what’s the deal with you two, anyway?’ Lana asked, scrutinising Charity’s face. She smiled. ‘Oh look, she’s blushing!’
Dan put his hand on his wife’s arm. ‘Darling…’
‘Were you childhood sweethearts?’ Lana continued, ignoring him.
The door clicked open and Niall stepped in, a bike helmet under his arm. So Niall was riding a motorbike nowadays.
His eyes rested of Charity, a frown appearing on his face.
Dan rose from his seat, shooting Charity a concerned look before composing his face and smiling. ‘Please, do come in, Niall.’ He walked around the table and pulled out the seat next to Charity. As Niall walked behind her, Charity looked down at the table, trying to control her thumping heart.
He sat next to her, the scent of him making her think of the sea and the summer evenings they used to spend together on the beach.
She curled her hands into fists. Damn it, why had she come?
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were coming,’ he said quietly.
‘I didn’t realise you were.’
His frown deepened. She took the chance to properly look at him. He was wearing black jeans and a grey t-shirt, his cheeks flushed from the cold. The long black hair she’d once so loved was now shaved close to his head. There were fine lines around his eyes that weren’t there ten years before and a small scar across his chin. She wondered if that had happened in prison, and her stomach twisted with nausea at the thought.
There were new tattoos entwining his arms too, black warped clock faces and gothic anchors, even a whole tree stretching up the olive skin of his right arm. And then that tattoo etched onto the side of his neck, the same tattoo she had on the small of her back, a black cresting wave beneath a blue moon. As she stared at it, she could almost feel the needle burning into her skin.
He caught her eye and a host of emotions seemed to run over his face.
Niall shifted uncomfortably.
She could pretend to be ill and leave, couldn’t she? Say the wine had been too rich, that her tummy was fragile. What would it matter? She didn’t have to see any of them again.
Dan looked from Charity to Niall and took a deep breath. He could definitely sense the atmosphere. ‘What can I get you to drink, Niall?’ he asked.
‘Do you have beer?’
‘Of course.’
Niall looked around him, brow furrowing as he finally noticed the explicit murals on the walls.
‘Oh, do you like them?’ Lana asked, twisting around in her chair, one thin arm elegantly draped across the back of Dan’s chair. ‘I had them done when we moved in. They’re wonderful, aren’t they?’
‘They’re different,’ Niall said.
Dan handed his beer to him and sat down.
‘Your house is gorgeous,’ Charity said, desperate to bring some sense of normality to the dinner. ‘You must feel a bit lost in a big house like this, just the two of you?’
‘We manage to fill it with all Lana’s knick-knacks, don’t we, darling?’ Dan said to Lana.
‘I may have a teensy bit of an obsession with antiques,’ Lana replied, laughing. ‘It fills the time. We’re off to Paris soon so I can’t wait to do some shopping there.’
‘You really do live the life, don’t you?’ Charity said, smiling.
‘A very bourgeois life,’ Niall said as he looked around him.
Dan frowned. ‘We’re hardly bourgeois. Lana’s dad was a dustman. My father worked on ships, my mother was a nurse. My shipping business wasn’t handed to me on a plate, I started out in the docks with my father, hauling equipment about.’
Niall’s eyes lit up the way Charity remembered they did when the subject turned to politics. ‘Doesn’t matter how you got there,’ he said, ‘you’re still an owner. That makes you bourgeois. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’m just making the point.’
‘Fine,’ Dan said with a smile. ‘If working hard makes me one of the bourgeoisie, then so be it.’
‘What about your staff, do they work hard too?’ Niall asked Dan.
‘I don’t operate that kind of business culture,’ Dan replied. ‘My staff aren’t expected to work long hours.’
Niall fixed him with his blue eyes. ‘But they do, don’t they? Some of them, anyway. And yet you’re still the one with the mansion, the fast cars, the expensive champagne,’ he said, gesturing around him.
Charity noticed the tops of Dan’s cheeks going red.
‘Ladies and gentleman,’ she said to ease the tension, ‘meet the modern-day Karl Marx.’
Dan’s shoulders relaxed and Lana laughed.
‘Never could impress you with my political rants, could I?’ Niall said, holding her gaze.
‘So, Charity, what brings you back to Busby-on-Sea?’ Dan asked her. ‘You worked as an NHS counsellor in London, right?’
‘Counsellor?’ Niall asked. ‘I didn’t realise that was your thing.’
‘It is now.’ She turned to Dan. ‘I was made redundant so had to return.’
‘Bloody Thatcher,’ Niall said.
Dan smiled to himself.
‘I bet that must be fascinating,’ Lana said, ‘hearing about people’s more intimate secrets as they lie on a couch.’
‘It’s not quite as exciting as that,’ Charity said. ‘More like a battered old chair in a stuffy office with stained carpets. People are referred by their GPs and a lot of the issues are ones many people deal with: insomnia, anxiety, depression.’
‘Oh, you must speak to Dan then,’ Lana said. ‘He’s a terrible sleeper, up most of the night.’
‘That has nothing to do with my state of mind, darling,’ Dan said, ‘and everything to do with your snoring.’ He turned to Charity. ‘So what’s next for you? I presume the plan isn’t to work in your sister’s café all your life, as wonderful as it is?’
Charity sighed. ‘I’m looking for jobs but there’s nothing out there.’
Niall nodded. ‘Hearing that a lot lately.’
‘Have you thought about going private?’ Lana asked. ‘Setting up your own practice?’
‘I’d love that. But I don’t have any capital.’
‘Dan can give you money,’ Lana declared, clapping her hands. ‘I can decorate your office!’
Dan laughed. ‘Darling, you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself.’
‘Why couldn’t you?’ Lana asked. ‘It would help Charity out.’
Charity laughed nervously. Lana didn’t seem to have any kind of filter. ‘I’m sure Dan has better things to do with his money.’
‘Like buy my wife antiques in Paris,’ Dan said with a raised eyebrow. He turned to Niall. ‘What about you, Niall?’
‘I’m not into antiques,’ Niall said with a smile. ‘Don’t have a wife either.’
Dan laughed.
Niall leant back, his long legs stretching out in front of him. Charity glanced at his thighs, remembering how she had found it hard to hide her feelings from her sisters as she watched him strip his wetsuit off to reveal his muscular thighs the day after their first kiss.
‘I’m an underwater photographer,’