Page 39 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club

Two weeks dashed past.

Demolition work started on the wine bar and Flynn and I watched as skips arrived on the street, to the consternation of the passing public who gathered around them for a good ogle and gossip as work started.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked him, as he winced when some of the tasteful and carefully chosen artwork, thrown by a cheery man in a hard hat, slid into the skip, to be covered by a layer of brick.

‘Apart from the fact that I’m watching all my attempts at starting up my own enterprise being hurled about by men in overalls?’ He didn’t look at me, keeping his eyes on the despoiling of his empire going on in the street below. ‘Oh, and that lamp was imported from Japan!’

‘Yes. Apart from that.’ I touched his arm and he turned round.

‘It’s surprisingly okay, actually.’ He gave me a smile. It was a little tight around the edges, but it was a good attempt. ‘Of course, that’s easy for me to say, isn’t it, when I’ve got a dad who can bail me out until I find what I really want to do. What about you, Fee, how are you?’

We’d been going about life without asking any of the really important questions.

Or mentioning love. After my blurting it out when I thought I might be arrested I hadn’t repeated myself and Flynn was very quiet on the subject.

We had fallen into domesticity together easily enough, but sometimes I looked at Flynn and wondered what he thought.

He was very self-contained and although his eyes said he loved me his mouth hadn’t followed suit.

I supposed that his life as part of the Mays-Harrison empire had taught him not to blurt out his feelings in a stream of consciousness that would have made Fraser seem circumspect and thoughtful, but occasionally it might have been nice to have been given a clue as to what went on in his head.

His asking me how I was felt like a way in to a difficult conversation.

‘I’m—’

My phone rang. The speaker had got dust in it during the blast and it now rang in a way that made it sound as though it needed a good cough and some fresh air. ‘I’d better get this. You never know, it might be someone wanting to press enormous amounts of money upon me.’

‘Don’t, Dad is bad enough.’ Flynn flung himself down on the bed. He hadn’t even insisted on it being turned back into a sofa for the last few days, that was how bad things were.

‘Ms Walker? This is the police.’

Despite the fact that I knew I hadn’t done anything, my mouth still went dry and I felt my stomach squeeze. ‘Yes?’

‘We wanted to let you know that we have your ex-boyfriend on remand. Those phones you handed over had everything we could have wanted and more.’

All my innards now gave little leaps. ‘Oh, that is good news!’

‘The two men who planted the bomb are in custody too. They started out saying that they didn’t know anything and the bag wasn’t theirs, but since we got our lad banged up, they’ve changed their story.

They suddenly remembered that he did give them the bag, and he did tell them where to leave it.

Surprisingly, they’ve remembered a whole lot of other stuff too and they are so busy confessing that it’s like a church on Sunday in here. ’

‘There was really that much stuff on those phones?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes. Looks like your ex thought it was his security; nobody was going to turn him in when they knew he had something on them, but now it’s all out in the open, there are a lot of very worried people trying to make sure we get their version of events first.’

‘Thank you for telling me.’ I ended the call and told Flynn the good news.

‘At least we won’t have to move to Australia then,’ he said, sounding tired. ‘Bit of a shame really, it’s great out there.’

‘But you won’t have to go to your dad for a job, will you?’ I asked, trying to jolt him from the ennui that seemed to have pervaded him.

‘We have to live, Fee.’ He waved a hand from his prone position. ‘Still, we’ve got this place and I can turn my hand to a few things.’

‘You could ask…’

‘No.’ His tone was definite. ‘No. I’m over being my dad’s son. I know you love me for who I am, not for the money.’ A slightly dubious look crossed his face. ‘You do, don’t you? I mean, you’re not holding out for the inheritance and the houses and the hotels and all that?’

I laughed. ‘Flynn, I fell for you as a barman; anything else is just window dressing. Of course you don’t have to work for your father if you don’t want to.’

Flynn sat up and took my hand, the non-floppy one.

‘I love your confidence,’ he said. ‘Actually, I love everything about you. I don’t want to be in Dad’s shadow forever, but I’ve had a lifetime of it and I’m not entirely sure how I can break out.

I’ve got a business degree and lots of experience, but it’s all been as Flynn Mays-Harrison.

As soon as people hear the name, they’re fighting to give me chances, and I don’t know how to go about standing on my own feet. ’

These revelations, this insight into the way he was thinking, came as a huge relief.

