Page 155 of The Honeymoon Affair

She’s still going out with her bookseller. I know it’s only a few months, but it’s the longest she’s gone out with anyone in years.

‘I don’t want to be a gooseberry,’ I say. ‘I’ll head home.’

‘Oh, do come, Izzy. We haven’t been out together in ages.’

‘We were out last week,’ I remind her.

‘I mean you, me and Darragh,’ she says. ‘I can’t even remember when we last got together.’

The fact that she wants me to have drinks with them makes me think this relationship is serious. Although to be fair to them both, they’re always trying to include me. I usually say no.

‘One drink,’ I tell her. ‘Then I’m going home.’

‘Excellent.’

Despite the tiredness in our legs from walking around the food fair, we head on foot to Duke Street, where the pub is located. I don’t tell Celeste that I’ve actively avoided this part of town in recent times because Warren’s, the jewellers where I chose my engagement ring, is nearby. Every time I remember picking out the ring, and every time I think about flinging it at Charles, I want to cry.

I will not cry, though. I absolutely will not.

‘Oh.’ Celeste stops abruptly outside the bookshop in Grafton Street. She looks at the poster and then turns to me with an anxious expression.

I recognise the picture on the poster – the dead body on a tropical beach. And the title of the book above it with the author’s name below: A Caribbean Calypso. Charles Miller. Copies of the book make up the entire window display. I have to admit that it looks good. If I hadn’t read it already, I’d be tempted to go in and buy it.

‘I forgot it was out now,’ I say, although I didn’t forget, I shoved it to the back of my mind.

‘Do you want to go in and have a look?’ she asks.

‘Why? I can see it perfectly well from here.’

‘But maybe . . .’ She points at a notice in the other window.

Reading and book signing today with the author, Charles Miller.

‘It’s probably over,’ I say. ‘The shops will be shut soon,’

‘Thursday evening,’ says Celeste. ‘Late opening. And the reading doesn’t start for half an hour, it says so there.’ She nods at the notice.

‘Not for me,’ I say.

‘If you’re sure.’

We walk past the bookshop to the Bailey, where Darragh is waiting. He gives me a brief hug and Celeste a much longer one, then asks what we want to drink. I tell him I’ll have a gin and tonic, and when he returns with it, I drink about a quarter before telling Celeste I’ll be back in a while.

‘Are you going back to the bookshop?’ she asks.

‘For a moment, that’s all.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

I shake my head.

I need to be by myself.

Ariel

It’s great to be back in Dublin. Not that I haven’t loved every minute of LA (it’s a city that can definitely break you or make you), but it’s nice to cut back the pace and walk through St Stephen’s Green and along Grafton Street again.

I stop in front of the bookshop and assess the signage for Charles’s reading tonight, although it’s nothing to do with me any more. Tristan Marr, his new agent, has already texted me to say that everything is looking great. He and Charles are getting on famously, and I couldn’t be happier. It was Charles who asked if I’d like to come to the reading. He said I’d been very involved in the book and it would be nice to see me there.

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