‘Maybe. Perhaps I should have clarified whether they’d suddenly disappear on me one day with no notice,’ Helena said wryly. ‘Not exactly the happy ever after I was hoping for.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t them?’ Johnny shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s all yet to come.’
‘Or maybe it’s all a load of nonsense!’ Helena plastered on a smile. ‘Just a clever woman who’s good at guessing what people want to hear.’
‘Perhaps we should get Malcolm to make one for you?’ Margery asked. ‘A love potion, I mean?’
Helena noticed Johnny looking at her surreptitiously, as if trying to suss out exactly how heartbroken she was.
‘No bloody chance,’ Helena said. ‘I think I’ve well and truly been put off men for life.’
‘That would be a shame,’ Johnny said, looking as though he genuinely meant it. ‘We’re not all bad, I promise.’
‘Well, I think it all sounds completely bonkers,’ Margery said, her eyebrows hovering near her hairline. ‘I mean, whatever next?’
‘He wants to expand his herb garden on a grand scale, all for use in his potions. We are talking about installing a greenhouse. Apparently, the demand from his online store is through the roof.’
‘Fascinating!’
‘He showed me his altar, complete with spell book, cauldron and wand.’
‘Wow. Can I see a picture?’ Helena asked.
Johnny pulled out his phone and loaded an image of an older man with bright purple hair and heavy eyeliner.
‘What do you reckon Aunty Marge? Should I set you up on a date?’ Johnny’s laugh was infectious.
‘Don’t be ridiculous Johnathan!’ Margery scolded. ‘I might get him to makemea love potion though…’
At this they all burst out laughing. Helena realised how long it had been since she had felt even a shred of happiness like this. It had been weeks since a smile had passed her lips, let alone laughter spilling out of her. She was so grateful to Margery for coming to her rescue.
That afternoon, she phoned her landlord, who was not best pleased at her disappearance. Then Margery and Johnny helped her move her stuff upstairs into the box room. As predicted, Johnny had insisted on giving her the spare room but Helena had managed to hold her ground by threatening to go back to the flat share if he wouldn’t let her take it instead. With Helena’s help, Margery had cleared out the wardrobe and chest of drawers for her to put her things in, boxing up everything she could and leaving them out for Johnny to take up to the loft.
Afterwards, while Margery took the dogs for a walk, Helena decided to tackle her unpacking. She placed the pink rose Margery had bought her on her bedside table. From her bedroom window she could see Johnny working in the garden. He looked as if hebelonged outdoors, in a salt-of-the-earth, rugged kind of way. She would love to know how to garden. She adored being in nature and thought it must be such a rewarding skill to have. She knew it was meant to be so good for your mental health. She was clueless about any of it, pretty much everything she had planted at Banham Cottage had died, but she was determined to learn. Perhaps Johnny would be able to teach her.
Helena hauled the suitcases onto her bed and started unpacking, hanging her dresses and trousers in the wardrobe, folding jumpers and tops and stacking them neatly in the chest of drawers, along with her underwear. It was a tight squeeze trying to get all her clothes into such a small storage space. Luckily she didn’t have too many, these past few years there hadn’t been any money left over from her allowance for her to spend on herself, and she had wanted to keep the last of her savings for a rainy day. Her heart wrenched as she thought back to the torture of packing up Raffy and Noah’s things, of giving them away. She bit back tears as the crippling loss hit her for the millionth time, like being winded by a sharp jab under the ribs. There were two boxes left with things she had been unable to part with. Not ready to face going through them quite yet, she left them in the corner of the room, one on top of the other.
Lastly she opened her tote bag and pulled out Raffy’s dog-eared teddy. She breathed in the smell and her heart pined for him. She pictured him asleep, holding it tight each night as she kissed him goodnight on her way to bed. Tears glistened in her eyes as she placed it on the bed. Hating herself for doing it, she pulled Noah’s jumper out too and buried her face in it. Tears spilled over as she smelt the musky scent of his aftershave. She tucked them under her pillow. That night she fell asleep curled up with them both.
24
THE NEXT DAY, Helena set herself the task of finding a job. She needed to be able to pay Margery her first month’s rent and, having lost the deposit and the down payment on her rental, she had barely anything left in her account. She waited for Johnny to come out of the shower, before wrapping herself in her towel and sneaking into the still steamy room. As she turned to shut the door, Johnny smacked straight into her, full frontal, naked apart from the towel wrapped around his hips.
‘Oh GOD!’ he exclaimed, looking mortified. ‘I’m so sorry!’
‘No,I’msorry!’ Helena said. ‘I thought you were finished.’
‘I was. I am… Sorry! I was just going to… No, no, never mind… You go ahead!’ he laughed as he beat a hasty retreat back to his room and shut the door.
Helena felt flustered, straight back to the awkward teenager she had once been. She had not been expecting to come into semi-nude contact with another man any time soon. As she turned the shower back on, she couldn’t help but compare Johnny’s physique with Noah’s, it had been so many years since she had seen another man even half naked. Before Noah, apart from a very drunken one-night stand she could hardly remember, the last naked man she had seen had been her ex, Dan. He had been short and ghostly pale, nothing to write home about. In comparison with Noah’s tanned, gym-honed body, Johnny was tall and broad shouldered, softer round the edges than Noah’s chiselled muscles, but it looked good on him. She had noticed a trail of dark hair from the middle of his torso down to the top of his towel, spreading wider the lower it traced. Noah had been hairless, but not naturally so, hehad it all waxed off once a month. Something Helena did not find very attractive. There was no six pack on Johnny, just a normal stomach, and Helena thought how nice it would feel to be with a man who didn’t hate body fat. Perhaps there could be a future for her romantically, with someone less judgemental, maybe even someone who accepted her just as she was. It was the first time she had allowed herself to think that maybe, just maybe, she might be better off with someone who was not Noah.
She got dressed, choosing jeans for the first time in a long time instead of her faithful tracksuit bottoms she had lived in for the past month, and applied a little makeup. She took a deep breath. Enough was enough. She couldn’t let Noah destroy her. She had to stop feeling sorry for herself. It was time to face facts. She urgently needed money. She needed to get a job. Any job.
She downed a cup of coffee from the cafetière Johnny had left on the kitchen table, noticing he had thoughtfully left two cups out for her and Margery. He had had another new client meeting that morning and had already set off. Judging by the gentle snores she had heard from her bedroom, Margery was still fast asleep. Helena pulled her coat on, got in the car and drove back to a café she had driven past several times the week before, near the charity shop in town she had taken all Noah and Raffy’s things to. She had noticed a handwritten note in the window, advertising for help. She was relieved to see it was still there.
She parked the car and peered inside. It seemed reasonable enough, nothing too fancy. An older Asian man with a short black beard stood behind the counter. There was a handful of tables and chairs, a fridge stacked with cold drinks and sandwiches. She pinched her cheeks to add some colour to the deathly pallor she saw in her reflected image, visible in the café’s glass front. ‘You can do this,’ she told herself. She channelled her mother’s inner confidence and warmth. Taking a deep breath, she fixed what she hoped was an upbeat, capable smile on her face, pulled herself up to her full height and stepped into the shop.
‘Morning,’ she called as she walked up to the counter.
