If he hadn’t been cursing himself so bitterly, Joe could almost have laughed at Georgine’s flabbergasted expression. Lips parted, sea-green eyes wide, sandy eyebrows almost vanishing into her hair.
But, shit. Even if he’d known the chances were high that this day would dawn, he’d hoped to find his feet in his new life before being obliged to embark on the emotional journey back to the infinitely crappier one.
He cleared his throat. ‘Why don’t I get us both a coffee—’
‘Have you got an extended lunch hour or something? My watch tells me it’s time to get back to work,’ Avril put in, giving him a tiny prod in his shoulder as she got to her feet. ‘Crack the whip over your new assistant, Georgine!’ She giggled.
Wrenching her gaze from Joe, Georgine stumbled to her feet, backing away. ‘I have to get back to work too.’ Dispensing with farewells, she rushed to join the line straggling out through the cafeteria doors.
With a rapid, ‘Bye!’ tossed back to Avril, Joe hopped up and charged after her. Georgine’s amber hair made it a cinch for a tall person to keep her in view as the flow of students carried her along until she forked off right towards her room. He watched to check she went inside, then headed left for Oggie’s quarters.
Finding the principal of the institution at his desk he whipped over to the coffee machine and helped himself to two cups of coffee with a breathless, ‘Sorry, Oggie. Explain later.’
Oggie, who rarely looked anything other than serene, actually frowned. ‘Joe, you’re supposed to be—’ was all he got out as Joe, heart beating surprisingly hard and high up in his chest, set off in pursuit of Georgine.
At her door, he paused, then stepped inside. ‘I brought you coffee.’
From the other side of the large table, she gazed at him, her expression frozen into unfriendly lines. ‘You’re supposed to be—’
‘Accompanied, yeah. So sue me.’ He closed her door with an impatient foot. ‘You’ve obviously realised who I am. I’d like to explain.’ He put one of the coffee cups down on the table and pushed it across to her. It felt like he was creeping up on a wild creature and trying to gain its trust with food.
Georgine’s eyes moved over his face. ‘This is beyond weird. Like a time warp crossed with the hall of mirrors.’
He offered a smile. ‘I had a few reasons for not reminding you who I was straight away.’
‘You had planned to come clean at some time, then?’ She glanced at the cup of coffee but didn’t touch it.
Her words rankled but he didn’t let his irritation filter into his voice as he pointed out, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong to “come clean” about. I recognised you. I can’t help it if you didn’t recognise me.’
The green eyes were wary. ‘You’ve changed so much. I kept getting a strange feeling about you, but not knowing why. The penny dropped when you almost answered that kid when he said “Rich”.’
‘I was a ragged arse runt when you knew me. Becoming healthy after being underfed for most of your life is bound to prompt changes,’ he said with a hint of bitterness.
‘Your hair’s a lot darker now. You wear glasses. And, crucially, unlike me, you’ve changed your name.’ She took a few steps around the table, then paused as if not wanting to venture too close.
He remained where he was, willing to stay out of her personal space but not by backing up. ‘Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you the story over coffee?’
‘Because I have to start ringing around the parents who are volunteering to act as house managers or to run the bar and refreshments counter during show week. Six shows means a lot of volunteers.’
‘Right.’ For an instant he’d forgotten he was in a ‘normal’ job. Maybe because he hadn’t had too much experience of normal. He spent a lot of his life on the road or rehearsing or recording. He didn’t think he’d ever had a reason to be in the same building five days a week since he’d left college.
‘I feel odd,’ she said, before he could speak again. ‘I’m supposed to be looking after you, but I actually don’t want to, not this afternoon. I want to concentrate on what I’m doing, not trying to solve the puzzle that’s you.’
‘I’m not a—’ he began.
She held up her hands. Impatience seemed to be taking the place of shock. ‘No, don’t. I’ve got most of the notes together for you so I’ll walk you to the staff room. If you have your copy of the Very Kerry Christmas script you can begin adding your tech notes.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But it’s important we clear the air.’
She nodded, though her heavy sigh suggested she regretted the necessity. ‘Could it be away from here? Maybe tonight, if you’re free. If we’re to work together a talk would be … enlightening.’
