‘I’m glad Jack has found someone,’ May continued. ‘He won’t say it, but he’s been so lonely since we lost Rebecca.’
Was there an etiquette for a conversation like this? Was Phoebe supposed to say she was sorry? Should she ask about Rebecca? Was May expecting a reply to the remark at all?
‘My boyfriend died too,’ she blurted out, not even sure where it had come from. ‘And I was so lonely. Maria and Jack…’ God, all she wanted was to see him walk through the door with a smile on his face and a funny anecdote to explain his disappearance. The thought that he might not really terrified her. She’d already mourned the loss of one lover, what if she lost Jack too? She didn’t think she was strong enough to do it again.
‘That must have been awful,’ May said. ‘I suppose it helps that you and Jack both know how it feels though.’
Phoebe nodded.
They both spun around at the sound of a key in the front door, Phoebe beating May in a race down the hallway. Jack and Archie both staggered over the threshold.
‘Where have you been?’ Phoebe threw herself at Jack, who winced as he gently prised her arms from around his neck.
‘Steady…’ he mumbled, placing his hands on her waist to stop her wrapping her arms around him a second time.
‘What the hell…’ Phoebe saw now what, in her relief and desperate need to hold him, she had missed.
May’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘What happened?’
Archie gave a rueful smile. ‘There was a bit of a disagreement in a pub car park.’
Jack glared at him. ‘Go and get cleaned up.’
Archie held out his hands. Both sets of knuckles were covered in dried blood. His left eye was swollen shut and his coat was torn. He looked as though he was going to argue with Jack for a moment, but then stomped up the stairs without another word.
‘Quietly!’ Jack added in a loud hiss. He glanced at May and Phoebe in turn. ‘Maria’s in bed?’
‘Yes,’ May replied. ‘She was exhausted so I think she’ll sleep through.’
‘Was she okay?’
‘She was a bit upset, but I think it was more that she’d caught the worry from us than her being unduly worried herself about the fact you were missing.’
‘I’m glad she’s not up now. I wouldn’t want her seeing this.’
‘She’s going to see it tomorrow whether you like it or not,’ May said. ‘You’re going to have one hell of a bruise on the side of your face there.’
‘I think I fared better than Archie,’ Jack returned, his jaw clenched. ‘I definitely fared better than the bastards who tried to do us over.’
Phoebe’s eyes were wide with apprehension. ‘What if they come back for you?’
Jack took a moment. ‘Back here?’
‘Yes. Well we know they know where you live.’
‘Ah…’ Jack said, understanding illuminating his features. ‘Doreen told you.’
‘About the three men looking for Archie, yes,’ May said.
‘There’s not much else to say,’ Jack said briskly.
‘Then it won’t take you long to fill us in,’ May said.
Jack’s hands moved to his ribs with a grimace as he held them. ‘Some dispute,’ he said as he started to walk to the kitchen. ‘I don’t even know what it was over; it was someone Archie had managed to upset somehow. I mean, I had to go and bail him out, didn’t I?’
He took a seat at the table. Phoebe could see that his hands shook slightly as he lifted his shirt to reveal an area of his flank already dark red with bruising. She hoped it looked worse than it was, because it looked pretty bad from where she stood. But if she’d learned one thing about Jack in the last few months, it was that he wouldn’t tolerate mollycoddling. She could tell him to get himself checked out at the emergency department and he’d promptly ignore her.
‘I’ll live,’ he said, letting the shirt drop back over his chest. And that was exactly what Phoebe was expecting him to do.
‘You should go to the hospital with that,’ May chided, airing Phoebe’s thoughts for her.
‘There’s no need,’ Jack insisted. ‘Apart from cuts and bruises we’re both fine. It was all a bit of a catfight really. In fact, I’ve seen worse at milk time in Maria’s class.’
He wasn’t telling the whole story; that much was obvious to Phoebe. Was he keeping it back for May’s sake? ‘Your dad’s out looking for you,’ she said, anger starting to build now that the initial relief had subsided. ‘We’ve all been panicking here. You need to call him and tell him you’re both safe.’
