Chapter 27

27

As Joel steps out of the Tube station and starts to walk home, he tries to make sense of his sleepover at Carmel’s.

It went okay, in the end. All right, so she could have dredged up a tad more excitement over the gold bracelet, which he’d taken ages choosing in a cool little designer jeweller’s in Soho. For all the gratitude she showed he might as well have grabbed her a bangle at Camden Market. And she’d had nothing to give him in return. But Joel isn’t a child – even though he might act like one when out Christmas shopping with his wife. And he wasn’t going to throw a tantrum over the lack of gift.

What Carmel had given him was a thorough going over in the confines of her bedroom like nothing he’d experienced before. It was as if the very existence of this other man had added a whole new dimension. Jealousy, humiliation, even rage; it was all swirling inside him and he wanted her so much. He wanted her more than this other nameless man could ever want her, and although he’s not one to brag, he reckons he gave her the performance of his life last night. And she was mad for it, flipping him around and throwing him about and biting him like he was a fucking sandwich. Utterly spent, he’d finally fallen asleep at around 5.30a.m.

As Joel turns into his street, he reflects that Carmel could have been a bit nicer to him this morning. He wasn’t expecting a favourable performance review, or even a ‘good boy’ sticker – but she might have been a bit keener to hang out together. He’d looked forward to a leisurely breakfast – pastries, eggs, her excellent coffee – and hopefully some more sex. But that was not forthcoming. She had to ‘get on’, she explained. She was busy-busy-busy! He wasn’t even offered toast. But the worst of it was that she asked if he’d mind having his shower at home, rather than at hers, as she needed to head out right away.

Head out where? To see her other man? Feeling grubby and a bit smelly, out he was flung into the cold December morning. He feels a little used , frankly. Shattered too. Once he’s showered and made himself respectable, he might slip off to bed for a nap.

Towards him now comes a person dancing along in a Christmas tree outfit, her spherical head poking out of the top of it. She’s a vision in green fake fur and tinsel, and he knows for certain that she is going to try to interact with him. Keep walking. Don’t look at her. ‘Morning, Scrooge! Cheer up, love!’ she bellows, stopping to rattle a charity tin in his face.

‘Sorry, no cash,’ he mutters, trying to avoid eye contact.

The woman seems to peer at him in an odd way. ‘Ooh, naughty .’ Her eyebrows – one red, one green, how very festive – shoot up. ‘Someone’s been having a fun time!’ Instinctively he touches his head, trying to flatten down his hair as he hurries onwards, keen to get away from her as she’s obviously mad.

His house is in view now and Joel exhales in relief. But his relief dissipates quickly as now he thinks… No, no. He must be mistaken. It’ll just be a reflection or a trick of the light. The living room window can’t be broken. Joel quickens his pace, his chest tightening as he approaches his home and registers that his first assumption was correct. The Victorian sash window is definitely not as he left it yesterday. There’s a bloody great crack in it. And the Christmas tree which stood at the window, decorated by Shelley with her grandma’s precious baubles, has gone.

Burglars, is Joel’s first panicked thought. Burglars have stolen our tree!

A sickening feeling surges up in him as he swings in through the gate and up the short path. He opens the front door and steps into the hallway and for a moment he cannot move or speak or do anything at all.

Joel stands there, mouth agape. Then: ‘Martha? Fin?’ he bellows. ‘Come here right now! ’

On this cold, bright, snow-dusted Sunday morning, Pearl believes that she is actually in the most beautiful place on earth. It’s so still and quiet, and after the hectic activities of yesterday and today’s breakfast, she is relishing the solitude.

Her heart sinks a little when Niall appears in the distance, rucksack on his back, clearly setting out on a hike. She wanted to sit here alone on this rock at the lochside, taking in the calm, still water, blue as the sky, and the white-topped mountains in the distance. But now he’s striding towards her, and he stops as they exchange pleasantries. ‘Nice spot you’ve found here,’ he remarks.

‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’

He nods and smiles. ‘I, um, couldn’t help overhearing Shelley on the phone earlier,’ he adds.

‘Oh, really?’ Her heart quickens.

‘Yeah, talking to Michael, I assume. The owner? Something about there being another freezer in the woodshed?’