‘I can be free this evening.’ Until he made a decision or two, every evening on his calendar was free, with a question mark over Christmas week. His uncle and aunt, Shaun and Louise, usually invited him, but this year Shaun was working with a band in Australia and Louise had gone along for the whole Christmas-on-the-beach experience. ‘Here in the village? Is there a coffee shop?’
‘The Angel, but it’s only open in the evenings in summer or when there’s something on in the village. It’ll have to be the pub. Give me your phone number and I’ll text you details.’
He shifted awkwardly. ‘I don’t have a phone I can use right now. Just tell me where and when and I’ll be there.’ His phone was off and as he’d no intention of switching it on any time soon it wasn’t a lie to say he couldn’t use it.
She frowned, as if the fact that he didn’t have a working mobile phone made her even more wary. As if to show him what he was missing, her phone began to burble. Reaching for a notepad, she tore out a page and scribbled The Three Fishes, Main Street, 8 p.m. on it, shoving it towards him as she answered the call.
‘I’ll be there,’ he murmured.
‘OK.’ Then, into her phone, ‘Hello, Maddie. Yes … no, I wasn’t going to, but I can come along if you want me to.’ She reached for her production file and laptop, pausing to grab the cup of coffee he’d brought her then waiting for him at the door. He followed as she walked briskly up the corridor to the staff room and saw him inside with a nod and what passed for a smile.
The door swung closed.
He’d been dismissed.
Irritated, Joe opened his locker to get the laptop Fern had issued to him, a battered old hand-me-down ‘from the pool’, though he would have thought ‘the shit heap’ a more accurate description. It was a far cry from his own state-of-the-art Mac Pro, but he supposed Acting Instrumental had a policy on what computers they made available to which staff and he was a very new, lowly volunteer who could be temporary. A shit-heap computer was evidently his level.
Also, he wasn’t turning on his own laptop, to avoid the siren call of his inbox at present. Raf, Nathan and Liam from the band were probably trying to contact him, not to mention Billy, but, though he felt slightly ashamed for ducking them, he hadn’t formulated answers to what he knew would be their very real concerns.
He cast a jaundiced eye over the overheated staff room. It boasted the kind of low chairs that seemed designed to make a tall person uncomfortable. A peek out of the door revealed not a single student, so for the second time since lunch, he broke the unbreakable rule that he shouldn’t be alone until his DBS checked out, and left. Soon he was unlocking a door that led him out of the building directly beneath the outside stairs that clung to the side of the building. From either side, the door looked to be the kind that led to a cupboard or some utility and had presumably been used to access staff accommodation in the days when the building had been a private residence. The flight of stairs was obscured by the bulk of the big rehearsal room and it had only been by chance that Georgine had caught him there on his first day. Wrong-footed at her presence, he’d hovered indecisively as she’d turned and spotted him. Letting her think he had no business being where he was had seemed the easiest way out.
But now he ran up the steps, tapped a number into the keypad and let himself into a corridor with three doors, two on the left and one on the right. He opened and went through the one on the right, kicking off his shoes and hanging up his jacket.
The apartment, apart from being as big as the other two put together, had appealed to him because it was so white and clean looking. Its impressive kitchen area held a battery of built-in equipment, making him appreciate why whoever had planned the apartment had gone with open plan. That kitchen was a work of art and shouldn’t be hidden behind a door.
He crossed to the fridge and helped himself to a bottle of water, then moved into the living area and dropped onto the sofa, taking off his glasses and swinging his feet up onto the coffee table. Opening the shit-heap laptop, he emailed Oggie to let him know Georgine had recognised him, then fetched the photocopies of her storyboards from where he’d left them on the table by the window last night. Her notes had already dropped into his inbox so he searched out a notebook and a pen – he thought better with a pen in his hand. Then he settled down to work.
Interrupting himself, once in a while he tried a couple of lines of lyrics, as the songwriting habit, imbued in him at college, had never left. Something about an old crush being the reason he’d been wary of seriously long-term relationships …? Sounded ridiculous. An immature get-pregnant-to-get-him-to-marry-me scheme a few years ago had been responsible for any wariness he had in that direction, and the woman who’d followed had been so incredibly indiscreet on social media about the details of their relationship that he hadn’t even felt obliged to end things face-to-face. She’d got her revenge by revealing the details of that phone conversation in a Twitter storm that had made him feel sick.
