He didn’t want any more to do with Ian’s twisted plan. He really admired Emilia for what she was doing at the shop and hated the thought of Ian getting his hands on it. Nightingale Books was a force for good, and Mendip was a greedy monster. If he sacked him, then so be it.
He walked over to his house. Mia was heading out on a twenty-mile bike ride as part of her triathlon training, and he’d offered to look after Finn. He didn’t see it as a chore – why would he?
‘Nice bike,’ he said, as she made everything ready – gel packs and water bottles and repair kits.
She looked at him. ‘It’s all I’ve got,’ she said. ‘I don’t spend money on clothes.’
‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ said Jackson, because he hadn’t. Why was she so defensive? Why did she make it so hard for him to be nice to her?
He looked at her, in her ridiculous tight black Lycra and the helmet that made her look like an alien, and thought how vulnerable she looked. His heart gave a little stumble.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Call me if you get tired and need picking up.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, clearly not wanting to show any dependence on him whatsoever.
He went back into the house.
He felt as if he was in limbo, halfway between being an upstanding person and a waste of space. It was as if he was in the bottom of a dark well, and there was a light at the top, and he had to climb up to it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to find when he got to the light, but if he did get there, things would be better, he felt sure.
He leafed through the book Emilia had suggested he read with Finn. The Little Prince was a curious book, and a lot of it he found puzzling. It seemed to have all the wisdom in the world in its pages.
She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her. I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind all her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her …
It was true. He had been too young to love Mia properly. He had driven her away with his behaviour. He could see that now. She didn’t trust him. Of course she didn’t. He’d been immature, and feckless, and selfish.
He stared at the wall in the living room. He’d given up, he realised. He’d given up on his hopes, his dreams, his relationships. He’d become involved in something that made him hate himself more than he did already. He closed the book.
So that was why people read. Because books explained things: how you thought, and how you behaved, and made you realise you were not alone in doing what you did or feeling what you felt.
He took Finn out to the skatepark, a million thoughts whirling round his head, not sure how to make sense of them, but knowing that he needed to, and that somewhere there was an answer. He didn’t just have to stumble along, making mistakes, doing things he didn’t want to, at the will of everyone else.
Suddenly everything seemed so clear in his mind: what he wanted from life. He wanted the chance to be a good husband to the woman he loved and had never stopped loving. He was a good father, he knew that, but he wanted to be a father in a proper family, not a single dad kicking a football or standing in the skatepark.
What would she say? How could he convince her he had changed? He had no proof, except for the fact that he felt different. That someone – Emilia – had, without knowing, shown him the way. Mia would laugh if he tried to explain it. She would think he was trying it on, trying to get his feet under the table because it suited him.
He had to ask her. He had to man up and fight for what he wanted. His wife and his child to be together with him. He’d learned by his mistakes. He wanted responsibility and security.
He picked up a couple of takeaway pizzas for him and Finn from the corner shop on the way home. They scoffed them in the kitchen, not even stopping for plates, eating them right out of the cardboard box.
Jackson was in the middle of tidying the kitchen when Mia got back from her bike ride. She looked exhausted.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine,’ she said brightly, and looked askance at the remains of the pizza, one eyebrow raised in disapproval of its fat and carb content.
It was now or never, thought Jackson.
‘I miss you.’
Mia blinked. ‘What?’
‘I miss you. I miss us. I don’t understand, why I’m stuck in a caravan with my mum – much as I love her – and you’re obsessed with …’ he waved a hand in the air, ‘driving yourself into the ground with all that fitness and healthy eating. We should have gone out today, as a family.’
She crossed her arms. She looked away. She looked as if she was going to cry. Eventually she looked back at him.
‘But we’re not a family any more, Jackson.’ She walked away to put the kettle on, turning her back on him to indicate the conversation was over, and Jackson felt a lurch of disappointment. So much for being brave.
He sighed. ‘Oh.’ He frowned. ‘Is there … someone else?’