Jude briefly turned with an apologetic smile before Daniel dragged her attention back to the contents of the box. A final scream of hilarity went with them as Joy lifted Radia into her arms and the latch clicked shut.
‘Mrs C. didn’t tell you she texted me an hour ago to say I was your ride home, did she?’ said Monty, surveying her face with consternation.
‘No,’ Joy replied. ‘You really didn’t have to come. Is your shift even over?’
Monty held up the wrist his watch was on. ‘It’s after ten.’
‘But isn’t Elliot hiding out at the Siren with Mr Crawley? Shouldn’t you be with them now?’
‘What? For stag party round two? Elliot’s asleep on my bed at the Siren already, and Jude’s dad’s propping up the bar with Izaak and Leonid.’
‘Is Elliot all right?’
‘Yeah, he only had three Doom Bars but he’d been up since five at the vet practice. For such a fit bloke he just doesn’t have the staying power for a late night.’
‘That must have been the tamest stag weekend in history,’ Joy said, as Monty swept a hand towards the jeep he shared with his brother. It was parked on the main road behind him, straddling the pavement, its hazard lights flashing.
‘We’re just not tie-him-unconscious-to-a-lamppost kinds of guys, I guess,’ Monty shrugged. ‘I honestly think he liked the chinchilla and puppy bit best. Anyway, hop in, I shouldn’t really stop on this road.’
‘Do you have a car seat?’ Radia asked sleepily.
‘Ah! No, no I don’t.’
Joy told him it didn’t matter but she’d sit in the back with Radia if that was OK, and they clambered in and made their way along the main road and down the narrow lane that led to top of the village, neither of the grown-ups talking, and Joy hoping Radia would fall asleep on the drive.
She didn’t, of course. She was telling them there was a school here, and those nice ladies were teachers, andhow luckyare the children who get to go to school here, Mummy?
It lasted the entire way down the slope too – Monty had a parking space and a special key fob to get into the visitor centre car park after hours. He’d pointed out the cottage where his brother now lived alone as they walked by, but Joy and Monty couldn’t get another word in all the way down to the bookshop. Radia was complaining about how shelongedto try a school dinner.
Joy had caught the sympathetic smile he’d thrown her. She rolled her eyes and smiled back.
The street lamps glowed warmly in the summer darkness, and the honeysuckle and stocks in the gardens heading Down-along released their sweetness. Joy wanted to remark on the calm navy-blue strip of sea glimpsed between the cottages, or how cheerful the Siren looked tonight, all its windows aglow, but Radia talked on and on, between gaping-mouthed yawns, about how she’d seen this pencil-case unboxing video by her favourite YouTuber and it was also a calculatoranda notebook and she’d have liked one of those. She’d have to ask Santa for it, she supposed, since she wasn’t getting new school stuff. This was said with a deep sigh.
‘Straight to bed, it’s way past your bedtime,’ Joy announced, as she punched in the new passcode.
Amazingly, Radia only looked back and forth between her mum and Monty – who was hanging back in the little square under the strings of lights – and she tramped straight through to her room at the foot of the stairs without any complaints, flipping on the big lights as she went. Joy watched from just inside the shop door.
‘Right, I’ll… head back, then,’ Monty said, already taking a step away and hiking a thumb to indicate he wasn’t expecting anything else.
‘Wait.’ Joy’s mouth had said it before her brain could intervene.
He held himself still in the middle of the square.
‘If you give me a minute, I’ll do her a cocoa, then we could…’ Joy had no idea what they could do. ‘We could…’ Her eyes fell on the little blue tables and chairs of the courtyard. ‘We could have a drink?’
Monty didn’t need to hear more. He pulled up a chair and sat with his back to the palm tree in the big pot.
Joy followed her little girl inside, trying not to think too much about anything and especially not about Jude’s gran’s theory of ‘recognition’, which was obviously romantic nonsense and not at all a real thing any sensible woman would be daft enough to succumb to.
Chapter Twenty
‘Wine?’
‘Cocoa please,’ Monty joked and it only took Joy a moment to register.
‘Hah, sorry, Radia’s had the last of it. I’ve got this though.’ She showed him the half bottle of Jude’s rosé left over from the shelving party.
‘Perfect,’ he told her.