He got up once to make coffee, standing at the kitchen window and staring out at the new block, which replaced what had once been a wonderful view over gardens and paddocks. He felt charged, restless, but made himself return to the work. He kind of wanted to show Georgine what he could do.
His long ago alter ego Rich Garrit continued to invade his thoughts. At nearly fourteen, he would have almost wet himself with excitement to know he was going to meet Georgine France in a pub tonight. She was the prettiest and most popular girl in their school year, and to him an unlikely but highly prized friend. She’d lived in a big house in Middledip village and her parents had a car each: a Jaguar XKR and limo-like black Mercedes.
Young Rich Garrit would have pretended to himself that they were actually going on a date. He’d never asked to start seeing her of course, knowing he’d be destroyed if she’d said no, and, in all probability, so would their friendship. And enough money for an actual date? In his dreams.
Present-day Joe Blackthorn had to explain what Georgine obviously considered strange, if not downright suspicious, behaviour. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back to come to terms with that uncomfortable thought.
Rich Garrit had been an odd kid.
But Georgine probably thought Joe Blackthorn odder still. Fucksake. Why wasn’t his life ever simple?
After work, Georgine drove to Bettsbrough. Gold Street, on the left just before the town proper, led her to the sheltered housing where her father lived without her being sucked into the one-way system.
She used her key to let herself in through the main door. There was no sense in using the entry system, which would oblige her dad to ease himself out of his high-seat chair and shuffle across to press the ‘open door’ button. She would have tried to get him some kind of mobile phone-based system so he could remain in his chair while he talked to callers at the door, but his speech was now so unclear that he wasn’t keen. At least that saved her from having to find the money.
Money. Who said it was the root of all evil? To her it was the root of all sodding hassle and disappointment.
No trace of that kind of frustration showed in her face though as she let herself into the flat, past the bathroom and into the sitting room. ‘It’s me, Dad.’
Randall twisted in his chair. ‘Hi, honey!’ It came out more as: ‘Ha unny’ but he’d said ‘Hi, honey’ every time he saw her for as long as she could remember so the imperfect diction didn’t matter.
Cheered just to be with her dad, who seldom complained, no matter what life threw at him, Georgine stooped to hug him as he groped for the TV remote with his good hand to switch off the late-afternoon news. He was bulkier than he used to be and she couldn’t make her arms meet around him. ‘I called in at the supermarket and got the stuff for a full English as promised. Hungry?’
‘Oh, yes. Favourite.’ Randall gurgled a laugh. As his speech had deteriorated he’d compensated by developing a kind of verbal shorthand and making greater use of laughs, groans, nods and headshakes.
Georgine chatted for a few minutes, satisfying herself there was no fresh reason to worry about him, then moved into the kitchenette, switching on the grill to warm up as she unpacked sausages, bacon, eggs and mushrooms. ‘How’d you like your eggs today, Dad?’
‘’Amble, p’ease.’
‘Scrambled it is.’ She pricked the sausages and put them under the grill, letting them get a head start while she cut the rind off the bacon, wiped the mushrooms and mixed the eggs. As she worked, she updated Randall on the Blair-moving-in situation. She knew Blair had visited Randall and told him in person about Warren ending things.
‘Poor Bear.’ Randall couldn’t get his mouth to form the L in Blair very well. He asked a question, which, on the second attempt, Georgine got as, ‘Is she very upset?’
She paused to consider, cooking tongs dangling from her fingers. ‘Putting a brave face on, but I think it’s rocked her. She wasn’t expecting it and she still loves him.’
‘Gi’ her a ’ug.’
Georgine grinned. ‘I will. I’ll tell her it’s from you.’ She turned the sausages and took a tin of tomatoes from the cupboard. ‘By the way, a new guy at Acting Instrumental turns out to be someone I went to school with, Rich Garrit. I didn’t immediately recognise him. He’s changed his name to Joe Blackthorn for some reason.’ It made her stomach drop to remember the shock of the realisation.
Randall made a puffing noise, trying to get a word out. Georgine gave him time as she opened the tomato tin. Finally, he managed, ‘Criminal?’
