Читать книгу The Broken Hearts Book Club - Lynsey James - Страница 12
ОглавлениеHere’s an important lesson to learn about my dad: if he says he’ll have something sorted out in no time, don’t listen to him under any circumstances.
Mum and I returned from our trip to Rose Cottage to find the house even more flooded than when we’d left. According to Dad, the damp patch that had looked fit to burst had, well, burst.
‘I poked at it with the end of a paint roller and there was more water in it than I’d thought!’ he said with a bright, wide grin. ‘It’s fine though, bit of plaster will sort it – no problem!’
Mum stared around her at the sodden carpets, walls and furniture, looking absolutely horrified.
‘You said you’d sort it! Look at it, there’s no way we can stay here! What are we going to do?’
‘Don’t you worry,’ Dad replied. ‘I’ve got a plan! I phoned The Purple Partridge and spoke to that nice young man who runs it. Jake, his name is. You’ll like him, Lucy. He’s going to let us stay there for a couple of nights while the place dries out.’
Oh wonderful, I thought, I epically embarrass myself in front of the sexy barman by running out on him and now I’ll have to face him again.
Then again, I said to myself with a smile, the thought of seeing those gorgeous arm muscles wasn’t entirely unpleasant…
After a lot of hasty packing, the four of us traipsed over to The Purple Partridge where Fitty McFitterson – who I now knew as Jake – greeted us with a smile as we walked through the door, laden with bags and looking very sheepish. Everyone, that is, except Dad – who’d been the cause of it all. He looked as happy and carefree as usual, while Mum, George and I were all fed up and in need of a strong brew.
Stepping out from behind the bar, Jake’s eyes briefly caught mine and he smiled in recognition.
‘Oh dear David, what have you been up to this time?’ he asked while grabbing a bag from Mum.
Dad did an over-the-top gurn and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Flooded the bloody house, didn’t I?’
‘It’s like living with Norman Wisdom,’ Mum muttered. After realising we’d all heard her, she put on her best prim smile. ‘It’s ever so kind of you to put us up for a couple of nights, Jake. I’m sure we’ll be out of your hair by the weekend.’
Jake shook his head. ‘It’s no problem, really. We’ve got a couple of spare rooms upstairs going begging, so there’s plenty of room.’
Our eyes met again and I was sure I saw him smile.
‘Follow me guys, it’s just up here.’ He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the door leading to the pub’s upstairs area.
Up the stairs, the main living quarters consisted of five main doors. One had a lock on it and a brass number one attached which I guessed led to Jake’s flat.
‘The bedrooms are just here.’ He gestured to the first three doors. ‘And that’s the bathroom there. The plumbing’s not the best, but should be all right for a couple of days at least. Enjoy your stay; anything you need, just ask.’
He looked back at me as he retreated down the hall to return to the pub. A tiny raise of his eyebrows made my heart skip. This was going to be a very interesting couple of days.
***
My theory was proven right on our first day at The Purple Partridge. After a surprisingly restful night’s sleep, I made a mad early-morning dash for the bathroom before Mum or George could occupy it for hours on end or Dad had a chance to flood it.
When Jake said the plumbing ‘wasn’t the best’, he hadn’t been kidding. The taps were creaky, there was hardly any hot water and the pressure ranged from a drip to a deluge. However, there was a certain quirky charm about it and I reminded myself how lucky we were that Jake had been able to put us up.
Jake.
He popped into my mind uninvited and I felt my heart rate start to speed up. I’d never seen anyone quite so gorgeous for a long time and those arm muscles… I shook the thoughts free before I turned into a complete drooling mess. The last thing we needed was me making our temporary stay here more awkward than it needed to be by making eyes at the delectable landlord. Instead, I put my head back and allowed the tepid water to run down my hair and back – hoping some of my fears and anxieties about being back in Luna Bay would be washed away too.
