Page 26

TWENTY-SIX

Nina’s taking Nick to the Paddy’s in Ramsgate, not the one in the village down the hill where the staff feel like family and where the presence of this tall, silver-haired man in suit trousers and a rumpled work shirt with Paddy’s widow on his arm might create ripples and start the gossip mills turning.

The other restaurant is brand-new; Dad had only just opened it the month before he died.

It’s the one where Nina spends the most time as it was finding its feet when Paddy went and still doesn’t have a proper team on board.

The staff there aren’t as familiar with the Swann family as the staff at the other two restaurants. But still. It’s Dad’s restaurant.

“Why are you taking him there ?” Ash asks.

Nina sits on the edge of her bed, her magnifying mirror in her hand, her makeup bag on the bed next to her. She unclicks the lid from a concealer pen and throws Ash a look.

“Because he’s going to offer me some professional advice.

You know that was Nick’s job? Before he bought the wine bar?

He was a hospitality trainer. That branch isn’t working, you know it’s not working, and if I can’t get to the bottom of what’s broken there, we’ll have to shut it, and that will put eighteen people out of a job.

Not to mention letting down your father’s legacy. ”

Ash blinks and sniffs, lowers herself next to her mother, and sighs. “Has Nick got a dog?” she asks.

“No,” says Nina, dabbing concealer beneath her eyes. “Why?”

She wants to tell her mum about the poo bag, but she can’t, because that would mean telling her she’d been ferreting around in Nick’s jacket pockets.

And she should be able to tell her mother things like that, obviously she should; her mother is robust, their family is excellent at communication, talking things through, transparency, always has been.

But Ash feels as if she has lost ground with her mother since the events of the summer before her father died.

She has shown her mother a side of herself that her mother cannot relate to, and she has behaved in ways and done things that her mother does not and never will fully understand.

She did a “Jane Trevally” and put herself in that bracket—the bracket of the weak-minded, the crazy, the not-to-be-trusted.

So, she doesn’t tell her mother about the poo bag.

Instead, she exhales, loudly, and says, “Nothing. No reason. Just wondered.”

Ash eyes Nick across the kitchen table. He got here about half an hour ago, all suited and booted, direct from work, so he says.

He’s staring at his phone, one long leg crossed high upon the other, his shirt unbuttoned to the second button down, showing a small puff of white chest hair.

Nina is still upstairs, getting changed.

Ash feels she should offer Nick a drink, or a glass of water, just to be polite, but she can’t bring herself to.

She clears her throat. “Do you have any pets?”

Nick doesn’t seem to pick up on her edginess and answers warmly. “No. Sadly not. I’d love a pet or two. But with my job, my lifestyle, all the traveling, it’s simply not fair. I have to make do with my neighbor’s dog instead.”

“Oh.” Her gut plummets, and she is glad now that she didn’t say anything to her mother earlier. “What sort of dog do they have?”

“It’s a Shiba Inu. You know, those little foxy-looking ones. I take her out sometimes—we get a lot of fuss. Or rather, she gets a lot of fuss and I just lap it up vicariously.” He laughs. “She’s a lovely dog.”

Ash nods and plucks at a loose thread on her sleeve. He’s talking in too much detail. It’s almost, she thinks, as if he knows that she looked through his pockets, knows that she saw the poo bag. And if that’s the case, then he must know that she saw the baby’s pacifier clip too.

“Lovely couple,” he says. “Young. They have a toddler too. Little boy. Max.”

There. She feels it hit the base of her spine like a hammer.

Too much information. She gulps drily and a small wave of nausea passes through her.

She thinks of this man walking into her dead father’s restaurant tonight, with her dead father’s wife on his arm.

This man who lies and stares deeply, unwaveringly, into her eyes as he does so.

Whose body language does not betray him.

He lies with passion and self-belief, this man.

He lies like a man who has never been caught out in a lie, who thinks he is invulnerable.

“That’s nice,” she says, her voice a little dry. “Do you like children?”

“I adore them,” he replies warmly. “The greatest regret of my whole life is that I never had a child. Truly.”

She nods, chewing at the inside of her cheek, and then she looks up at the sound of her mother descending the stairs.

Nina walks into the kitchen and they both, she and Nick, gasp softly at the loveliness of her.

She wears a huge mohair cardigan over leather leggings and a camisole top.

Ash looks at Nick and sees that there is no doubt or uncertainty, no subliminal flinch as he realizes how lucky he is.

He merely smiles at Nina conspiratorially, as if she and he were members of their own exclusive club, made for one another, a perfect fit, too good to be true.

Her mother looks at her phone. “Ooh,” she says, “taxi’s one minute way. Shall we walk to meet it at the corner—save it doing a three-point turn?”

She turns and grabs her bag, smiles at Ash, and says, “Bye, darling. Have a good night. See you later.”

For some reason, Ash finds herself wanting to shout, “Stay! Stay with me!”

But she can’t, because she is twenty-six, so instead she says, “Have fun. Love you.”

And then there is the bang of the door. And then it is silent.