‘Do you have any of her friends’ numbers that you could call?’ my mother asked, when the worry became too much and I had to call someone.
‘I can’t remember any of their names and there’s no address book or anything.’ It was only now I realised that I knew so little about the woman. ‘Should I call the police? What if she’s wandered off somewhere and forgotten where she is?’
‘Has she ever seemed forgetful?’ my mother asked.
‘Well, no, but you saw her when you were here, she is pretty old.’
‘I didn’t see her.’
Her answer seemed out of place – like trying to force a cube into a round hole.
‘What are you saying? Of course you saw her. I introduced you both when you were here the other day.’
After a pause my mother spoke again. ‘She wasn’t there when I stopped by, remember?’
My flesh broke out in goosebumps. What the hell was going on? I almost jumped when I heard the doorbell ring.
‘Maybe that’s her now,’ I said, rushing to open the door, but it was Henry.
‘You may as well come in,’ I said, then told my mother I would call her back.
He looked a bit fidgety, like something was bothering him. We both spoke at the same time.
‘I found something out—’
‘Madame Bowden is missing!’
His eyes flashed wide. ‘Missing?’
‘I went to wake her for breakfast and her bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘Oh.’
His tone was annoyingly dismissive.
‘What was it you wanted anyway?’ I hadn’t meant it to come out as sharp as it did.
‘Doesn’t matter now. Another time, perhaps.’
He reached into the breast pocket of his coat.
‘I brought your book back,’ he said, leaving it on the console table. He hovered in the hallway.
‘You’re really worried, aren’t you?’
I shrugged. She’d become like family to me.
‘I have to keep busy,’ I said, pulling a pair of rubber gloves out of my back pocket like some kind of cleaning superhero. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.’
I expected him to leave, but he began shaking himself out of his jacket.
‘Okay, what are we doing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’m not going to leave you on your own, am I? Got any more of those?’ he asked, looking at my gloves.
I took out all of the silver and laid it on the kitchen table, Henry at one end, me at the other. At quarter-hour intervals I would look up at the clock and feel my worry growing. We hardly spoke, until he offered to make some tea. I didn’t notice him leaving the cup beside me and I knocked it off the table with my elbow. The sound of the china smashing on the tiled floor made me want to scream. I wanted him to get the hell out and leave me alone to cope. Having him around only reminded me of all the things I couldn’t have. I got up to get a mop and a dustpan.
‘It’s okay, I’ll do it,’ he offered.
‘I’ll be quicker doing it myself,’ I snapped.
He stepped backwards, holding his hands up in surrender. I attacked the spilt tea and broken crockery with all of my pent-up anger and managed to cut myself. Next thing I knew, he was bending down beside me.
‘Here, let me help,’ he said, attempting to wrap my hand.
‘It’s fine.’
He sat back on the floor.
‘You can let people in sometimes, you know. You don’t have to do everything on your own.’
I wasn’t about to take advice on how to heal my trust issues from him, of all people. The man who’d run away from every relationship in his life. I got up and found a box of plasters in one of the cupboards before sitting back down at the table.
‘You can talk to me, you know. We are friends, aren’t we?’ He was leaning against the fridge.
‘I hate this job.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I do. I hate this stupid job. I don’t know why I ever came here. And I hate my night course and every reminder of what I missed out on—’ I struggled to open the wrapper on the plaster but my thoughts kept running on. ‘Just when I think I’ve got a handle on things, my life is turned upside down again. And I don’t even understand what any of it means. Why that book appeared in my room and seems to be talking to me. How Shane died in this house, as if by accident, but it didn’t make any sense. Then my mother beginning to speak again, only to tell me that she was adopted and so nothing is what I thought it was. And now Madame Bowden – I know you think I’m overreacting, but something doesn’t feel right! None of this is normal,’ I said, my hands shaking. I threw the plaster on the floor and gave up. ‘But you know what I hate most?’ I turned to look at Henry, who was just standing there, letting me throw out the jumbled contents of my head. ‘I hate how hard I’ve had to fight against what I really want because I’m so scared of getting hurt again.’
There was a moment of silence, where I almost regretted saying everything out loud.
‘What do you really want?’
I looked up at him, tears in my eyes.
‘You.’
We collided as if our lives depended on it. He swept me up in his arms and kissed me in a way that held nothing back. My entire life focused down to this point – like adjusting the lens of a microscope to find the one thing that matters most. Love.
Chapter Fifty-One
HENRY
We lay in Martha’s single bed, every inch of our skin touching. The wall between us had crumbled with every heart-sore word she spoke in the kitchen, like an exorcism of the past. The truth shall set you free, that’s what they say. We were both laid bare now and I knew then and there that she was my destiny. Every stupid, seemingly pointless, difficult, lonely, challenging thing I had done in my life before this had led me here, to Ha'penny Lane.
‘Are you okay?’
I felt her head nodding against my chest and I pulled her even closer into me. My heart felt ten times its usual size. I felt like I could lift a car, if I needed to. Probably best not to try, but the feeling was there nonetheless.
‘There’s something I never told you,’ I said.
‘Oh God, you’re not engaged to somebody else, are you?’
‘Very funny. I’ll engage you in a minute if you’re not careful.’
‘If you’re not careful, I might say yes.’
‘Did we just get married?’
She laughed a little hoarsely, directly into my ear, which was ridiculously sexy.
‘I might give the whole marriage thing a miss for a while, I think, if that’s okay.’
‘Same.’
She rested her chin on my chest, waiting for the thing I’d never told her. Here went nothing.
‘I’ve been in the bookshop.’
‘What bookshop?’
‘THE bookshop. Next door.’
She shook her head slightly, trying to make sense of my words.
‘It exists, Martha. Or at least it did, for a time. The night I arrived in Ireland.’
‘You’ve seen it?’
I nodded.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
I pulled my ‘why do you think’ face.