“It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing.” He shakes his head. “You’ve … I don’t think I’d realized …” He meets my eyes frankly. “I can go forward now.”

“Well, good. That’s all I wanted.” I smile brightly, trying to mask the pain which I can feel coming for me like a tsunami. “Good luck with everything. With Briony, and life, and … everything.”

There’s only so long you can smile brightly at the man who has your heart but loves someone else. Already my mouth is starting to tremble.

“So … goodbye,” I say, and I’m making to leave when Seb calls out, “Wait!”

I look back and he’s reaching into his pocket and somehow I’m not surprised when he produces the coffee sleeve.

I take a step back toward him and we stand there in the street, the two of us gazing at it. The original IOU. It’s crumpled and creased now, the writing indistinct and blurred in places where we spilled wine on it in bed, and I have a sudden memory of him giving it to me in the first place.

“Stupid thing.” I try to laugh.

“Yes.” Seb nods, suddenly grave. “It is. Because if I really wrote down all the reasons I owe you, it would fill a book.”

His words take me by surprise, and for a moment I can’t answer.

“No, it wouldn’t.” I say at last, trying to be flippant but not really succeeding.

“It would. You know it would.”

“Well … me too.” My throat is tight. “I owe you too.”

“But we’re not keeping score anymore.”

“No, we’re not.”

I take the coffee sleeve from him and look at our melded scrawled writings, feeling such pangs of loss I can’t bear it. Then, on impulse, I start to rip. Once through. Twice through. I need quite a lot of force to tear the cardboard—it’s stronger than it looks—but at last it’s in pieces and I look up.

“We’re done,” I say, and Seb nods, with such a wry, sad expression I want to cry again, but I mustn’t.

“Done,” he echoes.

I run my gaze over his face one last time. Then I take a deep breath as though plunging underwater, turn, and walk swiftly away, dumping the pieces in a recycling bin as I go.


Twenty-six

Sometimes life gives you what you need. Sometimes it gives you what you don’t need. What I really don’t need in my life right now is Ryan Chalker—but as soon as I get within view of Farrs, I see him, standing on the pavement, talking to Jake.

Great. Just bloody … great.

I’m feeling so sore right now, I can barely face anyone, let alone him. But I can’t run away; I need to get into the shop. Which means I’m forced to approach him, with my chin as stiff as possible, wishing my face wasn’t all blotchy from wiping away tears but equally thinking: So I’ve got a blotchy face, so what, it’s my face, fuck off.

I’m braced for him to say something offensive—but to my surprise, as I get near them, he seems to be arguing with Jake.

“Not happening,” Jake is saying. “No. I’m working.” He gestures at his Gingerbread Man suit.

“It’s two days!” Ryan says dismissively. “You can take easily two days off, the flights are like, nothing, and we’ll have a blast. You and me, partying like the old days. Drinks on me,” he adds with a twinkle.

Ryan is as cajoling as I’ve ever seen him, and for an instant I see Jake waver. I see him weaken. I see the old appetite growing in his face.

But then it closes up.

“I’m working,” he repeats doggedly. “And I can’t afford a trip to Prague. So as I say, it’s not happening.”

“For God’s sake, Jake! What happened to you? Hi, Fixie,” Ryan adds brazenly, as though the last time we saw each other I wasn’t quite literally sweeping him out of the house.

“Nothing happened,” says Jake evenly. “But my priority right now is work.”

“Work!” Ryan gives a scornful laugh, which makes me cringe. “What, dressing up as a gingerbread man? Do you know how tragic you look, mate?”

I stare at him, incensed. How dare he come around and insult my family?

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to Hollywood now, Ryan?” I say sweetly. “Doesn’t Tom Cruise want to have lunch with you at Nobu?” Ryan shoots me a look of dislike and I gaze coolly back. “You’re cluttering the pavement. So either come in and buy something or move along.”

“Yes, just go,” says Jake. “Go, Ryan. We’ve had enough of you.”

“Oh, you’ve ‘had enough of me’!” Ryan retorts at once, with another scornful laugh.

“Yes,” says Jake steadfastly. “We have.”

In silence, Ryan looks from Jake’s face to mine and back again. I’ve never felt such solidarity with my brother. Ryan’s eyes flicker uncertainly as he surveys us, and just for an instant I feel sorry for him. Just an instant.

“Well, fuck off, then,” he snarls at last, then turns and strides away.

“Merry Christmas!” Jake calls after him. “I hope Santa’s good to you!”