I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a fluffy white towel around myself and prepared to make the dash back to my room. There was still so much to think about. While staying in Luna Bay and carrying out Nana Lily’s wishes definitely held an appeal, the thought of being confronted with everything I’d been running from scared the life out of me. I wanted to move on, really I did, but I wasn’t sure if Luna Bay’s residents – Maggie Cunningham in particular – would let me.
As I prepared to make a run for it, I heard a voice behind me.
‘Morning you. Sleep well?’
I jumped and spun round to see who the voice belonged to. In my haste, I let go of my towel and ended up showing Jake everything I had.
Great Lucy, way to make your stay here not awkward.
‘Oh bollocks!’
‘Well that was more than I bargained for!’ He laughed as I scrabbled around for the towel. I pulled it back around myself and clutched it tightly to my chest. I noticed him giving me an appraising look and didn’t feel particularly comfortable.
‘S-sorry… I-I was just having a shower…’
He nodded, still fixing me with that peculiar look. ‘Yeah, erm, I could see that. I was just coming up to see if you fancied some… some breakfast.’
I squeaked that I wasn’t hungry and ran back to my room as fast as I could. It was official: this latest screw-up had tipped me into a crisis and I needed to take some sort of action.
If ever I needed a sign to straighten my life out, flashing a sexy barman was it.
Of all the places to sort your mess of a life out, there are few better places than the Moonlight Café.
Perched at the very top of Luna Bay’s steep main street, its unparalleled views of the North Sea, beach house-style décor and freshly baked bread and cakes will have you forgetting your troubles in no time at all.
Unless you’re me, that is.
I found myself sitting there, several hours after my impromptu striptease, trying to sift through the debris of my life. I picked half-heartedly at my Victoria sponge while George sat opposite me, tucking into coffee cake like he hadn’t eaten for months. We’d been sat here since the early afternoon and now it was almost closing time and we were still no closer to picking our way through the wreckage of my life.
‘What should I do, George? Should I stay here, move into Rose Cottage and try to make a go of things or book the next train back to London?’
My question broke his frenzied attack on the slab of cake in front of him. He sighed and looked up at me with those huge brown eyes of his.
‘Luce, I learned long ago that I can’t tell you what to do. If it was me and I’d inherited a gorgeous house in this part of the country, I’d jump at the chance to live there rather than in a shoebox in Kentish Town. But from what I’ve gathered, it’s not as simple as all that, is it?’
I shook my head. ‘I wish it was, it’d be a no-brainer then.’
He reached his hands across the table and linked our fingers together, gently caressing the backs of my hands with his thumbs.
‘You know I only want you to be happy, don’t you? Tell me what happened here all those years ago and we’ll see if we can put it right. Then your choice will be loads easier, won’t it?’
‘I can’t.’ My voice was small and meek, like all the life and colour had been drained from it. ‘I just can’t George, you’ll hate me if I do.’ Then I registered the look on his face. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’
‘Nothing that can’t wait. Luce, every time I’ve tried to talk to you about your past you shut me down. I kept saying to myself you must have a good reason for doing that, but I think it’s time you stopped running away from it. If you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help you. That way, you can decide whether you’re staying here or coming back to London.’
He looked at me, his eyes pleading with me to share my secrets with him. I looked back at him, my mouth forming words I knew I couldn’t say. I felt terrible that I couldn’t tell him what had happened, but it was too awful. I’d valued his friendship over the last two years and letting him in on my dark little secret would spoil everything.
‘You know the drill,’ I replied, ‘no talking about the past. So come on, what do you want to tell me?’
He sighed, knowing he’d been defeated, and his eyes dropped to the white wooden table we were sitting at.
‘I’ve been putting off telling you this, but a couple of guys I met doing Jesus Christ Superstar asked if I fancied taking the spare room at their place in Lewisham. I haven’t given them an answer yet because I don’t know what the situation is with you. If you’re coming back then we’ll find a way to keep the flat in Kentish Town, but if you’re not I need some kind of back-up plan.’
My heart sank to my shoes and I felt like the worst person in the world. I tried to pull my hands away but George wouldn’t let go.