‘Blimey. Hope not.’ At school, she reminded herself with an unpleasant thrill, he had hung with all the rough guys and it had been really weird the way he’d turned on her one day and then disappeared. Nobody had known where. Georgine had even put aside her hurt and anger to ask his sister, Chrissy, but Chrissy had just shrugged and turned away. Then, in a matter of weeks, Chrissy had gone too. Unnerving rumours of Garrit doing away with both children had swirled around the school until the teachers had heard and said that Rich and Chrissy had each transferred to schools out of the area.
Starved of oxygen, the flames of rumour went out, but Georgine had struggled to cope with the loss of a friend. It had been like a bereavement. For the first time in her life she’d become moody and difficult, which had led, eventually, to that truculent moment of stupidity that had changed everything for everybody she loved.
Her family became a distorted thing. Dad lost everything. Mum left. Blair developed an awkward relationship with money. It had all stemmed from Georgine and those moods, and it seemed as if she’d spent her life since then battling the fallout. It was probably why now she liked everything to be neat and controlled.
‘Careful with him.’ Randall groped for his hankie to wipe his mouth before he finished. ‘Ve’y careful, p’ease.’
Georgine’s heart warmed at the love in her father’s gaze. ‘I’m meeting him at The Three Fishes at eight. It’s nice and public.’
‘’Kay.’ Randall nodded. ‘Tex me later?’
‘I will. Now, I’m just putting the bacon under. I’ll give you three rashers.’ She moved on to tell him how the Christmas show was going. He loved to hear about her job and she loved to talk about it, so the subject lasted them through dinner and the washing up. Then Georgine checked Randall’s bank account for him, exhibiting her phone screen so he could nod in satisfaction that his benefit was coming in OK and his rent going out.
Then she said goodnight and drove home, grateful that her car, small and middle-aged as it was, remained reliable in the face of increasingly cold weather.
Despite her assurances to her dad, when the time came to meet Joe, she wasn’t sure she should have agreed to it. Blair was out or Georgine might have asked her to come along. And why had she suggested the pub? She didn’t have money to spare on non-essentials. She resolved that if Joe bought her a drink and she bought him one back, that would provide ample time to hear what he had to say. She could squeeze that much out of her budget now she had Blair’s contribution to the household.
The hood of her coat protected her hair from the worst of the swirling wind as she strode along the footpath that brought her out of the Bankside estate where Great Hill Road joined Main Road. A few strides from the village pub, her footsteps slowed. Last time she’d spoken to Rich Garrit she’d been struggling to hold back hurt tears and he and his scruffy mates had been hooting with laughter at her. OK, they’d been fourteen, but it had felt like a betrayal because Georgine had stuck up for Rich when others had poked fun at him and said unkind things. They hadn’t been ‘seeing each other’, but they’d done art, drama and music together and their friendship had seemed enough for them both. Once away from his braying mates he’d dropped his naughty-boy persona and shown his intelligence, discussing unexpected subjects like karma and whether good people really did return to more enjoyable lives, as a TV programme about Buddhism had said.
Though the intervening years had been enough for her to shuck off a schoolyard gripe, Rich Garrit had once proved himself to be unreliable.
His reappearance with a completely different name didn’t encourage her to trust him now.
She crossed the road towards The Three Fishes. Built of the local russet-coloured stone and presently festooned with a blinding cat’s cradle of Christmas lights, it was at the heart of Middledip both literally and figuratively. M.A.R. Motors, Booze & News and the Angel Community Café were all a short walk away down Main Road. Nearby stood the playing fields and the village hall. The latter was currently closed and rather than its own Christmas decorations sparkling from its windows, a car park full of building machinery and skips indicated that work had begun on replacing the roof.
The wind more or less blew Georgine in through the door of The Three Fishes, bringing her to the attention of the landlord behind the polished wooden bar. Known in Middledip as ‘Tubb from the pub’, opinion was divided as to whether or not his sometimes-uncertain temper hid a heart of gold, but you certainly didn’t get through the door to his pub – in either direction – without him noticing. ‘Evening,’ he said, his eyes flitting over his bar as if wondering what Georgine would buy.
When the France family had lived in The Gatehouse, a three-storey stone property near The Cross, they hadn’t frequented The Three Fishes much. Randall had been a member of Bettsbrough Golf Club and their mum, Barbara, of Port Manor Hotel’s country club, and one of those polished establishments had usually won the France family’s custom. Tubb never seemed to hold that against Georgine.
