The Peacock Emporium(86)
Alejandro put the box on the floor and lifted her hand. “You know, you should get this X-rayed.”
“It’s not broken. It would have swollen up if it was broken.”
“Not necessarily.”
“I can’t face the hospital again, Ale. I feel those nurses all look at me like I must be some kind of idiot.” She sighed. “He’s so stupid! I’ve never even looked at another man. Well, of course I’ve looked, but I’ve never—you know—considered doing anything.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know everyone thinks I’m a bit of a flirt but I’m actually one of those boring people who thinks there’s one man for one woman.”
“I know.” Alejandro turned her hand over, gently separating the fingers. The bruising was turning a sickly green. “If it is broken, and you don’t get it seen to, you could lose some of the use of the finger.”
“I’ll take the chance.” She glanced down at it, raised a smile. “Hey, I never had much use for that one anyway.”
He turned back to the box and lifted it. “Okay, from now on I do the lifting. You direct me. Then we both get home faster. Where do you want this?”
She sat on the stool by the counter. “Blue table. I think that’s summer stock.”
He put it effortlessly at the other end of the shop, the invigorating ease of his movements suggesting a man glad to have a purpose. Outside, in the unlit lane, the rain still came down in sheets, now heavy enough almost to obliterate even the view of the wall on the other side of the road. Jessie shivered, noting that the water had started to creep in under the door.
“It’s okay,” said Alejandro. “It shouldn’t come in any further. It’s just because the drains are full.” He tapped her lightly on the elbow. “Hey, come on, Jessie. You don’t get to sit around, you know. You have to show me which ones to move.”
* * *
—
About thirty feet down the lane, Jason Burden sat in the van, unseen by the occupants of the shop. He’d had a few drinks, shouldn’t really be driving, but when he’d walked over to Cath’s to pick them both up earlier, she’d said Emma was still at drama club, and Jessie was supposedly getting her nails done at some beauty salon. They’d be back soon, her mum said. He was welcome to wait, have a cup of tea with her, and they could walk there and pick Emma up together. He’d gone to the pub instead.
He hadn’t really known what had made him come here. Perhaps it was because nothing felt right at the moment. Nothing felt secure, like it had done. Not Jessie, with her fancy friends, her books, shutting herself away from him night after night as she studied, no doubt preparing to build a new life away from him. Not Jessie, too tired to have a laugh down the pub with him now that she was working, always chattering on about people he didn’t know, about some girl from the Fairley-Hulme estate, giving herself all sorts of airs and graces. Always trying to get him to come to the shop, meet her new “friends,” trying to make him into something he wasn’t. Not Jessie, looking at him with a new reproach in her eyes, baring her bruises at him like it didn’t hurt him enough already.
Perhaps it was that he’d seen Father Lenny walking toward Cath’s house, swaggering like he owned the whole bloody estate, and he’d given him that look, like Jason was no better than dirt, even if he’d covered it up with some phony wave.
Perhaps it was the phone number he’d found in her pocket. The number that had been answered by some foreign-sounding bloke before he hung up.
He wasn’t sure why he had come.
Jason sat in the van, listening to the ticking of the engine cooling, the periodic swish of the windscreen wipers as they revealed, every few seconds, in the brightly lit shop, the sight he hadn’t wanted to see.
The man holding her hand.
Talking to her with his face inches from hers.
Motioning to her, smiling, to go downstairs to the cellar, to the place where Jason and Jessie had shared their first kiss. The place where he had first made her his own.
They didn’t come back up.
Jason rested his buzzing head on the steering wheel.
Then, an eternity later, he placed his hand on the keys in the ignition.
* * *
—
The last box was neatly stacked into the makeshift shelving, and Alejandro dusted off his hands on his trousers. Jessie, sitting on the stairs above him, surveyed the cellar and smiled with satisfaction. “She’ll be pleased.”
“I hope so.” He grinned at her, picked up a piece of screwed-up paper from the stairs, and tossed it neatly into the bin.
Jessie was watching him, her head tilted to one side. “You’re as bad as he is, you know.”
“Your boyfriend?” he asked, evidently perplexed.
“Neither of you able to say what you feel. The difference is, he resorts to punches and you just bottle it all up.”
“I don’t understand.” He stepped up toward her so that his head was level with hers.
“Like hell you don’t. You should talk to her, Ale. If one of you doesn’t do something soon, I’m going to faint under the weight of all the unspoken longing in the air.”
He looked at her steadily for some time. “She is married, Jess. And I thought you were the great believer—in fate, I mean. One man for one woman, right?”