‘Um… yeah…’ Jack replied, looking awkward. ‘I can’t really do that right now. I’ve sort of mislaid my phone.’
‘I suppose that explains why you weren’t answering. Couldn’t you have got Archie to call us once you were safe? We’ve been worried sick.’
‘I think his is broken.’
‘I’ll call your dad now,’ May said. She went through to the living room and shut the door. Phoebe suspected it was to give the two of them some privacy.
‘What the hell actually happened?’ Phoebe hissed. Tears were threatening to fall again. ‘I was so scared.’
‘Archie got himself mixed up with a bit of money lending. They came round after their payment but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. They were only bits of kids themselves, playing at gangsters. They didn’t reckon on us being able to hit back.’
‘If they came for Archie how did you end up getting a pasting?’
‘I couldn’t very well let him go off and get his head kicked in, could I? I went off after them.’
‘How on earth did you find them?’
Jack gave a half-smile. ‘They weren’t driving the subtlest of cars. An N reg yellow Fiesta XR2i with go-faster stripes kinda stands out these days.’
‘You could have got yourselves killed!’ Phoebe squeaked, ignoring his attempts at humour.
‘We didn’t. We had a little chat, they didn’t like what we had to say and they nicked our phones as payment for Archie’s debts – or down payment was how they described it, but I’m damned if they’re getting any more out of us. If they’d just taken the phones and left it at that I might have let it be myself. But I wasn’t having them threatening to come back. So we gave chase as they went back to their car and exchanged a few blows, but then they got away.’
‘So where have you been until now? You’ve been gone for hours! What if they come after you for the rest?’
‘That’s why I dragged Archie to the police station. I’m not sure what they can do but I thought we should report the theft at least. Archie didn’t want to, of course, and he told them he didn’t have any names even though he must have known who they were.’
‘What did the police say they could do?’
‘They took statements. Said they’d do what they could to look into it and have a patrol car pass by our house a few times over the next couple of days to see that all was well. That was it. It didn’t help that Archie was playing silly buggers and wouldn’t give them all the facts.’
‘They didn’t need all the facts.’ Archie stood at the kitchen door now. ‘And those bastards won’t come back, not now we’ve shown them we can handle ourselves.’
‘Unless they come back with crowbars and baseball bats next time to do the job more efficiently,’ Phoebe said.
Archie was about to reply when May spoke from behind him. ‘Your dad says he’ll be back in ten minutes.’
‘Can’t wait,’ Archie said. He joined Jack at the table, fingering the swelling around his eye.
‘You want some ice on that,’ May said.
‘There’s a bag of peas in the freezer.’ Jack inclined his head towards it. ‘That should do it.’
As May went to fetch it, Jack shot Phoebe a look that she interpreted as a plea to keep things to herself. Phoebe supposed he had good reason; May would hardly be reassured if she thought that he was bringing danger to his door or, more specifically, to Maria’s door. She was frankly surprised that Jack h
adn’t already come to that conclusion himself and given Archie his marching orders, brother or not. Supporting him with a gambling problem was one thing, but dealing with thugs who came by demanding recompense for his gambling debts was quite another.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ Jack said as May handed Archie the bag of peas. ‘And Maria really wasn’t too upset about tonight?’
‘Honestly, you don’t need to worry, she’s fine. She was a bit upset when you weren’t home to put her to bed but when I said you’d be here in the morning and that Phoebe and I would stay with her until then, she settled down.’
‘Thank you.’ Jack ran a hand through his hair and gave a heavy sigh.
‘And that’s it?’ May replied with obvious disbelief in her voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The story you’ve given us about where you’ve been? That’s all there is to it?’
‘Honestly. It was a misunderstanding, wasn’t it, Archie?’
Jack’s brother nodded from behind the huge bag of peas clamped to his face.
