, but however much they had become his family, for Noah there would always be a part of him missing, a part that had been taken away when he lost his family.
‘That might just be a great idea,’ her mother said. ‘I don’t know how I didn’t think of it myself.’
‘Because you’ve been busy parenting all day!’ Jo said.
‘I’ll call in to see Noah tomorrow. Chat to him about it and ask him what he thinks.’
‘I think he’s taking tomorrow off,’ Jo replied. ‘But he has no plans other than taking Paddy for a walk and meeting with Libby later on to discuss their guest list.’
‘Okay, love. That’s good to know. Thank you, darling. Do you want me to carry Clara back to her own bed?’
‘Not at all,’ Jo protested. ‘She’s fine in beside me.’
Her mother crossed the room and pulled Jo into a hug, kissing the top of her head. ‘I love you, darling.’
‘I love you more,’ Jo said back, and she meant it.
When her mother went downstairs to make them both a cup of tea, Jo couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t only Clara who was out of sorts. Her mother seemed most unlike herself too. Normally, Maureen Campbell could take every parenting challenge life could throw at her and fix it within seconds. But normally her mum had her dad with her, and it had been a long time since she had parented a six-year-old. Jo tried to push away her worries but promised herself she would keep a closer eye on how her mother was doing.
She padded into her own room and changed into her pyjamas. Then, sitting on the floor so that she wouldn’t wake Clara, Jo switched on her laptop. Without second-guessing herself, she emailed her book to Libby. Then she looked up Ewan McLachlan and downloaded the McCreadie books onto her Kindle. She really needed to refresh her memory of them before Thursday’s signing.
Monday was Jo’s day off, which she was glad of. She had stayed up much later than planned, having become completely engrossed in the first of the DS Tom McCreadie series – the handsome Scottish policeman, who Jo pictured as looking not too dissimilar to Gerard Butler. That she had long had a crush on Gerard Butler was a pure coincidence.
She had been unable to put the book down as DS McCreadie solved the case of
the ‘Lady in the Loch’ – a poor, unfortunate woman offed by her ungrateful children and dumped in Loch Ness, as food for the monster presumably.
It had been dark and gritty but accessible and extremely addictive. So addictive in fact that the sun was starting to rise as she read the last page and closed her eyes – just as Clara opened hers.
‘It’s morning time!’ Clara chirped with the enthusiasm of a Disney princess about to greet the forest animals.
All Jo wanted to do was roll over and pull the duvet up over her head and drift back to sleep. Clara, however, had other plans.
‘It’s not time for more sleep, Jojo,’ she said, her voice stern. ‘It’s time to get up. It’s a school day!’
Mustering all the strength she had, Jo opened one eye to look at the clock on her bedside table. Yes, it was a school day, but it was very early on a school day. Too early, if the truth be told.
‘It’s only half six,’ she mumbled.
‘But the sun is shining and when the sun is shining, it’s time to get up!’ Clara said, with all the innocent logic of someone so young.
Jo cursed under her breath, which earned her a nudge from her sister.
‘I heard that bad word,’ Clara said defiantly.
Jo should’ve predicted this would happen. In Clara's own room, they had blackout curtains very much designed to fool Clara into thinking it was still night-time when it wasn’t. They were a must as the brighter mornings came to pass. However, the curtains in Jo’s own room did little to stop the sunlight pouring in.
‘It’s a wee bit early, darling. You could go back to sleep, or read one of your books for another wee half-hour or so,’ Jo tried. Sometimes it worked. More often than not, it didn’t. Clara was a person who liked company and most certainly was not fond of entertaining herself so she responded to Jo’s plea by pulling the duvet onto the floor.
Jo knew she could have called her mum to come and take over, but she thought of how upset she had looked the night before, and she couldn’t bring herself to be that cruel.
In Pursuit of Happiness Page 5
