Chapter 43

It's great to be back in Dublin. Not that I haven't loved every minute of LA (it's a city that can definitely break you or make you), but it's nice to cut back the pace and walk through St Stephen's Green and along Grafton Street again.

I stop in front of the bookshop and assess the signage for Charles's reading tonight, although it's nothing to do with me any more. Tristan Marr, his new agent, has already texted me to say that everything is looking great. He and Charles are getting on famously, and I couldn't be happier. It was Charles who asked if I'd like to come to the reading. He said I'd been very involved in the book and it would be nice to see me there.

But it's Tristan I see first, on the upper level of the store where the event is taking place. There are already a few super-fans waiting for Charles, which is heartening.

‘How is he?' I ask him.

‘Practising away in the stockroom,' he says.

‘He'll be fine. He always gets good sales at events.'

‘Yes, the manager says they've sold a load of books already. She told the buyers that Charles would be here later, but they couldn't wait.'

‘That'll keep him happy.'

‘He needs to be told he's good, doesn't he?'

‘Don't we all.'

I smile at Tristan and then take a seat at the back of the room, where I'm partially hidden by a display of Irish history books. As the room begins to fill up, I recognise the young woman sliding into the seat in front of me. I hesitate for a moment, then tap her on the shoulder.

‘Oh,' she says when she turns around and sees me. ‘Ariel.'

‘Francesca.' I smile at her. ‘How are you? How's the book going?'

I didn't hear anything more about her after our meeting at the Shelbourne, although for a while afterwards I kept an eye on the trade news to see which agent her father had deemed good enough to represent her.

‘No news,' she says. ‘I've been busy at work.'

She's in hotel administration as far as I remember.

‘It takes time,' I say. ‘I hope you're still writing.'

‘Oh, I'm not sure about that any more.' She shrugs. ‘I don't think it's me really.'

‘Francesca! It's absolutely you. Your book is marvellous. Did you get an agent?'

‘It didn't work out.' She makes a face. ‘Dad feels he can do it himself.'

‘Look, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but please don't let your dad influence your future career. I know he means well, I know he thinks he's doing his best for you, but he doesn't have the knowledge or the contacts or the experience.'

‘A friend of his knows someone in a small publishing company who might be interested,' she says.

‘And have they made an offer?'

She shakes her head.

‘Even if you want to go to that publisher, you can still have a chat with me first,' I tell her. ‘I'm not trying to muscle in, I promise. I just want to be sure you're doing the right thing. I'm in Dublin for a couple of days, so get in touch if you feel it's appropriate.'

She hesitates, and then tells me she has my number and might give me a call. I say that's fine and settle back in my chair. She turns around, then a moment later turns back again.

‘Could you meet me tomorrow?' she asks. ‘The morning would be best, but whatever suits you.'

‘Ten thirty? At the Shelbourne?'

‘That'd be perfect,' she says. ‘My dad won't be with me.'

I smile to myself. Sometimes the things that seem to pass you by are simply waiting for the right moment.

The room is now full, and Charles walks out to a warm round of applause. After being introduced by the store manager, he opens the book and begins to read.

He's so, so good at this. He has them in the palm of his hand. I look at all the rapt faces and then catch my breath. Because I recognise another young woman, this time sitting in the back row, shielded behind a table display.

It's Iseult O'Connor.

Charles's beta-reader-slash-ex-fiancée.

Are they back together?

Charles finishes his reading and the applause is enthusiastic. People immediately start to form a queue to get their books signed. Iseult stays where she is, watching them.

I go over to her.

‘Hello,' I say. ‘Welcome to Charles's reading.'

‘Oh. It's you.' She looks at me in surprise. ‘I should've known you'd be here.'

‘I flew in specially.'

‘Of course you did. I heard you'd moved to the States.'

‘That's right, although it's a temporary move.'

We sit in silence for a moment, and then I ask if she and Charles are an item again. Because the last I heard from him was that she'd point-blank refused to see him and had blocked his number. He was devastated and said that he'd lost the person who mattered most to him in the whole world. I felt a twinge when he said that, but it didn't hurt the way it once would have. Ellis had tried to talk to her too, but Iseult was having none of it. The woman has an absolute iron will. She would've made a great agent.

‘I'm not with Charles, but I spent a lot of time with that book,' she replies. ‘I wanted to see the final copies.'

‘Are you going to get one signed?' I ask.

She shakes her head.

‘Did you buy one?'

‘Not yet.'

I reach into my bag and take a book from it. I hand it to her.

‘It's already signed,' I say. ‘I was sent some for publicity purposes.'

She takes it and studies it, running her hands over the dark blue cover with its embossed lettering.

‘It looks good,' she says. ‘He was so worried about it.'

‘He worries about all of them,' I tell her. ‘It's nothing new.'

‘I guess you know him better than I ever did.'

‘That part of him, yes.'

‘How's he managing without you?' she asks.

‘Perfectly well,' I reply. ‘He has a new agent.'

‘I always knew he needed a different agent. No offence,' she adds.

‘None taken. You were right. How d'you think he's managing without you?'

‘Equally well, I guess.'

‘You know, nothing happened between him and me that night,' I say. ‘Nothing was ever going to happen. I hadn't seen him for ages and all I wanted to do was celebrate my good news.'

‘He explained all that in multiple voicemails. Over and over. A one-off, he said. Toasting your big business deal. That's when he told me about the States.'

‘So why did you break it off?' I ask. ‘If you knew it was perfectly innocent, why didn't you stay with him?'

‘You still came and he still celebrated,' she says. ‘It wasn't what I asked of him.'

‘I'm sorry. It's my fault. I told him I had news, and—'

‘It doesn't matter. He promised not to see you but he did.'