‘My to-ing and fro-ing isn’t doing anyone any favours is it?’ I asked with a sad sigh.
I hated the thought of George being in limbo while I was still trying to figure out my life. The decision was simple: I could either stay here or go back to London. Although there were many obstacles in my way, I couldn’t deny that staying in Luna Bay excited me. Yet I couldn’t quite make the leap to commit to staying.
‘I just need to know where I stand, that’s all. I know this won’t be an easy decision for you. Maybe you could see about going to one of the meetings? That way, you can meet the members and see if you could handle it.’
I couldn’t bear the thought of not living with George any more. He’d been my flatmate for almost two amazing years in London and not having him around would create a huge void in my life that I wasn’t sure I could fill, but I couldn’t leave him hanging.
Just then, a group of very familiar people shuffled through the front door and made their way to the back of the room, disappearing behind a gingham-print curtain. Diane, the café’s owner, took her apron off and prepared to follow suit. The smattering of customers still in the café took that as their cue to leave.
‘Come on, I think it’s chucking-out time now.’ George got up and stretched his lithe dancer’s muscles. ‘We could go down to the cottage if you like, see if we can find anything else out about this Broken Hearts Book Club?’
I hushed him as I heard some muffled voices coming from behind the curtain.
‘I think that might be them,’ I whispered. ‘The book club.’
The old floorboards creaked when I stepped on them and I winced. Being discovered snooping on a private meeting of broken-hearted people wouldn’t do my reputation in Luna Bay any good.
‘You go,’ I said to George. ‘I’ll be along in a minute; I’m just going to check this meeting out. I’ll meet you back at the pub.’
George nodded and left as quietly as possible. I left my plate of Victoria sponge on the table and hot-footed it towards the toilets as fast as I could. Diane didn’t look pleased to see I wasn’t ready to leave yet.
‘Be quick, we’re just about to close!’
‘I won’t be a second, I promise!’ I smiled at her but she didn’t return it.
I scurried to the toilets, hoping Diane would forget I was there and head on through to the meeting. It would be a perfect chance for me to see what this mysterious book club was really all about.
When I came out of the toilet, Diane was nowhere to be seen, the lights in the main café were out and I was completely alone. Suddenly, someone speaking made me jump and I remembered why I was there: to get a glimpse into the Broken Hearts Book Club.
‘Right, welcome to this Luna Bay Broken Hearts Book Club meeting. How are we all tonight?’ Diane’s kind voice was instantly recognisable.
The other people at the table mumbled indistinct replies that I couldn’t quite make out. I decided to edge myself closer to see if I could learn more about this mysterious club I’d inherited.
‘OK, this is our first meeting since Lily died so things will be a bit strange. We don’t have a new chairperson yet, so we’ll just have to muddle through as best we can.’
Diane’s voice was tinged with sadness; it was obvious Nana Lily had meant a great deal to her. It made me smile to think of other people loving her as much as I did.
She patted her sandy blonde curls down and addressed the group with an uncertain smile. ‘Let’s start by going round the table and saying how we’re all coping this week. I’ll start. It would’ve been Derek’s sixty-sixth birthday on Tuesday, so I went to the cemetery and spent some time with him. I told him what had been happening with the cricket team, this place and that his stool’s still vacant at The Purple Partridge. My daughter phoned from London to see if I was OK; I lied and said everything was fine. Ended up crying most of the night and listening to Always on My Mind. We danced to that at our wedding…’
She trailed off as tears overcame her. A rosy-cheeked woman sitting on her left hand side patted her shoulder and handed her a tissue from her bag. I recognised her from the photo I’d found of the book club, but hadn’t seen her before that; she must’ve moved to the village after I left.