Further interrogation was halted by another soft knock at the door. ‘That’ll be your dad,’ May said as she hurried off to get it. They returned moments later, Edward thundering down the hallway and into the kitchen.
‘Bloody hell!’ he cried as he took in the scene at the table. ‘What’s all this?’
Jack went through the edited version of the story again, complete with apologies for the worry and covert glares at Archie to keep quiet while May made them hot, sweet tea and went to check on Maria who was, miraculously considering the hullabaloo downstairs, still asleep.
‘I think it’s about time you came back home,’ Edward said to Archie as Jack finished.
Hallelujah! It was the first positive thing to come out of the evening as far as Phoebe was concerned. The wonderful morning she had shared with her mum, seeing her baby for the first time, the encouraging and inspiring conversation she’d shared with a stranger on a bus, meeting May and finding a lovely woman – it had all been overshadowed by the fear and anxiety Jack’s disappearance had brought and Phoebe could barely remember what happy and relaxed felt like right now.
‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ Archie said. ‘I’m nineteen.’
‘And yet you behave more as though you were nine. Tonight has proved that.’
‘What if I don’t want to come back to live with you? What if I like it here? Don’t I get a say? Doesn’t Jack get a say? He likes having me here.’
I bloody don’t, Phoebe thought. Please, for once, lay down the law, Edward.
‘This has nothing to do with Jack,’ Edward said. ‘And quite frankly it doesn’t have very much to do with what you want either. This is about me saving you from your own stupid self until you’re old enough to know better.’
‘Jack doesn’t treat me like a kid, Dad. That’s why I want to stay with him.’
‘Jack has enough to contend with already. He doesn’t need to be babysitting you.’
‘What!’ Archie yelped. ‘It’s always my fault, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, actually it is. You’ve only got to look at what happened tonight to see that. I don’t need any more phone calls like that. You’ve disrupted everyone’s evening and had us all running around like idiots worried to death.’
‘Jack was part of it too,’ Archie replied stubbornly.
Phoebe resisted the impulse to throw something at him. Had she and her friends been this idiotic at nineteen or was Archie a special case?
May cleared her throat, a subtle reminder to all that, perhaps, this argument was one they might not want her to witness. ‘Now that the boys are back safe I should think about going home, let you all settle down.’
Edward pushed his chair away from the table. ‘I’ll run you back.’
‘There’s no need –’
‘Yes there is. I’m not having you walking home alone.’ He grabbed his keys from the table where he had tossed them and turned to Archie. ‘Don’t think I’ve finished with you yet. I’ll be back in five minutes.’
‘Of course you haven’t.’ Archie threw the peas onto the table and leaned back in his chair wearing a sardonic grin.
Once they had said their goodbyes to May, and Jack had apologised and thanked her yet again, she followed Edward out to his car.
Jack let out a long breath as the front door closed behind them. Archie went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of milk and proceeded to gulp directly from it. It was a move that usually provoked a torrent of abuse from Jack, but if Archie was doing it deliberately to taunt him tonight it didn’t work. He simply turned to Phoebe.
‘I suppose that was a bit weird for you… meeting May like that, I mean.’
‘No weirder than my boyfriend being kidnapped by a bunch of Kray wanabees and going AWOL for two hours. It’s been a weird sort of day, if I’m honest.’
Jack stared at her. And then he suddenly clapped a hand to his head. ‘Shit! Of course… this morning…’ He glanced at Archie and then back at Phoebe. She understood his meaning perfectly but was beginning to tire of being the last in line for his attention these days. ‘You can tell me about it later, yeah?’
‘What happened this morning?’ Archie asked as he drained the milk and dumped the empty bottle back in the fridge.
‘Nothing important,’ Jack replied.
That was it. Phoebe could not hold back any longer.
‘Nothing important?’ she spat.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Jack began, reddening, but she shot him down with a burning glare. She rummaged in her bag and slapped the scan photo onto the table.
‘Sure… nothing important at all!’
Jack tore his gaze away from the picture, as though it was painful to look at it. But Archie leaned over.