I’d been worrying that Flynn had been sitting on feelings he hadn’t known how to express to me, and hearing him say that he loved me and that he was still thinking of the future gave me a burst of renewed desire to plan again.

I thought of my life, breaking away from my family, and felt a bit guilty about my wanting him to talk about feelings. Flynn had a lot of processing to do first. ‘Can the angst about the future wait until later? We’ve got the club coming round at seven and I want to put some snacks out.’

Flynn, face buried in the depths of despair and the pillows, gave a muffled, ‘It’s only two o clock! How many snacks are you putting out?’

‘Well, one of the people coming is Fraser.’

‘True, true.’ He hauled himself upright.

‘And you’re right, I’m wallowing. It’s ridiculous.

We’re not going to starve and Dad isn’t going to cut me off without a penny.

If it means we have a roof over our heads and you can keep the private physio, I can suppress my need to be free and wild and run a bar that explodes under me.

’ He grinned and it rid his face of the last vestiges of unhappiness. ‘You’re important to me. Work – isn’t.’

‘Flynn, you know I’m perfectly happy with NHS physiotherapy.’ I tried to sound reasonable. ‘I’m better every day. Time will help.’

‘They do great things, but I want you to have more.’ He was frowning again. ‘You might even get some use back in that arm with intensive sessions. Plus, we want you able to dance the fandango, don’t we?’

He hadn’t mentioned the plastic surgery again.

He’d raised the subject briefly one night, when I’d been putting some of the prescribed cream on my scars, and I’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that the scars were going to remind me to stay away from people like Dexter for the rest of my life.

I didn’t want an artificial smile and eyebrows that I had to draw on for ever, for the sake of having a marginally less lopsided face.

It sounded brave and it sounded as though I had embraced my scars, but in reality, the doctors had told me that, even with the best plastic surgery money could buy, I would never have smooth skin and an unmarked face.

Skin grafts could only do so much and I saw no need for Flynn to lay out thousands of pounds just for me to have a smaller scar and a permanently surprised expression.

‘Ah well.’ Now he put his arm around me. ‘I’m sure things will work out. Eventually. And there’s the insurance money from the bar; when that gets paid out, it will help us get on our feet.’

‘Unreliable though mine may be.’ I sat next to him, wiggling my legs. ‘Plus we’ve got each other.’

‘And a flat where the stairs smell of fish and we have to sleep on a sofa bed.’

‘But it’s affordable,’ I pointed out. ‘It may not be designed by professionals but that’s no good if you can’t pay the rent.’

We sat in a slightly glum silence while the sun released a smell of old wood and hot cooking oil as it shone in through the windows. I leaned my head on Flynn’s shoulder and he stroked the acceptable parts of my hair. Then I got up to go and put out the snacks.

‘You’re twitchy,’ Flynn observed, watching me tiddle about with the crisp bowl for the third or fourth time. ‘It’s only the guys coming round, not the king.’

‘I know.’ I rotated the bowl again. ‘It’s more that… I’ve got an idea and I don’t want to put them off.’

‘By having the crisps at a forty-five-degree angle?’ He watched me fiddle a bit more.

‘Well…’

‘Margot and Wren have only got eyes for each other, and Fraser will only have eyes for the contents of the bowls. Nobody is going to mind if they aren’t centred.’ Flynn put a hand over mine. ‘Wow. You’re actually shaking.’

I didn’t want to tell him that my entire future – our entire future – might rest on the next couple of hours.

I left the crisps alone and straightened the pile of books on the low table.

I nearly went to the trouble of hunting out some coasters for the glasses and mugs currently lined up on the side in the kitchen, but thankfully I wasn’t quite that bad yet.

‘Is there something you need to tell me?’ Flynn carried on watching me.

‘Wait until the others arrive.’ I neatened the throw over the back of the sofa for the millionth time.

‘Oh. Okay.’ He shifted and leaned back against the window, trying to look nonchalant. ‘You’re not… You’re happy with our relationship, aren’t you?’

The words came out very fast, as though he’d had them in mind for some time and had only just let them out. Like greyhounds let slip, the words had headed for the finish in a mass of phrases. Now that Flynn was letting some of those repressed feelings out it seemed there was no stopping him.

‘What?’ I left the throw and turned around slowly. Flynn was adjusting his elbows, still leaning. ‘Of course I am. Why would you think I wasn’t?’