I Owe You One (Page 62)

Twenty-four

I get back to the shop to find Jake waiting outside, looking tense and coiled, like a snake about to strike.

“So?” he says, walking to meet me. “So? So?”

I draw breath, trying to overcome my nerves, trying to ignore the ravens. Unconditional love, I remind myself. I can do this. If I talk honestly and from the heart, maybe I’ll get through to him.

“I didn’t get you any money,” I say.

“Great.” Jake swings away, looking murderous. “Just fucking … great.”

“I didn’t get you any,” I continue, my voice shaking desperately, “because you shouldn’t be borrowing any more. You’re only going to get into more and more trouble. Jake, couldn’t you make some changes to your life?” I follow him to where he’s leaning against the shop front and look earnestly into his face, trying to meet his eye. “Couldn’t you stop taking people out for flash lunches? Stop chasing gazillion-pound deals that aren’t going to happen? Do some solid work. Guaranteed work. Wouldn’t that make you happier—”

I break off, gazing up at him with a hope which instantly crumbles. If I was hoping to get through to him, I was an idiot. He doesn’t look transformed. He doesn’t exclaim, “My God, but you’re right.” He doesn’t give me a heartfelt hug and say, “Thanks. I see it all so clearly now.”

“Fuck you, Fixie,” he snarls, and stomps off down the street. My heart is beating like a rabbit’s, and the ravens are batting round my head, and part of me wants to run after him, apologize, even grovel. But the other part knows better. I have to hold firm. This is just stage one.

I wait till he’s disappeared round the corner, then pull out my phone and compose a text.

Hi, Leila. Can we talk? Fixie xxx

I send it, then breathe out long and hard, shaking his voice out of my ears. That’s all I can do for now. I have other things to think about.

I spend the rest of the day working on plans for Farrs. Plans we can action now. By the end of the day I’ve made an itemized list of Christmas promotions, price cuts, events, and sales. I’ve ordered more stock. I’ve replanned the front of store. I haven’t deferred once to Jake, Nicole, or Uncle Ned. I’ve made decisions all alone, mentally channeling Mum and occasionally consulting with Morag. No one else. I’m in charge of this. Me, Fixie.

I get home exhausted and find Nicole lolling against the kitchen doorframe, lost in her phone as she always is.

“Oh, hi, Fixie,” she says, glancing up. “God, Jake was mad with you last night.”

“I know,” I say shortly. “And I wasn’t too impressed by him. So we’re quits.”

I wait for her to say something else about last night, but her brow is furrowed as she peers at her screen.

“I’m so stressed,” she sighs gustily. “I’m so, like … All my hormones are shot. I need to see someone.”

“Why are you stressed?” I say out of politeness.

“It’s Drew. He’s booked me a ticket, for the twenty-third. He’s, like, ‘You have to come to Abu Dhabi.’ ” She blinks at me. “He just, like, paid for it.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s so passive-aggressive!” She opens her eyes wide. “It’s so controlling! He knows I’m stressed out, but he just does that! It’s like …” She trails off in her usual way, and I feel a shaft of impatience.

“I thought you were stressed out because you were missing your husband,” I point out. “He’s bought you a plane ticket to see him, so surely now you should be less stressed out?”

“You don’t understand.” Nicole shoots me a glare. “God, I’m dying for a coffee. Make me a coffee, Fixie.”

I count to three, then say clearly, “Make it yourself.”

“What?” Nicole blinks at me.

“We’ve got a coffee machine.” I gesture at it. “Make it yourself.”

“Oh, but you know I can’t do it,” says Nicole at once, as though proclaiming a law of nature.

“So learn,” I say. “I’ll teach you.”

“My head can’t learn that kind of stuff.” Nicole wrinkles her nose. “It’s, like, I get a mental block? Go on, you do it, Fixie. You’re so brilliant at the coffee machine.”

And there’s something about her lazy, drifty, entitled voice that suddenly makes me flip out.