‘And yet he loves you,' I say.

‘He loves the idea of me,' she says. ‘In the same way my ex-fiancé loved the idea of me. In Steve's case, it wasn't till we split up and I started doing my own thing that he wanted me in his life again. He couldn't believe I was managing fine without him. As for Charles – I was someone, something different for him. I wasn't part of the whole book tribe thing. It was fun for him at first, but even if I hadn't come back that evening and found you with him, something would have triggered our split. We were too different.'

‘I don't know about your first fiancé, but I think you're being a little hard on Charles.'

She shrugs.

‘He said he tried everything to convince you he loved you,' I say. ‘He went after you that night, but you'd already got a cab.'

‘I wasn't going to hang around waiting for him to run along the street and lie to me again. I haven't seen him or spoken to him since I handed back the engagement ring.'

If you can call flinging it across the room handing it back. I glance down at the multicoloured ring on my own finger. Izzy glances at it too.

‘Our divorce came through,' I say.

‘Oh.' She looks surprised. ‘I thought perhaps . . . well, it doesn't matter to me any more, of course.'

But it matters to me. It matters a lot.

I didn't expect to feel different after the divorce, but I do. I feel as though I've been released. And as far as our professional relationship goes – well, when I met Charles earlier, I was seeing him as a client and not as a man who's been part of my emotional life for over fifteen years. It was unexpectedly wonderful.

Perhaps I've grown up. It's a bit of a blow to think it's taken me so long.

The queue of people waiting for him to sign their books is thinning out.

‘Sure you're not going to say anything to him?' I ask.

She shakes her head.

‘I'm sorry,' I say. ‘I behaved badly towards you. I didn't mean to, but I did.'

‘How did you behave badly?' Her dark eyes seem even darker.

‘By not respecting your boundaries.' I give her a half-smile. ‘By being self-centred. By not understanding Charles despite the fact that I should have had plenty of experience in understanding him. Since moving to the States, I've had a crash course on boundaries. I've realised that perhaps I'm not very good at reading signals.'

‘I'd've thought it's pretty easy to read "my ex is getting married to someone else so I should keep out of their way",' she says, and for the first time she sounds animated.

‘I didn't think,' I tell her. ‘Or at least . . .' I sigh. ‘I thought I had more of a right to him than you. Not necessarily to be in his life and in his bed, but I thought you were . . .'

‘Too young and too stupid.'

‘Not stupid!' I exclaim. ‘Never that. It's that you weren't part of the book tribe. I was dismissive of that. I shouldn't have been. I'm sorry.'

‘It's fine,' she says, even though from her tone I know that it isn't. Not really.

‘Ellis told me that you and I were more alike than I thought,' I say.

‘She told me that too,' says Iseult. ‘So did Pamela. I didn't know whether to feel insulted or complimented.'

And then she starts to smile.

‘Who'd've thought it,' she says. ‘We're alike because we both let Charles take over our lives. We both wanted more for him than we did for ourselves. And now we've both decided enough is enough.'

‘I think Charles loves you in a way he never loved me,' I say.

‘He loves himself more,' she remarks.

‘Oh, Izzy, I know he can be self-centred, but—'

‘But you still defend him.'

‘It's been my job. I can't help myself.' I grin. ‘I heard about your promotion. Congratulations.'

‘I do a lot of the North American flights. Just to warn you.'

I laugh, and so does she.

‘I'll be going.' She stands up. ‘It was . . . good to see you, Ariel. I'm sorry we never got to know each other in better circumstances.'

‘Maybe there's never good circumstances for an ex and a wife-to-be.'

‘But we're both exes now.' She smiles again, and her face lights up. ‘So you never know.'

‘You never do.'

She heads for the stairs.

She's disappeared from view when Charles comes up to me.

‘Great reading,' I say. ‘Congratulations.'

‘Never mind that.' He gives me an impatient look. ‘Was that . . . did I see Izzy?'

I nod.

‘Where's she gone?'

‘I don't know.'

‘What did she want?'

‘To hear you read.'

‘Why didn't she wait?'

‘I don't know that either.'

‘Why didn't you stop her?'

‘Because she said goodbye.'

‘I've been trying to see her for months!' he cries. ‘Absolutely months. With no success. It's impossible to see her at work and I can't hang around her house, not with her parents there. They'd report me to the police.'

‘Are you still in love with her?'

‘You always thought it was some stupid fling, didn't you?' he demands. ‘But it wasn't. I do love her, Ariel. I think I loved her from the moment I first saw her. I never properly showed it, because even though I thought I was the mature person in the relationship, I absolutely wasn't. I kept thinking it was OK to mix it up with you and her, that it didn't matter because I knew how I felt. I was able to keep you apart in my head. But she didn't know. Not really. I love her and I lost her and I'm an absolute fool.'

A few months ago, I would have been devastated by those words. Now, I'm simply amazed. Amazed that he's said them and amazed that he sounds so sincere.

‘I patronised her,' he says. ‘I treated her as though she were young and foolish instead of the clever, capable woman she is.'

‘We both did,' I murmur.

‘Yes, but she wasn't engaged to you! I shouldn't stand around here talking. I should be out looking for her.'

‘If you think that's a good idea. But Charles, I got the impression talking to her . . . I don't know if there's a way back for you.'

‘Maybe not. But I want to hear it from her.'

He turns away from me and clatters down the stairs.

I stay where I am and add the appointment with Francesca to my calendar. Then I say goodnight to Tristan, who's been schmoozing with the bookseller and is now heading off to another event.

After that, I text Josh to say that if he wants that drink he asked me about earlier, I'm free.