Second Hand Jane (16 page)

“Can I get the
recipe off you?” she mumbled, her mouth full.

“Aye, it’s
pretty simple, though.”

“Nothing is
simple where me and cooking are concerned, believe me.”

“It’s just
fresh penne pasta, shredded smoked chicken, white wine, cream, zest
of orange, dill and grated parmesan. You literally throw it all in
together and you can’t go wrong.” He shrugged. “I take it you’re
not a cook then?”

“No, not
really. I am more of an eater. I like to eat far more than I like
to cook, probably because I am not very good at it despite having
just completed half a dozen different cooking schools.”

Owen raised an
eyebrow and she told him all about her column, regaling him with
her useless attempts at flipping Croatian pancakes and how she’d
nearly hit the roof upon taste testing her heavy handed
chilli-flavoured attempts at Creole cooking.

“You obviously
enjoy cooking, though, if you can knock something up that tastes
this good,” she said, pointing her fork at him before stabbing
another piece of penne.

“Aye, I do.
When I practised law, I found it helped me wind down at the end of
the day. There’s nothing like dicing an onion or chopping garlic to
make you forget about a shitty day.”

“Chopping
onions always makes me cry. What kind of law did you practice
then?”

“Commercial law
mostly. It wasn’t me, although the money and the lifestyle it gave
me certainly suited for a bit.”

Jess was
itching to ask him about his ex-wife but didn’t want to spoil what
was turning out to be a surprisingly enjoyable evening. She didn’t
know whether it was the wine or the fact that Owen had resigned
himself to being in her company for the entire evening but he had
become quite affable and she’d found herself relaxing in his
company for the first time since he had picked her up from the bus
stop earlier on that day.

“So what about
you then? How did a girl from Auckland come to be writing a column
in a Dublin newspaper? That sounds far more interesting than
commercial law.”

She filled him
in on what she had done briefly for a crust back home in Auckland
and he broke in with, “So you were a gossip columnist then?”

“I was not! I
merely passed on information to my readers about people who liked
to be seen about town.”

Owen
smirked.

She ignored
him.

“So what
brought you to Dublin then—don’t most New Zealanders head for
London? There were always a couple of Kiwi solicitors or legal
secretaries doing their big OE, as they called it, at the firm I
worked for. They were very fond of the Friday liquid lunches, from
what I remember—that and the Friday night drinks sessions.”

“I’ll have you
know us Kiwis pride ourselves on our reputation of being extremely
hard workers.” Jessica said this tongue-in-cheek, remembering
having joined in plenty of those Friday night drinks sessions
herself over the years. “I suppose most Kiwis do head for London
but then most head home when their visas run out, too. I’ve been in
this part of the world since 2001, thanks to my Nana and Granddad
hailing from Wigan and I did go to London initially. It wasn’t for
me, though. I flew over there on my own and the size of the city
intimidated me. I just have one of those faces, I think.” She
shrugged.

“What do you
mean, one of those faces?” Owen asked, topping up her glass.

“The kind of
face that always attracts weirdoes. I must have soft touch written
all over me because no matter where I was in London, they would
seek me out and track me down. It was like I had a heat sensor they
could home in on.”

She saw Owen’s
expression. “No, truly it was. Listen, I once had a chap announce
that I had really lovely hairs on my arm just before he began
stroking them while I sat completely hemmed in by him on the Tube.
The worst bit was nobody around me moved or came to my aid and
that’s when I—hey, it’s not funny—it was pretty traumatic at the
time, I will have you know.”

Owen stopped
grinning. “Sorry. I’m sure it was but it was a compliment of
sorts.”

Jess gave a
little grin. “Yeah, well, one I could do without, thanks, and it
was the kind of thing that could only happen to me. Anyway, after
the hairy arm incident, I decided enough was enough and I headed
over to Ireland to check out Dublin. I’d heard it was a boom town
and it was my last-ditch attempt to see if I could make a go of
things on my own before heading home with my tail between my legs
and a mother waiting to tell me I told you so.”

