problem. See you again soon,’ Jack replied. ‘This place is a hub for local gossip, so if you need the low-down on any of the local rumblings, feel free to ask. I’m the soul of indiscretion, as is my Twitter feed!’
Charlie laughed. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Strolling back out of the coffee shop, he shook his head. Small-town living was going to take some getting used to, he thought, especially in a town as out there as Willowbury. But something told him he was going to like it.
7
That same afternoon, Holly was taking a lunch break while Rachel kept an eye on the shop for half an hour, when their mother came through the back door of the flat with something large and bulky in her hands. As she waved off Holly’s offer of help, she headed into the living room and placed the object, which was a little dusty, on Holly’s coffee table in front of the sofa.
‘Your dad and I were having a bit of a clear-out of the eaves cupboards, and we thought you might like to have this.’ She gestured to the coffee table. ‘We took a quick look inside and it seemed to be most of your university stuff.’
Holly laughed as she flipped the catches on the old-fashioned blue suitcase. ‘I hope you didn’t find anything too incriminating in there!’ The suitcase smelt a little musty from well over a decade in her parents’ attic cupboards, but as she turned it over and flipped the rusting silver catches, opening the lid, she gasped. There, inside the case, was the contents of her university bedroom, complete with essays, posters and even the old college handbook from her first year.
‘Bloody hell,’ Holly said. ‘I had no idea you’d kept this stuff.’ Pulling out a blue cardboard document wallet, she scanned through one of her English Literature essays and shuddered. ‘I can’t believe I ever got my degree with work like this.’ Holly had graduated with a more than respectable upper second-class honours degree in English and Politics from the University of York, and as she riffled through the papers and pictures that were still neatly packed into folders and envelopes after thirteen years in her parents’ attic, she was assailed by memories of people, places and experiences she’d not thought about in years. Alongside the posters of classic films – Star Wars, Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Bladerunner, was a copy of the college handbook, a programme from a play she’d acted in during her first year and a stack of photocopied journal articles on the Romantic poets.
As she opened a large, manila envelope, an equally large stack of photographs was revealed. Some of the snaps took her back instantly; the photograph of her dearest friends from university, taken after they’d laughed themselves weak watching an episode of Desperate Housewives late one night while drinking sangria mixed in a storage box from The Works, reawakened a lot of good memories. Pictures of a couple of boyfriends from uni evoked some slightly different feelings.
Nights out, nights in, famous sights, all were captured on disposable cameras and sent to actual film processing places to develop. Somehow, that seemed to make the memories more precious, despite the poor quality of the images. While Facebook meant that she’d reconnected with quite a lot of her university friends, it was still nice to see pictures of them all as they once were. One particular shot that made her smile was their recreation of an iconic scene from Friends, with each of them looking around the door frame of one of their hall’s bedrooms.
Reaching for another pile of photographs, she furrowed her brow, trying to remember when they were taken. They were mostly of London landmarks, and many were blurry and out of focus. She couldn’t remember ever going to London when she was at university, as it was quite a trek from York, and for a moment she was confused. Were these her photographs or had she picked up someone else’s when she’d cleared out her room for the last time? Goodness knows things were very hectic at the end of that last summer term, and she and her friends were always leaving stuff in each other’s rooms. But as she flipped through them, she was brought up short by a very familiar face and her heart started to flutter as the spreading brushstrokes of recognition filtered across the blank page of her memory. Something she’d forgotten about. Someone she’d forgotten about. For nearly a decade and a half. As the brushstrokes joined together, her heart started to hammer. It couldn’t be… could it?
‘Oh my God…’ she muttered. There, standing by the sign for Great Portland Street Underground station, dressed in a badly fitting maroon blazer and a pair of fawn chinos, tie askew and looking as though he’d had a drink or two, either that or the photo had been taken after a very late night, was someone with a very familiar smile. Very familiar indeed.
Vivian Renton looked over her daughter’s shoulder and grinned. ‘That must have been taken when you went to that student conference,’ she said. ‘I remember you talking about some bloke you’d met there. What was his name?’
As Holly gazed at the picture, it all came back to her. Fifteen years ago, in her first year at university, she’d been a student delegate at a political conference in the capital. She’d been of a slightly different political persuasion back then than she was now, and far less sure of herself and her beliefs. Feeling like a fish out of water, she’d been flattered and charmed when a lanky, slightly geeky young man from Leeds University had started to talk to her and had shown her around, sticking by her side for the day’s conference and then into the evening event, which was being held at a Leicester Square nightclub. Happy to have someone to talk to, she’d been too shy to kiss him for more than a moment on the dance floor, but when he had rather haltingly asked to hold her hand as he walked her back to her hotel at the end of the night, she’d accepted. She remembered taking the picture of him at Great Portland Street, and smiling herself at his huge, attractive smile. He’d seen her back to the hotel, kissed her on the cheek and they’d swapped home phone numbers. Jolted rather more by him than she’d realised, Holly had been surprised when he’d called her at home during the Christmas holidays, but by then she was seeing someone else, so she’d drawn a line and not seen him again.
Vivian was still looking at the photograph in Holly’s hand, but she glanced at her face when she realised how stock-still her daughter had gone. ‘What is it, Hols?’
‘Can’t you see it?’ Holly replied. ‘I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about him until now. I mean, it’s been thirteen years since I graduated, and I haven’t given him a second thought until now.’
‘So?’ Vivian replied. ‘He was just some bloke you met in London, wasn’t he? I remember you talking about him after he rang you at Christmas. Nice, gentle Yorkshire accent, if I remember correctly. Very polite on the phone.’
‘Very polite in person, too,’ Holly murmured, remembering the sparkling brown eyes, the slightly sweaty palm held by her own and the chaste goodnight kiss. ‘And still is,’ she added unguardedly.
‘What do you mean? I thought you just said you’d forgotten about him. You never mentioned him again. Not to me, anyway.’
‘Er, Mum,’ Holly cursed as she felt her cheeks flaming. ‘The boy in the photograph… he grew up to be Charlie Thorpe.’
Vivian looked quizzical. ‘As in Charlie Thorpe, the new MP? Are you sure?’
Holly traced Charlie’s face in the photograph with a turmeric-stained fingertip. ‘Yup. I didn’t twig before when he came into the shop, but now I’ve seen this photo again it’s all coming back to me.’ To be fair, Charlie’s hairstyle had changed and he’d filled out a bit so that he wasn’t lanky any more, and he’d obviously ditched the glasses, too, but the sparkle in his eyes and that smile were instantly recognisable now she’d seen the photo again. ‘Charlie Thorpe is Lovely Charlie, who looked after me
