Jonathan called Art his ‘dad’, of course, Kelsey thought. Because he was his dad, the only one he knew, and the warmth and affection with which he spoke about him lit his face.
‘Jonathan… did you even want to meet your father?’ Kelsey blurted it out, eyeing him warily.
He returned her stare with a look that askedwhere did that come from?‘Nope. Never,’ he replied. ‘I have my family back in Tulsa, they’re all I ever needed.’
‘OK,’ she nodded. ‘You’re right, I shouldn’t have brought it up.’
‘Hey, we can talk about anything. I don’t know the first thing about whoever that guy was and I don’t wanna know. I’ve made it to the age of thirty-two without knowing him, I think I got it from here, don’t you?’ He winked to show he didn’t mind. ‘Hey, don’t look so sad. Art is a great dad and he makes Mom happy, and you know he raised me since I was seven, so…’
‘He’s your dad.’ Kelsey was nodding. She’d done the right thing. Keeping schtum, not spoiling things. This was further confirmation, if she needed it, that she had to respect Jonathan’s wishes in this.
‘Are you thinking about your own dad?’ he was asking.
‘Oh, no, not really. I mean, I’m always thinking about him one way or another. It’s worse at Christmas, you know, the car accident happened just after New Year… I’m missing all of my family, really.’ She took a sip of chocolate and shrugged. ‘Never mind, can’t be helped.’
‘Like heck it can’t!’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go see them.’ He said it as though it was the simplest thing in the world.
Kelsey’s eyes bulged.
‘They won’t mind us showing up, right?’
‘Mind? They’d be over the moon. Are you talking about surprising them? Just turning up for Christmas?’
‘Sure! You’ve got a driving licence, right? I do too. What is it, like a ten-hour drive? There’s a car rental place nearby?’
Kelsey was nodding. ‘Six hours, maybe seven? We’d be there by bedtime. Oh my God, are we doing this?’
‘As long as we’re back for my flight to LA on the twenty-sixth.’ Jonathan looked at his watch before calling for the cheque and reaching for his wallet to pay. ‘We’re doing this.’
As they left the café, Kelsey suddenly remembered to look back at the two strangers who had thwarted their re-enactment of the day they’d met. They were standing by their empty coffee cups now and sheepishly swapping numbers into mobile phones.
She grinned and nudged Jonathan to look around. Another chance meeting had taken place. Another couple were about to embark on a new love affair. Good old Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of English love poetry, was working its romantic magic once more.
Jonathan swung his arm over Kelsey’s shoulder, locking her in tight to his long body and they bustled happily home to stuff bags for their Christmas Eve journey north.
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Now I see the mystery of your loneliness’
(All’s Well That Ends Well)
The text had been left on ‘read’ for three days when Mirren woke that Christmas Eve morning. The little tick confirmed Preston had seen it. She was just beginning to accept the fact that he wouldn’t be replying and that she’d made yet another error of judgement and no doubt hurt him all the more when the notification sound pinged. She’d just been getting out of bed and reaching for the frying pan for the festive bacon-wrapped-sausage on a roll she’d promised herself when she grabbed the phone and read feverishly.
Merry Christmas! It was good to hear from you. I’m good thanks. We’re out on tour at the minute. Listen, you don’t need to apologise again, OK? You’re not the big bad wolf you think you are. I thought a lot about what happened and you know we would have broken up somewhere along the line, right? We should have split as soon as you knew the magic was going but in the end I guess we did our best. I’m glad you messaged actually. I’ve felt weird not letting you know I’ve been seeing someone. She’s our new drummer. I hope that doesn’t hurt you. I don’t want it to. I hope you can move on and find someone really special too. Go and have yourself a merry little Christmas, miss you, P, x
At first his message had made her smile – once she’d stopped shaking, that was. After the adrenalin burst of hearing from Preston again faded she was left with an ache inside. One line stood out more than the others. ‘We should have split as soon as you knew the magic was going.’
He was right, of course. She should have had the courage to break it off there and then, all those years ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
‘Ugh,’ she grumbled into her hands, standing by her unmade bed. Even his texts to his ex-girlfriend were considerate and sweet. Suddenly she’d lost her appetite for the breakfast she’d been looking forward to alone in the silence of the barge, by the light of the little coloured bulbs she’d strung around the galley kitchen window.
She poured a long glass of water, thinking of Preston’s message and hearing all the while her mum’s voice telling her how cruel she’d been, how skittish and disloyal all those years. Typical Mirren.
The voice, and Preston, were right. She’d stayed with him and tried to pretend things were fine, hiding her deepest wishes – for change, a little adventure, a lot of passion – and hoping they’d go away, senselessly redirecting them towards brief bursts of something that felt daring – the cheating – and every time finding she felt even worse afterwards. Then she’d be consumed with the effort of burying all that guilt, along with all her desires, until there was very little left of the real Mirren; instead she had been a knot of remorse and self-loathing, and yet somehow all it took was a plastered-on smile and a bit of swagger to cover it up.