‘I guess I’m next!’ she said with a nervous chuckle. From my limited viewpoint, I saw her cheeks pink up even more. ‘Well, I had a good week actually. Obviously, I still miss Rebecca every day, but I finally feel like things are getting easier. I-I even managed to pay a visit to the hospice to say thank you to all the nurses who looked after her at the end. I tried before, just after she died, but the memories were just too painful. John was going to come with me, but he isn’t ready yet… He still can’t accept that she’s gone and that he couldn’t save her.’
There were murmurs of support from the rest of the group, along with suggestions that John should come along to the next meeting. The woman shook her head and dropped her gaze to her lap, saying that he ‘didn’t believe in facing his grief’.
I was taken aback by the intensely sad stories they told and just how grief-stricken they sounded. Why Nana Lily thought I could help them, I just didn’t know. House or no house, I wasn’t up to the task. It was time to leave. Slowly and carefully, I began to scrape my chair back but one of the legs got stuck on a loose floorboard. I didn’t have enough room to squeeze out without toppling the entire table over, so I was pretty much trapped.
Bollocks.
I tried to wiggle myself free, but it was no good. Another woman began to speak about her week.
‘I got a dog walking flyer through my door today and it made me think of Hobie and how much I miss him. He was a right handful at times, but I’d let him chew every pair of slippers I own to have him back with me again. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, as clichéd as that sounds.’
Those words made me think of belting out Big Yellow Taxi to a church full of people. I thought back to that day, of how it had felt saying goodbye to Nana Lily. The finality of it all made tears well up in my eyes and caused the chatter from the meeting to drop to a low hum. She had been such a huge part of my life and it still hadn’t hit me that I’d never see her again.
My thoughts then turned to meeting Jake and finding out I’d been left Rose Cottage. They were two surprises I definitely hadn’t expected when I’d come back. My return to Luna Bay hadn’t been all bad, when I thought about it. Aside from my confrontation with Maggie, it had been quite pleasant.
Another attempt to shake the chair leg free failed.
‘It’s never easy to lose a pet,’ I heard Diane say. ‘They become like part of the family and it’s heartbreaking to have to say goodbye to them. We’re all with you Jean, aren’t we folks?’
Cue murmurs of support from the rest of the group.
‘Thanks everyone. You’ve no idea what this means to –’
She was cut short by me falling arse over head into the middle of their conversation. I’d finally managed to get the chair leg out from behind the loose floorboard, but the effort I put into freeing myself had toppled the chair backwards and sent me flying. The whole of the Broken Hearts Book Club turned to look at who’d intruded on their private meeting and they didn’t look happy to see me.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lucy Harper.’ Diane got up and extended a hand to help me up. She didn’t look best pleased that I was gatecrashing their meeting.
‘Hello everyone!’ I did my sunniest smile and waved. ‘Lovely weather we’re having, eh?’
Unsurprisingly, nobody waved back.
‘So you decided to gatecrash our meeting, did you?’
My cheeks flushed furiously. ‘Not exactly. I-I heard about this club after my Nana Lily’s funeral and I… Well I wanted to find out more about it. I didn’t mean any harm, really I didn’t. I-I didn’t even know you were having the meeting here today.’
Diane folded her arms across her broad chest and pursed her lips. I felt like a naughty child who’d been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
‘Well if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a meeting to get back to,’ she said, turning back to return to her seat.
‘Wait! Look, I know I haven’t been back round here for long and that I left under a bit of a cloud, but all I wanted to do was find out more about the club. Nana Lily, she… She kind of left it to me in her will.’
This revelation prompted a collective gasp from the club members. I felt like I was in a really badly devised soap opera.
‘She what?’ Diane rose from her chair and looked at me with an alarmed expression. ‘Why the hell would she do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted with a shrug and nervously began fiddling with a loose thread on my jumper. ‘She said she wanted me to chair the club and spread a bit of cheer to you all, help to brighten you all up a bit.’
Diane’s face darkened and she put her hands on her hips. I had a feeling I’d just made things a whole lot worse. Open mouth, insert foot.
‘This club does not need “brightening up”, thank you very much! We’re fine as we are.’
