‘No!’ shouted Joy, snatching her phone away. Radia flinched. It took a horrible, frozen split second before the little girl’s face crumpled and the tears fell.
‘Rads, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ Joy began, but Radia was already running downstairs, making the metal steps clang.
She fixed her eyes on Monty. ‘We were doing fine on our own,’ she told him, her voice shaking, tears on the way. She pulled her robe tighter around her. ‘This is what happens when you let people in.’
She was talking more to herself than Monty now and dragging her wheelie case out from under the bed. The sounds of Radia crying downstairs rose to meet them.
Monty gasped. ‘You’re not leaving? Just because your parents know you’re here? That’s crazy!’
‘You don’t know the first thing about us!’ Her eyes were fierce like a cornered animal’s when she turned to face him. It made Monty halt on the spot.
‘Well then. Why don’t you tell me about your parents so that I do understand?’
Joy’s fight-or-flight trigger had fired and she seemed to be set on doing both at the same time. She tugged the zip and started pulling clothes from their hangers, tossing them into the case.
‘We don’t talk. We don’t let them know where we are. We can’t trust them. They really hurt me,’ she spat.
Monty backed away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, weakly this time.
Radia’s crying grew louder, the kind that Joy knew wasn’t going to subside with an apology and the promise of an ice cream. This was why she stayed away from people. The upset that invasions of their privacy caused was too great.
Joy’s mind raced as Monty watched her packing. How did she explain to Radia that the grandparents she thought so wonderful had turned their backs on them, just like Sean had? They’d blamed her for what happened. They’d told her she was weak, at least her mum had. Her dad had been his usual silent, busy self and said nothing at all. But he’d been there listening to the phone call and not intervening when her mum gave her the ultimatum. It was Sean or them.
At eight months pregnant and with Sean holding her credit cards and her flat keys, what was she meant to say? Especially when her mum had turned against her, calling her selfish, saying she was trying to keep the baby from them, telling all the family how mean she was being. And they’d all believed her – her aunts and uncles, her cousins too.
By the time she’d gone into labour she hadn’t seen or heard from another soul for four weeks, and even Patti had gone quiet, apart from the odd text begging her to chuck the father of her child out on his ear. They’d abandoned her and her baby when she needed them most.
How could she say any of that to Radia? And why should she explain it to Monty? She’d already told him far too much and it had burst their safe little bubble. This was why she hid. She couldn’t trust anyone.
‘Please just go,’ she told him, her back turned, hiding her tears. She listened to the reluctant pause, his huffing sigh, followed by the slow retreat of his boots on the stairs, over the sounds of Radia wailing.
The shop bell rang out as he pulled open the door, and the latch clicked behind him, locking them alone inside again.
Chapter Twenty-three
The Borrow-A-Bookshop didn’t open its doors again that day, or the next few days either. Even when holidaymakers crowded the steps and peered in the glass, forcing Joy to tape a sheet of brown wrapping paper over the front door to stop the intrusion. Even when Izaak came down the slope intending to ask if there was anything they needed, he’d found the place shut up. No amount of knocking or calling through the letter box was going to make Joy throw open the doors and sell books or serve up scones.
Instead, she sat unseen at the shop’s laptop, working steadily away at the last of her tasks. Even though she’d packed most of her stuff, she wouldn’t leave without fulfilling her contract, but that was all she was going to do.
What had she been thinking? Bookselling? Baking? Ridiculous! It had been far too public, too risky. And dating? Downing wine and kissing Monty? Going to parties and showing Radia off like she was public property? Like she was a part of this community?
She’d let herself slip. And yes, it had been fun. Seeing the same locals every day and having a routine that wasn’t simply work, eat, home-educate, sleep, repeat. But it had been illusory.
The hard facts were they were only visiting for a fortnight and she had a job to do, with professional standards to maintain, and she’d totally thrown them out the window at the first glimpse of a handsome man who showed an interest in her after a few glasses of cheap vino.
She’d been sure to block Monty’s number on her phone and delete his messages in the frantic, tearful hours that had followed their Monday morning fight. It didn’t matter now though. After a few solitary days of intensive work, everything was completed, including Minty’s wedding websites, and early too. She’d hoped to spoil Radia a bit, and enjoy some holiday time off, but there was no way they could venture out and about in Clove Lore now.
She’d done everything she could think of to help Radia settle again after she’d snapped at her, starting with a big apology.
She’d tried to tell her how her daddy hadn’t been a very nice person and she had been cross with Monty because he hadn’t understood that, and she’d accidentally shouted at Radia when she was actually only upset with him.
Radia had listened and, very magnanimously, told her mum, ‘It’s all right.’ But she hadn’t understood why Grandma wasn’t meant to call the shop.
Joy had made them both some tea, thinking hard as the kettle boiled about how the worms were ever going to get back in the big opened can labelled ‘family dysfunction’. She’d had to concede that keeping Radia in innocent ignorance just wasn’t an option anymore.
‘Rads, darling,’ she’d began, sitting Radia at a café table safely behind the lacy curtains, unseen by passers-by. ‘You know how we don’t really see my mummy and daddy?’
Radia rolled her eyes. ‘Obviously,’ she’d said, like a snarky teenager, and Joy saw through her attitude right away. Radia was confused and hurting, thinking all the adults in her life very stupid indeed and just wanting it all to make sense.