She was the only member of her family remaining in the village – not counting Blair, who was really just using Middledip as a safe harbour while she recovered from her most recent emotional storm. Randall’s assisted living flat was in Bettsbrough and Barbara flitted between a big house on a beach in Northumberland and a big house in the hills of central France.
Not put off by Tubb’s boot-face, Georgine shoved back her hood and offered him a friendly grin. ‘Phew, blowing a hooley out there.’ Unwinding her long aubergine scarf she swapped greetings with a few villagers she knew then, unzipping her coat, glanced about the busy bar for Joe.
Rich.
Whoever the hell he was.
Then she glimpsed him. He’d bagged a table by the fire and was lounging in a chair and watching the goings on of the pub through his specs with a half smile. His dark grey jeans and leather cowboy boots looked expensive, as did the thick black jacket lying over a nearby chair.
She weaved her way towards him, the boots making her think roadies must be ‘music biz’ enough to dress a bit alternatively. When he noticed her, he rose, giving her the smile that now she recognised perfectly clearly from the days it had flashed from the face of the boy who’d been the class joker. ‘Well, howdy, Mizz Jaw-Jean.’
The delivery of the well-worn joke was deadpan, but his eyes laughed. Despite having spent the afternoon brooding on why he hadn’t mentioned their old connection as soon as he recognised her, Georgine felt the corners of her mouth twitch. It was reassuring to be reminded of his clowning, the days when Rich would try to make her giggle in class. Once he’d pretended to take out his eyeballs to polish them. Next time he’d opened his eyelids he’d been cross-eyed, as if he’d replaced them in the wrong sockets. She’d had to look away to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Pretending had been OK then.
But now?
‘Hello …’ She hesitated.
‘Joe,’ he finished for her. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A glass of chardonnay, please.’
While he went to the bar she took a seat, noticing a couple of the younger Acting Instrumental students in a coterie of teenagers in the corner. All had soft drinks on their table. Tubb knew better than to serve the underage youth with alcohol. Apart from the threat to his licence, their parents, aunts and uncles could well be knocking back a merlot somewhere in the pub.
On the bar, tiny white lights sparkled on a small Christmas tree – Tubb wouldn’t waste space he could fill with customers by putting up a larger, floor-standing tree – and a colourful range of notices about Christmas raffles and hampers was tacked to the wooden posts around the bar.
Georgine combed her hair with her fingers before flicking it back over her shoulders.
When she looked up, Joe was watching her. Then Janice the barmaid arrived to serve him. ‘Yes, duck, what can I get you?’ she said, and he turned to give his order.
When he rejoined Georgine, he placed the drinks on the table as he took his seat. She became uncomfortably aware of her heartbeat. The time had come to hear what he had to say, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to. It was unsettling that he’d had the opportunity to observe her and absorb the memories of twenty years ago, while she hadn’t recognised him at all.
She took a sip of wine, unwilling to be the one to start the conversation.
Joe’s own drink was fruit juice and he took a long draught of it, then rubbed his palms down his jeans. ‘I’ve been obsessing over where to start. Or even how much you want to know. I’m sorry I wasn’t transparent with you.’
Georgine nodded.
He glanced around. ‘I’m not sure this is the right venue for this conversation. I suppose I thought a village pub on a weeknight would have a quiet corner.’
She said nothing. The only quieter venue within easy reach was her home, and she was not going to invite him there. Blair might be in by now, and anyway, home was her safe place.
Joe cleared his throat as her silence continued. ‘OK. I’ll approach this as chronologically as I can. There are still things I don’t know and probably never will.’ He took another gulp from his drink. ‘I was born John Joseph Blackthorn.’
Georgine felt her eyebrows flip up. She’d presumed the name she’d known him under to be his birth name and that Joe Blackthorn was an identity he’d assumed, the reasons behind which had been at the heart of her unease today.
He gave a small, wry smile. ‘Yes, it’s my real name. My mother called me Johnjoe and sometimes it got shortened to Joe. I don’t remember my father, Tim Blackthorn. He died when I was two. They’d taken me to a beach on the east coast and he’d had a few beers. He went for a swim, got caught in a current and drowned.’