“It obviously
all worked out then.”

“
It did, thanks to my two best friends and
landing a pretty amazing job.” She had him laughing again with her
tale of how she came to meet Brianna and Nora before filling him in
on her job at Marriotts that had eventually opened a door at
the
Dublin
Express
for
her.

“You’re an
awfully long way from home. You must miss your family.”

“Yes and no.
It’s one of those love-hate relationships. I miss them when I am
here but when I go home to see them, I can’t wait to get back to
Dublin again because they drive me nuts. Especially my Mum.” Jess
rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you’ve no idea. She’s desperate to
marry me off and refuses to believe it’s a lost cause.” Realising
what she’d said, she cringed, apologising, “Sorry, that must have
sounded awfully selfish, my moaning about my nearest and dearest
after, well, after everything your family went through.” The wine
had definitely loosened Jess’s tongue.

“No, it just
sounds honest and pretty normal. After Amy died, there wasn’t a lot
of normal in our house but I remember what it was like before, when
there was plenty of bickering and driving each other nuts going on
under our roof, too.”

From over on
the bench, an egg timer suddenly pinged. Saved by the bell, Jess
thought.

“It’s seven
thirty,” Owen said, pushing his chair back. “That means it’s time
to feed Wilbur. It’s dark out so I’ll walk you over.” His voice
brooked no argument as he got the milk ready.

A chivalrous
man—now that was a rare commodity in this day and age of equal
rights, Jess thought, rather liking the masterful tone of voice but
then he added, “Besides, I need to attach his drip bottle.”

“Oh,
right—well, I’m on dishes when we get back.”

***

“So are you
writing the great novel in your spare time? Although I don’t
suppose a footloose and fancy-free young woman in Dublin has that
much spare time.” Owen was leaning against the wooden strut holding
the middle of the barn up, waiting for Jess to finish feeding
Wilbur. His attempt at nonchalance didn’t really work and Jess
looked up, unconsciously registering what a rugged scene he
set.

“Oh, you’d be
surprised how much spare time a footloose, fancy-free young woman
has.”

“Do I take that
as a yes you are writing a book?”

“It’s a very
clichéd ambition. What writer doesn’t aspire to writing a
book?”

Wilbur made a
soft snuffling noise and Jess felt her heart melt.

“You didn’t
answer my question.”

“I know.”

Their eyes met
in a silent standoff before she sighed. “It’s a sensitive subject
and I don’t like talking about it. The only people who know are
Nora and Brianna. I want more than anything to write a book. It’s
seems like such a natural progression from what I have been doing
all these years.”

“So what’s
stopping you?”

“The ideas are
all there but I can’t seem to start it. Whenever I sit down to
begin it, I go blank.”

“Where do you
begin when you write your column?”

“That’s
different. I get a tiny seed of any idea and then it just grows.
The words come faster than I can type them.” Jess shook her head.
“If I am honest, I suppose what it really comes down to is that I
am scared I won’t be able to do it—you know, put together something
of that scale.”

Owen looked
intently at her. “You’ll do it when the time is right.”

***

Jess woke with
a start, casting her eyes frantically around the strange room.
Where the hell was she and with a quick glance under the heavy
covers…why was she in the nude? She spied a glimmer of sunlight
peeping in through the crack in the curtains and as she remembered,
her body relaxed again. Gosh, this was such a comfy bed, she
thought, not wanting to get out of it but knowing she must. I’ll
just stay here a minute longer, she decided, stretching
languorously and enjoying the feel of the warm linen under her toes
as she reflected on what a surprisingly enjoyable time she had had
the previous night.

They’d come
back inside after settling Wilbur down for the night and done the
dishes, chatting about inconsequential things as she washed and he
dried. Neither had mentioned the dishwasher standing empty beside
the sink. Once they’d finished clearing up, Owen had made them both
a nightcap, which they’d taken through to the lounge to enjoy in
front of the comfort of a blazing fire.

