She raised her eyebrows.
‘Try and win Oliver around for me.’
Oliver was waiting for her by the exit, a sack of flour tucked under the crook of his arm, one foot tapping out an uneven rhythm into the flagstone floor.
‘Well?’ he said, pushing a strand of hair back under his cap. ‘What did he want?’
‘Just to say hello.’ Ava handed him the basket, heavy with potatoes, and rubbed at the crease of her elbow, where the wicker had bitten deep into the skin. ‘Which you would know if you hadn’t stormed off in a temper. He misses us.’
‘He should’ve thought about that before he took a match to everything.’
Ava gave her brother a pointed look. ‘You can at least be civil with him. It should bemespitting venom and you playing the diplomat, and not the other way around.’
‘An insult to you is an insult to the whole family,’ Oliver said. ‘I can hate him all I want.’
‘You don’thatehim,’ said Ava, rolling her eyes.
‘I do hate him.’
‘Well, you needn’t.’
‘Thank you for that input,’ Oliver huffed. ‘Next time I need to be told how I feel about something, I’ll come straight to you.’
Ava pursed her lips, watching as he flexed and closed his fingers around the flour, her pale eyebrows knotting. She knew her brother had this streak – this uncanny ability to hold a grudge – and it’d felt somewhat gallant of him initially to turn it upon Jem, but now …
Now she wasn’t sure. Now he seemed more angry than she’d ever been.
‘Did you two fight?’ she asked. ‘Did something happen between you, other than—’ She saw it, then. Jem sliding her cup towards him, sloshing her father’s red wine all over the table. His apologetic grin, the candlelight turning his slate-blue eyes to deep pools of sapphire—
And then it struck her.
Jem’s eye.
Oliver’s hand.
‘That’s not how you broke your arm, is it?’
‘What, punching him?’ Oliver’s twitching expression vanished, replaced with a half-hearted laugh. ‘If only.’
The words caught her off-guard – for they were cool, and careless. There’d been a time when Oliver would’ve walked through fire for Jem – and she didn’t know which stung more, his jest, or the ease with which he’d made it.
‘I shall fix this,’ she said.
And she meant all of it. Everything that had broken. But when her brother turned to her, and said: ‘What, the money you mean? With Miss Lillian?’ she said yes. For that was the easiest place to start.
Especially as she knew where to find her.
Chapter Twelve
Most mornings, Miss Lillian could reliably be found at the club she adored, and which Ava despised: the Roxy.
It was the kind of place that always held a clutch of people within it, and today was no different, for despite the morning sun pressing against the red stained glass, Ava counted at least four men clustered around the cards table, and another two slumped at the bar.
Miss Lillian was sitting in her usual spot at the window, a cigarette in her hand, and her bad leg resting upon a cushioned chair. A curl of smoke encircled her, catching the morning sunshine, turning her long, red braid a dazzling shade of copper.
‘I was wondering when I might see you,’ Lillian said, stubbing her cigarette into a cracked pink saucer as Ava approached. She snapped her fingers in the air, waiting until the barman had shuffled forwards to say: ‘The usual.’
The barman’s glassy gaze slid to Ava in askance, and she shook her head. Lillian’s ‘usual’ was a plate of kippers – and Ava had never quite managed to stomach fish for breakfast. ‘Just tea, please.’
