‘Are you reinventing yourself as the next Bublé?’ Mav wriggled quickly backwards to avoid Mo’s boot collecting his knee.
‘I’m just trying to tell her how I feel,’ Mo said. ‘And that I’m an idiot for letting her go. I don’t know how else to do it.’
Mav was silent for a moment. ‘I mean, some people would just, like, call or text or something …’ The jokey edge left his voice as he looked at his brother with admiration. ‘Seriously though, I’m proud of you, man. It’s not easy to put yourself out there. You really like her, huh?’
‘I think—’ Mo shook his head, leaving his sentence unfinished.
Mav poked his brother’s knee with his index finger. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think … I think I might more than like her.’
Mav puffed his cheeks out and widened his eyes until he looked like a demented puffer fish. ‘You’re in love!’
‘I—’
‘No—you said it!’
‘No, I didn’t.’
Mav rocked back, his hands tucked under his knees, and grinned at his brother. ‘You did. You said you more than like her, and that means L. O. V. E.’
‘Are you sure you’re really thirty-four?’
‘Whatever, old boy.’ Mav smirked as he stood. ‘Good luck with the song. And Play On will play on. There’s no way I’m letting that expansion die. We’ve worked too hard for it.’
Mo smiled and nodded. ‘You’ve done such a good job, Mav.’
A flash of pride flitted over Mav’s face as he turned to leave.
‘Mav.’ Mo swallowed hard. ‘Wait a sec.’ He stood, meeting his brother eye to eye. ‘I love you, mate.’
‘I love you too, bro.’ Mav pulled Mo into a long hug, thumping his fist on his back.
Mo knew in that moment, with startling clarity, that he had to tell his brother the truth about why Netta had turned up in his life. He had to tell him about the diary and about their mum. All of it. Mav wasn’t a kid anymore. He should know the truth. Mo just had to find the right time to do it.
Mav gave him one more squeeze and released his grip. When he met Mo’s gaze, his eyes were wet. ‘Thank you, so much,’ he said. ‘Foreverything.’
Mo watched his brother leave and the stillness of the empty house settled around him like autumn leaves. The house would be a lonely place without him. And he’d been right: Mowasin love with Netta. He’d already known, deep down. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it, the weight of what it meant feeling too heavy to add to everything he was already carrying. The space and time between them felt endless and impenetrable. His silence since she’d left had made the void even more vast, and hers, while it had twisted his heart and head, was understandable. She wasn’t stupid.
He had to get her back. Until today, it had seemed impossible to even try. Even more impossible that she would still want him. But pockets of light had begun reaching him now—the blessing of a little time and solitude and, weirdly, the relief of knowing he didn’t have to deliver the album anymore—and a kernel of hope had urged him into the studio, his need to tell her what she meant to him the first skerrick of creative inspiration he’d had for a long time.
He knew he still had a long way to go to reach the surface, to be able to breathe properly and swim to land. He knew the way he’d been feeling was about way more than Netta, the roots of his heartache reaching back decades into his past. He hadn’t yet sought therapy, as Rhona had suggested. Therapy was a one-day-maybe kind of situation. Talking about his mum felt too big right now, the wound still too fresh to poke, even thirty years later. And really, what could any shrink possibly say that could change what he’d done to his mum, anyway? But this song for Netta? He could do that right now. He needed to tell her how he felt the way his blood needed oxygen.
He just hoped she’d want to hear it.
Chapter Fifty
NETTA
Netta walked home from her doctor’s appointment, the morning sun and the buzz of Acland Street barely registering. It seemed every second woman she saw was either visibly pregnant or pushing a pram. When once she had looked at mothers and their babies with admiration and hope, after her discussion with the doctor, the sight now made her heart twist with the terror of possibly losing hers.
Her phone rang from the depths of her bag as she crossed the road to reach the extension of Acland Street, where the cafés and shops were replaced by towering old trees and seen-it-all homes. She found it just before it went to voicemail. ‘Hey, Freya.’
‘How’d you go at the GP?’
‘Not great.’ A sob landed in Netta’s throat, wedging a fat silence between her and her best friend.
‘Oh, hon.’ Freya sounded as worried as Netta felt. ‘What did she say?’