I decided to let Nana Lily do the talking, so I pulled the last page of the letter from my bag and passed it to Diane. As she scanned it I watched her face contort into a disgusted scowl. I was glad I’d left out the part where Nana Lily said I needed to run the club for three months in order to get the cottage.
‘Obviously that was a moment of madness on Lily’s part. This book club needs someone who knows the members and the way things work to run it, not somebody who hasn’t even lived in the village for eight years.’ Her eyes caught mine and I felt myself shiver, ‘And we all know why that is.’
Oh no, I thought, please don’t mention the Vicky thing.
‘Look,’ I said, preventing her from going any further. ‘I agree with you; I don’t think I’d be much good at chairing a book club for broken-hearted people. From what I heard, you obviously know what you’re doing and you’d be a much better chairwoman than me. Sorry to disturb you guys, I’ll leave you in peace.’
I turned to walk away, expecting to feel relieved that I’d satisfied my curiosity and passed responsibility on to Diane. But I didn’t; I felt bereft. In abdicating my responsibility to the book club, I’d also given up Rose Cottage. Someone else would be living in it before too long, making memories and enjoying all it had to offer. It made me sad to think that person wouldn’t be me.
‘For what it’s worth,’ I said, turning back for a moment, ‘you all sound like you’re doing amazingly. Obviously you all already know that I lost my nana recently. We were very close – she was a huge part of my life and I miss her terribly. I-I hope you guys all find a way through your grief soon. I really didn’t mean to disturb your meeting.’
I went to walk out, but felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned round, the rosy-cheeked woman was looking at me like a baby fawn she’d found in the road.
‘You come in and sit with us darling,’ she said gently. ‘There’s a spare seat at our table if you fancy joining us? You can sit in on a meeting and see what we’re all about. I’m Denise, by the way. Nice to meet you.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t want to intrude!’
‘Nonsense, there’s always room for one more.’ Denise smiled warmly and linked her arm through mine. ‘Isn’t there Diane?’
My eyes widened in alarm. I hadn’t bargained on being invited to stay; all I’d wanted was to eavesdrop on the meeting to get a feel for the club. Plus it was evident that Diane didn’t want me here; leaving was the best option, like it always was.
‘Well actually –’
‘See, course there is! There’s always space for anyone who wants to join.’
She guided me over to the table they were gathered at and showed me to a seat on the end. Then she resumed her place next to Diane and looked at me, along with everyone else.
‘Right, well this is the Luna Bay Broken Hearts Book Club! We meet in here every week for tea, cake and book discussions. As you know, we’re without a chairperson since your nana passed away. I suppose that’ll be you if you decide to give it a go! I don’t know if you know anything about the club or what we do?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve never heard of it. Nana Lily didn’t mention anything about it to me when she was alive.’
‘Well, she started it in 2007 just after your granddad Jack died. She was so lonely without him and started the group as a way of being part of things and socialising again. It used to be called the Luna Bay Book Club. Then, one by one, we all started to be affected by grief and tragedy so the ‘broken hearts’ bit was added. We go round the group, say what kind of week we’ve had, then we discuss the book we’ve been reading. This week’s is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.’
A lump rose in my throat as I learned more about the organisation so close to Nana Lily’s heart. The club had adapted and changed to fit the members’ needs. It had become a source of comfort and support when they’d needed it most. I loved the thought of Nana Lily and her friends finding strength in books and using them to escape from troubled times.
‘That’s such a lovely idea Denise.’ I choked back some tears. ‘The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite books too. Did you enjoy it, Diane?’
Diane didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. She sat with her arms folded, staring into the middle distance. I shrunk back into my seat and stared down at my hands. I’d known this wouldn’t be easy. She still blamed me for what happened to Vicky, after all. Maybe hot-footing it out of the café when I’d had the chance would’ve been the wiser option…
Denise seemed to sense how awkward things had become and clapped her hands, like that would somehow magic away the tension.
‘Now let’s get things started, shall we?’
