‘How can you not know how much it means to me?’
‘You’ve never told me how upset you were.’
‘I have…’ Quinn said, then stalled. When he thought back to his shop, to the threatening of closure, he hadn’t told his mum how much it scared him. He’d told nobody. Ignoring every letter, hoping it would go away.
Only it hadn’t. It’d weighed down on him and crushed him when it was too late to tell his mother, and even Harold, how he felt. How losing his shop would devastate him and rip everything out of him. His passion, his love, his purpose in life would be gone in one transaction, leaving nothing behind but a shell of himself.
‘You never let me in.’ Claire’s voice betrayed her emotion. ‘I know I should have realised what you were feeling. I understand I’m supposed to pick up on those things. But in all honesty, Quinn, I thought you were fine and coping okay. It wasn’t until the newspaper, and then hearing you talk, seeing you fight for it, that I realised how much this was affecting you.’
In all this time, Quinn hadn’t stopped to consider how he appeared to others. The lack of agency to tell others his thoughts and feelings held him back. He’d never wanted to burden others. Never wanted his hurt, his anxieties, to worry them. But if he’d spoken up after that first letter, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this mess. Perhaps Claire would have told Harold straight up that what he was doing was wrong. Maybe then they wouldn’t have drifted apart – not only because of Harold, but also because Quinn never told her how he felt after his dad died. Never considered how Claire would be feeling.
‘This all happened after Dad,’ Quinn said. ‘I bottle everything up because I feared being hurt again.’
Claire held Quinn’s hand. ‘I know. Your silence about the letters, about Harold taking over… I assumed you were accepting it. That you understood. Don’t you remember me calling you? Popping in? You mentioned nothing to me. Why?’
‘I suppose because I thought I’d be causing problems you didn’t need to deal with. I’m a grown man. I should be able to deal with my own issues.’
‘I’m your mother. I’m here to deal with your issues.’
The jazz music changed its tune to a slower melody, almost like they were on some bad reality show in real time.
‘When he told me his plans, I told him he couldn’t do it. I fought with him and it ended with him agreeing not to.’ Claire glanced out of the window. ‘And then the next thing I knew, he told me he’d sent the eviction notice. I panicked, and when I rang you, I couldn’t bear to mention it. And then you never brought anything up. And I think perhaps I took the easy way out and thought you knew what you were doing. That you got the letter, and you weren’t worried because you had a back-up plan.’
Quinn recalled the first letter that came through. How later that night his mother called him, not once, but twice. How each time he felt like she wanted to say something, and how he wanted to tell her everything, but fear stopped him. At that point, he thought maybe Harold was bluffing. He hoped maybe he could ignore the letters and no more would come. When they did, he panicked and shut down.
To Quinn, there was no need to get his mum involved. It wasn’t until Claire started bringing up the job in London again that he’d suspected that his mother knew what was going on.
‘You brought nothing up, either.’
Claire sighed. ‘I wasn’t sure I could.’
‘Me too.’
Claire let go of his hand, instead lifting her coffee mug to her lips.
‘This is all because I suffer in silence.’
‘Your father was the same.’
Ironic, then, that Quinn’s tendencies to shut others out came after his father’s death.
‘The whole time, I told Harold he needed to give it up. He couldn’t do this to you. But you know him. When he has an idea in his mind, there’s no changing it.’
Quinn supposed his mother would know that best.
‘I donated because I want to help you, but I don’t want Harold to become the village villain.’
‘He’s doing that himself.’
‘Please, Quinn.’ Claire shook her head, her shoulders slumped. Quinn hadn’t seen her look like this since Dad died. ‘I don’t know what we can do.’
It was Quinn’s turn to reach out a hand. She looked close to tears and avoided his gaze, but Quinn spoke to her directly.
‘Everything I have done, I have done to protect my shop and the people who need it.’ Quinn’s voice wavered, but he fought to keep it steady. ‘He brought himself into it when he went on the radio. As soon as he did that, he became the enemy.’
‘I know,’ Claire whispered.
‘And that’s on him, Mum. Not me. Not you.’ Quinn squeezed her hand. ‘There’s nothing else you can do now. To be honest, I don’t know if there is enough I can do, either. But we have to do whatever we can to at least try to keep the shop going.’