‘Ah, right. Yes.’ Pearl senses blood rushing to her cheeks and then catches his eye, relieved to see that he’s amused by their deceit. The ‘temperamental’ Aga. The hurriedly changed dinner plan. ‘You must think we’re a bunch of incompetents,’ she adds. ‘And you’re writing about all this, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, and very positively too.’ He picks up a smooth pebble from the shoreline and sends it skimming over the water. ‘They’re easily the best fish and chips I’ve ever had,’ he adds.

Pearl’s shoulders relax. ‘Glad you enjoyed them. But you’ll be pleased to know that tonight, everyone will be having what they ordered. There won’t be any surprises.’

‘Oh, I was kinda looking forward to seeing what might happen.’ Niall grins, and Pearl registers the intensity of his blue eyes behind the glasses.

‘Sorry to disappoint you.’ She smiles.

Niall picks up another pebble and skims it, then sits on the rock beside hers. ‘I also owe you a bit of an apology.’

‘Really? What for?’

‘For being such a grump yesterday, when you were asking me about Christmas…’

‘It was none of my business,’ she says quickly. ‘And you saved the day with those towels, you know. That was some arrival, wasn’t it?’

He chuckles. ‘Yeah. Poor kid. I was just glad I still had them. I’d been meaning to get rid of them.’ A small pause. ‘I had the world’s most carsick dog,’ he adds.

Pearl frowns in sympathy. ‘But you don’t any more?’

‘Oh no, he’s still very much going, is Barney. No, my ex has him now.’ Another pause, and the pebble is skimmed. ‘Bit of a custody battle,’ he explains with a dry laugh.

‘That must’ve been difficult,’ Pearl offers, but he shrugs off her sympathy.

‘People go through far worse things. It’s all fine now.’

Pearl takes this in, figuring that it isn’t all fine, and also that this might explain why Christmas was a sensitive issue. Damn Christmas! She’d looked forward to it so much, all those years when it was the three of them: Pearl and Dean and Brandon. And possibly even more so when it was just her and Brandon, her little mate – because it gave them something to plan for and focus on. We can’t feel all jaded and sad because Christmas is coming!

‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘I s’pose one of my main motivations for arranging this trip, and persuading my editor to go for it, is because…’ He breaks off, as if figuring out how best to explain it.

‘Well, it’s work, isn’t it?’ Pearl suggests. ‘It’s your livelihood?—’

‘Yeah, there is that.’ He looks out over the water. It’s as still as glass until a bird swoops down, skimming its surface. ‘But there’s another reason too.’

Pearl glances at him, waiting for him to offer more. When he doesn’t, she lets the silence settle and looks along the shoreline. She notices a small wooden jetty and a little rowing boat lying on the rough grass above the pebbled shore. There are oars too, jutting out of it. She’s glad now that Niall stopped to talk, after the awkwardness of yesterday. Her curiosity is piqued and she senses that he might actually want to open up to her.

‘Look,’ she says, getting up from the rock. ‘That must be Michael’s boat. You don’t fancy a row on the loch, do you?’

Niall seems to hesitate. ‘I’m actually not the best at rowing. Bit embarrassing. I realise it’s one of those things men are instinctively supposed to know how to do?—’

‘No, I can row,’ Pearl tells him, ‘believe it or not.’

Niall looks quizzical. ‘Why the “believe it or not”?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she says quickly. ‘Maybe I don’t look like the type?—’

‘I don’t really judge people like that,’ he says lightly, and briefly, their eyes meet.

‘Right.’ Pearl smiles. The morning is so still and quiet, the blue sky streaked with wispy clouds. When she’d told Elias about the rowing – what a big part of her childhood it had been – he was amazed. ‘What, a dainty little thing like you?’ Feeling patronised, she’d quickly changed the subject. ‘My dad had a boat on the river Weaver, close to where we lived,’ she explains now. ‘He taught me to row and it became the thing we did together, Dad and me. I was mad about water, being on the river…’

‘Let’s go then,’ Niall enthuses. And so, between them, they lift the wooden boat and carry it down to the water’s edge and push it into the loch. On the weather-worn jetty, Niall holds its rope tightly as Pearl steps into it, and then he follows her. Pearl uses an oar to push them away.

‘So, you were saying,’ she prompts him, emboldened now that she has something practical to do. ‘About your reasons for coming up here?’

Niall catches her glance and she smiles encouragingly. He watches as she takes both oars, allowing herself a moment to look around and assess the direction they’ll head in. ‘I guess,’ he says, as they glide away from the shore, ‘what I really wanted to do was avoid Christmas.’