Page 86 of The Plot Twist

‘He’s away. LA, work, again,’ Jess said morosely. ‘Please?’ She paused. ‘And anyway, soon enough we’ll move and I won’t be in London to go to these events.’

Allie started. ‘Hang on, you promised things wouldn’t change? Jess? Jess, you promised we’d still do things together?’

‘Well, it will be hard to say yes to tickets to these sorts of things if I don’t know that you’ll agree to go with me.’ And there it was – game, set and match to Jess.

Allie seethed ‘Fine. OK. On one condition though.’

‘Anything,’ Jess replied in a sickeningly saccharine tone.

‘That I’ve finished my first drafts before then.’

‘Suppose so. How close to finishing are you, honestly?’

‘Pretty close.’ Allie couldn’t keep the note of excitement out of her voice. Because despite everything, she knew what she was going to do and she still had a smidgeon of hope that it might just be enough for her redemptive arc, to stand as a grand romantic gesture and so that everyone (Will in particular) would forgive her. ‘Close enough that it should all be done by Friday.’

‘OK,’ Jess replied somewhat sulkily. ‘Write faster though, OK? I’ve got a fabulous dress and it has been making “take me out” eyes at me ever since it came into my life.’

Allie snorted with laughter. ‘Got it. Can I go now?’

Jess agreed that yes, Allie could indeed go. Allie put her phone face down and silenced it so she wouldn’t be interrupted again. She looked up into the garden where just that morning her friend the robin had returned. It was the first morning Allie had seen him since she had banged on the glass and frightened him away. Allie had spent an inordinate amount of time researching the best seed for robins and an obscene amount of money on purchasing said seed. And then finally, this morning, it had paid off. She raised a hand in greeting. The robin startled, as if expecting the crazy woman to pound on the glass again, but then he fixed her with his beady eye and if Allie could speak bird she was sure he would be saying, ‘What are you waiting for? Get on with it then.’ So she did as she was told and went back to her writing.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

‘Allie! This is a surprise. Is Martin expecting you?’

‘No, erm, actually it was you I came to see. Well, both of you really. But mainly you.’

Allie squirmed as she stood on the steps of Martin and Angie’s beautiful home. She had been preparing for this moment for ages. But her preparation had been the frantic typing variety and not the planning what to say when you got there kind. And now that she was here, she didn’t really know how to express all the feelings she was experiencing.

‘Here, these are for you.’ She thrust one of the bags she was carrying into Angie’s hand and took a step back, momentarily teetering on the edge of one of the steps before righting herself.

‘What’s this?’ Angie asked in surprise and glanced into the bag. ‘Are these my books?’ She picked one out and flicked to the front page. ‘You signed them all?’ She looked up at Allie. ‘To me?’

‘Well yes. I did suggest we go for a bit of variety and swap in some different names. But Martin told me I was being weird and to get on with it because he wanted to surprise you this side of Christmas.’

Angie put the bag down on the steps and picked another book out, flicking again to the front page. ‘They’re all different?’

‘Yes. I mean, they’re all signed to you. But Martin wanted me to add in something about what was happening in your lives, or where you were when you bought the copy.’

With painstaking accuracy, Martin had gone through all the copies of Allie’s books that he had discovered Angie had, and worked out what they would have been doing when Angie had bought each one.

‘Oh goodness. This one I bought in the WHSmith at St Pancras when we were going to Paris for a long weekend. He remembered?’ Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Allie and for a horrible moment Allie wondered if she and Martin had completely misjudged this and that maybe some of these weren’t happy memories for Angie. But Angie’s face broke into a smile. ‘He remembered,’ she said again softly. ‘That was such a fun weekend. We hadn’t been to Paris in years. We had all these plans to do all the touristy things but instead we spent the weekend drinking red wine, eating delicious food, people watching…’ Her voice drifted off and a different smile spread on her face, a secret smile this time.

‘I remembered,’ confirmed Martin who had come up behind Angie and now put his arms around her and softly kissed her neck, ‘or at least I worked it out.’ Allie didn’t know whether to look away or just leave. But this was actually sweet, not voyeuristic. She could sense their shared history, their happy memories.

‘Thank you, my love.’ Angie turned and cupped Martin’s face in her hands and kissed him. ‘And thank you!’ She turned back to Allie. ‘I love these. I love that you both did this for me. Will you come in?’ she asked.

Allie shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got somewhere I need to be. But I have something else for you, too.’ She put down her rucksack and carefully lifted out a bound manuscript. ‘No, wrong one.’ She slotted it back into her bag and took out a second similarly sized manuscript. ‘This is for you both.’ She held it out.

‘What’s this?’ Martin asked, reaching around Angie to take it.

‘It’s yours, it’s your story.’

‘You finished?!’ Martin stared at Allie with wide eyes. ‘Good god, Allie, that’s amazing. Need to get cracking with mine now; you’re putting me to shame. I can’t wait to read it.’

Angie looked piercingly at Allie. ‘Sweetheart, why are you giving this to us?’

‘As I said, it’s your story.’

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