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“Aye,” says McTavish, nodding. “It’ll do ye good. Get ye oot o’ the house.”
“I’ve only been here since yesterday afternoon,” I tell him. “I don’t think I need an intervention quite yet. And I hate hospitals. They smell like death.”
“It’s no’ technically ahospital, but, I suppose it’s maybe no’ the best place for ye, when ye’re facin’ the prospect o’ dying alone,” admits McTavish. “We’ll have to leave that for tomorrow. Frankie’ll be disappointed, though; she made me promise I’d try to cheer ye up. She had to work this morning, or she’d have been here herself.”
“It’s okay,” I reassure him, wishing he hadn’t said that thing about me dying alone. “You did your best. But not even a trip to a nursing home can cheer me up right now, McTavish. I don’t think anything’s going to cheer me up other than hearing from Jack.”
I pick up my phone to stare yet again at the display, willing it to ring. Or even just make that noise that tells me I’ve got a new WhatsApp notification. This staring technique hasn’t worked any of the many other times I’ve tried it this morning, though, so when the phone suddenly gives a loud ping right in front of my face, I’m so surprised I almost drop it.
A new message.
Please let it be from Jack. Please let it be from Jack.
I quickly tap on the message notification, and when it opens, I actuallydodrop the phone in fright.
Because the message isn’t from Jack.
It’s from his mum.
Chapter 24
Kathryn’s message asks me to meet her at The Crown at midday, and it does not appear to allow for any objections to this. It’s literally just, “Meet me at The Crown at midday. We need to talk.” — as if we’re undercover spies, arranging to trade information, rather than just two women who don’t particularly like each other, and have nothing to talk about, anyway.
Unless she has a message for me from Jack?
Why would Jack send hismumto give me a message, though, rather than just contacting me himself? And why The Crown, of all places?
I’m almost nostalgic for the days when all I had to worry about was another anonymous message threatening to destroy my relationship.
This is much worse than that, though.
For one thing, it’ll be the first time Kathryn and I have actually been alone together, without at least one other person to act as a buffer — a situation I’m just not sure is survivable for me, really.
And for another, there’s the small matter of herhatingme: a reality which my “break” with Jack (Which I’m still thinking of in inverted commas, because I can’t bring myself to accept it’s real) is unlikely to have improved.
I briefly consider faking my own death to get out of meeting her, but then Mum announces that if I don’t go, she will, so I reluctantly drag myself off the sofa, and do my best to pull a comb through the tangles in my hair. It’s been less than 24 hours since Jack and I started our inverted-commas-break, but I already look like I’m deep in the throes of a messy divorce, and my look isn’t improved by by the fact that the only clean clothes I can find in my old bedroom turn out to be a pair of worn out old leggings, and the sweater Jack gave me on the boat — which I’ve been refusing to take off because it still smells like him, and only a little bit like Jude Paw, who slept on it last night.
I borrow some sunglasses from Mum to hide my puffy eyes, and leave the house looking like I’m in mourning.
If this is what a single day of this “break” has done to me, I hate to think what I’m going to look like by the end of the week.
Not that I’m expecting it to lastthatlong, obviously.
I mean, surely to God not?
Although The Crown occupies a prime position on the seafront, it is, nevertheless, a strange choice of location for someone like Kathryn, it being what Frankie — rather rudely, it has to be said — refers to as an “old man’s pub,” complete with sticky carpets, sludge brown walls, and a noisy TV in one corner which always seems to be blasting out some football game or other.
There are plenty of much nicer bars in town — I mean, literallyeverybar in town is much nicer than The Crown. But then again, I guess Jack’s mum probably doesn’t want to risk being seen with me: a decision I struggle to blame her for when I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
“Emerald. Over here.”
Kathryn’s sitting in the corner furthest from the door, and is also wearing dark glasses, which makes me feel even more like I’m in a spy movie as I make my way over to her, reluctantly pushing my own glasses onto the top of my head so I can see where I’m going in the gloom of the bar.
(Kathryn still has hers on, presumably to hide her identity. She looks like Stevie Wonder.)
“Hi.”
I take a seat opposite her, unable to think of anything else to say after this sparkling opening gambit. Kathryn has a glass of wine in front of her, but I suspect drinking on an empty stomach would probably be a bad idea for me right now — plus I happen to know The Crown’s wine tastes almost exactly like watered-down vinegar — so I order an orange juice, then sit there nervously twisting a lock of hair around my finger while I wait for Kathryn to speak. Or to give me the code word, or whatever it is someone who’s clearly pretending to be a spy would do in this situation.