Georgine felt a shiver run through her, not just of compassion for such a tiny tot losing his dad but because he’d never told her such significant things about his life. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
He gave a low laugh. ‘I didn’t know about my dad myself for ages. For the few years before he died, he didn’t speak to his upper middle-class parents. They’d made their feelings known when Dad, a student at Cambridge, took up with Mum, an under-educated local girl with the wrong accent, who, in their opinion, encouraged him to drink too much and work too little.’
‘Were they harsh?’ Despite her earlier reservations, Georgine was beginning to get caught up in the story.
Joe sipped his fruit juice and shrugged. ‘I think my parents were as bad as each other. They moved in together and Dad flunked out of uni in his second year. I came along – by accident, I expect – and he never told my grandparents about me. Not long before he died, he did ring his brother, Shaun, and ask if they could meet. Said he had someone to introduce to him. At the time Shaun thought he’d maybe got a new girlfriend and was hoping Shaun’s approval might pave the way to him talking to their parents again. Now, of course, he thinks the “someone” was me. But Dad died before he could set up the meeting.’
Georgine found it hard to even imagine the situation. She’d had such a golden childhood, brought up by loving parents whose marriage gave at least the illusion of security. ‘But when your dad died, didn’t your mum contact his family? Tell them about you?’
His eyes grew shadowed. ‘She took it into her head that if they knew about me they’d try and get me off her. Do you remember Garrit?’
Georgine nodded. She had known the man Rich had lived with was not his natural father. He’d always referred to him as Garrit, like everyone else, as if Garrit hadn’t been worthy of a first name, let alone a title like ‘dad’.
‘Mum hooked up with him. He was a shit but a kindred spirit so far as booze was concerned.’ Joe paused to give a little shake of his head as if finding the workings of his mother’s mind hard to comprehend. ‘When I began infant school she registered me as John Joseph Garrit. She told the school she didn’t want my real father knowing where I was, but she meant Dad’s family, if they ever discovered I existed.’
‘Do you think the Blackthorns would have wanted to take you off her if they had?’ Georgine took a gulp of her wine to free the lump that had risen to her throat at the way the child Joe had been helpless to influence his own fate.
‘They would have been heartless bastards if they didn’t, considering the life I was living.’ Joe smiled bitterly. ‘The years went on. Mum and Garrit sank lower, neither of them holding down a job, Garrit doing bits and pieces on the side and claiming every benefit he could think of. Once I reached my teens he used me as a runner for whatever he was mixed up in – obviously dodgy. He used to send me off with packages or envelopes with promises of dire retribution if I peeked at the contents or didn’t bring the payment straight back to him. We ended up in the worst house on the worst council estate in Bettsbrough, filthy curtains at the windows and a garden that was a rubbish heap. I used to have actual nightmares that you’d somehow find out where I lived and turn up.’
Georgine took another glug of wine. Of all the horrible aspects of the life Joe had lived as Rich Garrit, that was what had given him bad dreams?
He carried on, the evenness of his voice making the bite of his words all the deeper. ‘I hated Garrit. He knocked us all around and was verbally abusive. When I was about nine I found my birth certificate in a case on top of a wardrobe. It took me a few minutes to realise from the date of birth that John Joseph Blackthorn was me and that I’d once had a dad called Tim. I asked my mum about him. She was economical with the truth and said he hadn’t stuck around. I used to fantasise he’d come back for me, that he’d be a good man I could live with. In my head, I tried my real name on for size. “I am John Joseph Blackthorn”. I used to write it on bits of paper and then rip them up so nobody found them.’
Tears pricking in the backs of her eyes, Georgine murmured, ‘I had no idea.’
His smile was bleak. ‘I probably should have been an actor, I covered up so well.’ He glanced up as if checking no one was listening in. ‘It got worse when I went to senior school. My primary school had been in the crappy area we lived in, but Bettsbrough Comp was fed by several other primaries and I finally saw how shit my life was when I met kids from comfortable homes.’ He took a slow breath. ‘Apart from you, they either laughed at me or ignored me. I think that’s why the kids from the Shetland estate formed their rat pack. Stuck with their own. We called the Shetland estate “Shitland”, do you remember? I was unwillingly absorbed by the definitely dodgy Shitland gang. They all had nicknames and with stupid teenage humour they called me “Rich” because I wasn’t.’
Georgine swore under her breath. His smile flashed at hearing her curse but she couldn’t smile back. ‘You made people laugh. You were perpetually clowning around.’