“Stop telling me I’m brilliant at things you don’t want to do!” I yell, and her head jerks up in surprise. “Stop pretending to be incompetent to get out of things!”

“What?” Nicole’s staring at me as though she’s never heard me speak before and didn’t even realize I had a voice. Which maybe she didn’t.

“You can learn the coffee machine! Of course you can. You just don’t want to! You avoid everything, Nicole! Everything! Including your own husband!”

Shit. That popped out before I could stop it.

“What are you talking about?” Nicole’s hand flutters defensively to her mouth, and I feel my face flame. That was going too far. Or was it?

I swallow a few times, my mind working furiously. I could backtrack. Apologize. Close the conversation down. But I’m not in the mood for backtracking, or apologizing, or closing the conversation down. Maybe it’s time for us to be the kind of sisters Mum always wanted us to be. The kind who actually know something meaningful about each other’s lives.

“I know it’s none of my business,” I say, more calmly. “But you never talk to him on the phone. You don’t seem to care when he’s ill. And now you don’t want to go to Abu Dhabi to see him. Nicole … do you actually love Drew?”

There’s a massive silence. Nicole’s beautiful face is swiveled away from me, but I can see a tightness at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers are fiddling with her tassely belt and I notice her chewed-up nails. Then at last she turns her head, and to my shock, her eyes are full of tears.

“I don’t know,” she says in a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t bloody know.”

“Right,” I say, trying to hide my shock. “Well … did you love him when you married him?”

“I don’t know.” Nicole looks desperate. “I thought I did. But I might have made a massive mistake. Don’t tell Mum,” she adds quickly, and she sounds so like she did when she was fifteen years old and I found her swigging from a bottle of vodka that I can’t help a snort of laughter.

“I thought you were dying from separation anxiety,” I say, and Nicole’s nostrils flare.

“I have been really stressed out, actually,” she says, returning to her haughty self. “My yoga teacher says she’s concerned about me.”

I roll my eyes. Nicole will never not take herself seriously. But at least she’s sounding a bit more real.

“So, what went wrong?” I can’t help asking. “You seemed so happy at the wedding.”

“The wedding was great.” Nicole’s eyes soften with the memory. “And the honeymoon was great. But then I was a bit, ‘Is this it?’ There wasn’t anything to plan for anymore, you know? All the excitement was gone. It was so, I dunno, flat.”

“Couldn’t you have gone to Abu Dhabi with Drew?” I suggest. “Couldn’t you have planned for that? Why didn’t you go, anyway? Don’t tell me there aren’t yoga courses out there.”

“I panicked,” admits Nicole after a pause. “We’d had a couple of rows, and I thought, Drew and me on our own in Abu Dhabi in some expat flat? What if it all goes pear-shaped? What if we have more rows? I thought it would be easier this way. You know. It’d be …” She trails off in her usual unfinished way.

“You thought it would be easier to completely avoid your husband than to have a few rows.” I stare at her. “Yup. That makes sense.”

“It was stressful!” says Nicole defensively. “I thought, I’ll sit it out in England and it’ll work out one way or another.”

“You don’t work out a relationship by burying your head in the sand!” I exclaim incredulously. “All relationships are stressful! All relationships have rows! Do you love him?”

There’s a long silence. Nicole is twisting her hair round her fingers, her face turned away.

“Sometimes I think yes,” she says finally. “But sometimes I look at him and I think …” She flinches expressively. “But I mean, I haven’t seen him for, like, so long …”

I wait for her to continue—then realize that she’s finished. Even by Nicole standards, it’s a pretty inconclusive answer.

“Nicole, you have to go to Abu Dhabi,” I say firmly. “And then maybe you’ll find out whether you love Drew or not.”

“Yeah,” says Nicole, looking uncertain. “I suppose.”

“You have to,” I impress on her. “You need to spend time together. You need to confront this. Otherwise you don’t even know if you want to be married or not.”