They’d sat in
an easy silence, both lost in thought as they stared at the
flickering flames. Owen’s face was inscrutable but the frown that
had marred his forehead during the day had softened. This was the
sort of cosy companionship married people must experience on a
nightly basis, Jess had realised and for the first time ever, she
felt truly envious of the life Brianna shared with Pete. Imagine
having someone to cook with every night, talk to every night and
someone to have sex with every night—well, initially anyway. Jess
liked to think she was a realist.

It was with
these spinning thoughts that she became acutely aware of the
intimacy of the situation she found herself in and suddenly she
could no longer relax. Her face flushed at the direction in which
her mind had taken her and terrified Owen would be able to read her
expression, she drained her glass and announced she was bushed.

Owen had
muttered something about catching the late news as she’d said
goodnight and beat a hasty retreat to her room. Shutting her
bedroom door firmly behind her, she’d sat until she grew chilled on
the end of the bed, telling herself off for being so childish as to
be unable to simply enjoy a man’s presence without reading more
into it.

Stripping off,
she’d climbed under the covers, convinced she would be awake half
the night due to the strangeness of finding herself in a pig
farmer’s cottage in a wild corner of Northern Ireland for the
night. Her mind began ticking over what Owen had told her about
Amy’s short life and she knew she would have to stop mulling it
over and over or she really would get no sleep. I’ll think about
Nick and what I should wear for the wine bar opening, she decided,
surprised to find it was the first time she had thought about him
all day. Her last conscious thoughts were that—heaven forbid!—her
mother was probably right. Wool would not send the right signals
out to Nick; she would raid Nora’s wardrobe. Then, the next thing
she knew, she was waking up. It must have been all that fresh air,
she decided, having one more starfish stretch before reluctantly
pushing the covers aside and getting up.

Having made
herself as presentable as she could with her limited resources,
Jess opened the door and wandered into the hall, where her nostrils
were assaulted by the smell of toast. Owen was up and about then,
she concluded, hoping that he wasn’t cooking up a full Irish
breakfast with lashings of bacon.

“Good morning,”
she said, entering the warmth of the kitchen.

“Morning. How
did you sleep?” he asked, turning away from the pan of eggs he was
in the process of scrambling.

“
Really,
really
well, thanks. I haven’t slept like that in ages—well, years
actually.”

“Aye, it’s
being in the country—you know, the absolute darkness you get
without streetlights and the quietness. When my friends come over
from London to stay, they say the same thing.”

“You should
bottle it and sell it; you’d make a fortune.” He didn’t raise a
smile and Jess sensed she was back where she had started. That wall
she had encountered the first time she had spoken to him on the
phone and that he had put up between them for most of yesterday was
firmly back in place. She felt let-down after having managed to
knock it down last night only for it to have been rebuilt
overnight. By the set of his shoulders as he hunched over the
stove, she knew she could forget about the easy, relaxed banter
they’d shared doing the dishes.

“The eggs are
nearly done. Sit down—there’s a pot of coffee on the table. I’ll
drop you to the station after breakfast.”

“Oh, okay,
thanks,” she mumbled, doing as she was told. “Have I got time to
pop down to see Wilbur before we have to go?”

“Aye.”

Grumpy bugger with his friggin
Ayeing
, she
thought, pouring herself a mug of the strong brew in the percolator
in front of her. Owen joined her a few minutes later, placing a
heaped plate of the yellowest-looking scrambled eggs she had ever
seen in front of her. They were obviously laid by happy hens, she
thought, noticing the fresh parsley he had sprinkled on top as a
garnish—ever the gourmet and ever the grump.

Despite the
awkward silence, Jess couldn’t help but eat with relish—she was
starving. It really must be all that fresh country air, she
decided, scraping up the last little bit of egg before getting up
to stack her plate in the dishwasher. “That was great, thanks. I’ll
head out to say goodbye to Wilbur, shall I?”

“Aye, alright,
but don’t be long.”

She stomped
across the dewy grass, oblivious of the beauty of the morning sun
warming the surrounding fields in her annoyance at her host’s
moodiness.