‘Shit… is that…?’
‘Yes!’ Phoebe cried. ‘It is!’
Archie turned to Jack. ‘Bloody hell, you kept that quiet.’
‘I know…’ Jack replied in a low voice as he glanced back at Phoebe, still refusing to look at the photo. ‘We were both supposed to keep it quiet for the time being.’
‘We might have noticed sooner or later, dude,’ Archie said with a laugh. ‘Am I supposed to congratulate you or give you the name of a better brand of condom?’
‘Shut up!’ Jack snapped. ‘Why is everything a bloody joke with you?’ He looked at Phoebe, a slew of emotions so vast swimming in his eyes that she couldn’t see what he was feeling at all. She could only wonder why he hadn’t answered Archie’s question; in the end, it was the only one that really mattered to her. Why wasn’t he telling Archie how happy he was, how excited he was for the baby to come?
Before she knew what she was doing she had run for the door, Jack calling after her. His silence had been his answer. She had never been anyone’s burden, not even in her darkest hours, when she had been so bereft that she barely saw the point of living anymore, and she wasn’t about to start now.
She could still hear her name being called as she ran along the street, but she couldn’t look back. It was only when she realised, somewhere in the margins of her thoughts, that the voice calling her wasn’t Jack’s, that she stopped and turned around.
Archie jogged towards her holding his side.
‘Where are you going?’ he panted.
‘Home.’
‘Are you really having a baby?’
‘Yeah. It looks like it.’
‘Are you moving in with Jack?’
‘I don’t think so. It looks like you win,’ Phoebe said, ‘you get to stay and I go.’
‘Come back and sort it out.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But you’re having a baby.’
‘I don’t want to come back in.’
‘Whatever. It’s stupid though.’
‘He doesn’t want me to.’
‘I reckon he does.’
‘Then why isn’t it him chasing me instead of you?’
Archie shrugged. �
�I’m faster?’
Phoebe looked along the empty street behind him. ‘Nice try, but I know he doesn’t want to come after me.’
‘Because he thinks you won’t go back in.’
‘And that’s reason enough not to try? It’s a funny way of showing someone you love them.’
Archie shrugged awkwardly. He looked torn.
‘I knew it,’ Phoebe said in a dull voice.
‘I guess he’s freaked out by the baby is all.’
‘Seriously? Don’t you think it’s me who should be freaked out by all this crap going on?’
Archie scuffed the toe of his trainer against the protruding edge of a paving stone. ‘Yeah, I get that. I’ll probably go home with Dad later, get out of your way.’
‘I shouldn’t bother. It’s me who needs to get out of the way. Jack’s made his feelings perfectly clear.’
Archie’s gaze slipped to his feet. Phoebe turned and started to walk towards home. She felt numb. She couldn’t begin to get her head around how this day could have begun with such hope to end like this, and it had all happened so fast. It was just another of life’s curve balls and she was getting used to ducking them by now.
‘You won’t get far without your keys,’ Archie shouted. ‘Your bag’s still on the table.’
Phoebe stopped and turned to face him again.
‘Right.’
‘So much for your grand exit, eh?’ Archie’s expression betrayed nothing – was he being sarcastic or sympathetic? Phoebe couldn’t work him out.
‘I suppose I’d better get them…’
‘You want me to get them?’ he asked carelessly. It was possibly the most helpful he’d ever been to Phoebe, and it had come at the strangest and most unexpected moment. She blinked at him. It was just another one of those curve balls.
‘Um, yeah…’
She watched him jog back as she waited, staring down the street as night fell in a lilac and orange haze over the silhouetted rooftops.
In a few minutes he had returned with her bag, jacket, and the scan photo. Phoebe’s eyes welled up as Archie handed it to her. She had hoped that even if Jack didn’t come back out instead of Archie, then he’d at least want to keep the photo. But he had apparently relinquished it without a fight. Was this really it? Were they through?
The Spring of Second Chances : An absolutely perfect and uplifting romantic comedy Page 26