“Santa will not be good to him,” I say, and I start giggling uncontrollably, letting out some of my painful tension. “Are you kidding? Santa will give him a turnip and a lump of coal.”

“He doesn’t even deserve a turnip. Remember one year Dad put a turnip in my stocking?” Jake suddenly adds reminiscently. “When I was about eleven. He thought I needed a fright. The toys were in the corner of the room and I didn’t see them at first—so I thought that was it. A turnip.”

“I don’t remember that.” I stare at him incredulously. “Did you get a fright?”

“Oh yeah.” Jake grins. “I nearly had a heart attack. Dad thought it’d make me calm down a bit.” He pauses, then adds with a kind of rueful glint in his eye, “Guess a turnip wasn’t enough. I was still a little bastard.”

“You weren’t so bad,” I say easily.

“Oh, I was. I was a toe-rag. That day I laid into you about your skating? That was pretty low.” He hesitates. “But, I mean, you were about to give up anyway, weren’t you?”

I’m so stunned I can’t respond at once. I was about to give up? Is that how he’s rationalized it all this time? Does he have any idea … ? My chest is burning with all the things I could say, all the accusations I could hurl at him.

But then … why would I? It’s done. It happened. What are we going to do, start a tally of who did what when?

“Oh well,” I manage. “Think how much worse you could have been.” And Jake smiles at me in the way he often does these days—as though he’s consciously trying to get on with his family, he only needs a bit of practice. Then he turns to look down the street, where Ryan is still just about visible.

“He’s an arse,” he says matter-of-factly, and I nod.

“You got rid of him, anyway.”

There’s silence as we both watch Ryan finally disappear from view. Ryan, who blinded both of us with his dazzle, who led us both astray. I’m sure both of us are rewinding our lives and thinking how they might have been different with no Ryan Chalker in them.

But what can you do about mistakes except think, Won’t do that again, and move forward?

“I wonder what Dad would think of us,” says Jake, breaking the silence. “Now. If he could see us.”

His voice is casual, but his eyes seem to have a genuine question in them. As if it matters.

Well, of course it matters. Jake always cared desperately what Dad thought of him, even when he was yelling. We all did.

“I hope he’d realize we’re doing our best,” I say, after a moment’s thought. On a whim I look up at the sky and call out softly, “Dad, we’re doing our best, OK?”

“He says, ‘No you’re not, the stock room’s a mess, and what’s happened to the licorice allsorts?’ ” shoots back Jake, deadpan, and I burst into a giggle.

“I have to go,” I say. “The stock room is a mess.”

“Hannah’s in there, by the way,” says Jake, jerking his head toward the shop. “Christmas shopping.”

I feel a sudden swell of love for Hannah. She’s the most loyal friend in the world. All her family must be sick to death of Farrs stock, but she supports us every year. She even schedules a Farrs shopping session on her calendar.

“Thanks,” I say, and squeeze him on the arm. “Don’t get too cold out here.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” says Jake, and brandishes his stack of flyers. “Come on in!” he resumes shouting, winking at me. “Gingerbread houses at Farrs! Christmas decorations at Farrs! Ho ho ho!”

Inside the shop, I find Hannah loading up her basket with ceramic rolling pins decorated with gingerbread men.

“I’m on the waiting list for one of those mixing bowls,” she greets me without any preamble. “Morag says they’ll be in tomorrow?”

She looks radiant these days, even though she’s not pregnant yet (I’ll be first to know, after her mum and Tim). She and Tim have “started again”—her words—and they’re really blissful and she’s thrown away all her to-do lists.

Or at least put them away somewhere secret. She’s a bit cagey on that point.

“So where were you?” she asks now. “Jake said you rushed off somewhere.”

For a few moments I can’t reply. I will tell her everything, of course I will—but not in this bright bustle of Christmas cheer.

“Just … something,” I say. “I was with Seb.”

“Seb?” Her eyes light up questioningly and I shake my head.

“No. No. Not that. Tell you later. So what else do you need?” I force a bright Christmas-shopping manner. And she’s just showing me the list on her phone, when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

“Hey, Fixie, you dropped this.” It’s Jake in his gingerbread outfit, holding out my scarf.

“Oh, thanks,” I say as I wind it back around my neck. “I guess I was distracted by Ryan.”

“Ryan?” says Hannah, looking scandalized. “Was that him outside? I thought I saw him, but then I thought, No, that can’t be him, he wouldn’t dare … ”