Page 22 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
Mrs Potts gives an inquisitive meow, her head tilted to the side as she listens to the voice from behind the hedge and then walks down the garden path, like she’s trying to work out where it’s coming from. She jumps onto the gatepost, surveys what she can see of Darcy’s garden and then jumps down on his side.
‘Oh,’ I say in surprise because she rarely ventures to the door, never mind into someone else’s garden. ‘Mrs Potts is coming to see you. Is that all right or do you want me to get her back? Not everyone likes cats.’
‘No, it’s fine. Even I am not so much of a monster that I would dislike our furry friends.’ Mrs Potts obviously reaches him, because he greets her and makes coaxing noises and I can hear him rubbing two fingers together to encourage her over. ‘She really does look like Mrs Potts. That’s uncanny. Hello, lovely pussycat. You are gorgeous, aren’t you?’
Mrs Potts makes a series of delighted noises and Darcy laughs as, I’m guessing, she headbutts his hands and lets him tickle the back of her head, and I shift around until I’m sitting sideways against the hedge. I try to part the branches for a peep through, but it’s no use, the hedge has the entire summer’s worth of green leaves and growth spurts behind it; it’s as dense as a wall.
Mrs Pottsmeow-owsat Darcy and he makes similar noises back at her, like they’re having a full-blown conversation in cat-speak. I lean my head against the hedge and listen to the sound of them getting acquainted.
There’s a sense of peace that’s settled across our gardens. Even his voice changed when she went over there. It switched into a gentle baby-talk-ish voice, and I hadn’t noticed how much tension I could sense from him, but I notice the shift in atmosphere when it dissipates.
‘She’s lovely. A credit to her owner. She’s standing on my lap, making pies in my knees.’ His laugh sounds happy rather than sarcastic for once.
‘Do you want some Dreamies?’
‘By going tosleepies?’
I laugh out loud. ‘They’re cat treats. She’s so addicted to them that I might have to stage an intervention soon.’
‘Nah. Because she’s getting comfortable on me and I don’t want to disturb her by getting up. Next time.’
She’s getting comfortable on him? Mrs Potts is a very self-contained cat. She sleeps in her own bed and only comes to me when she’s hungry, and occasionally deigns herself to sit beside me on the sofa if it’s cold on a winter’s night and I’ve got the fluffy fleece blankets out. I’m surprised that within minutes of meeting him, she’s kneading his lap and curling up on him, but they say animals are good judges of character, don’t they?
There’s contented purring coming from beside me. Mrs Potts is rumbling loudly, and Darcy is murmuring sweet nothings to her, and he’s sonice, and I can’t get my head around whyhethinks otherwise. We’ve been talking for a few days now and he’s made no suggestion of coming round or seeing each otherwithoutthe hedge between us, and the questions I want to ask keep multiplying and I’m going to burst if he doesn’t explainsomethingsoon.
Eventually, I can’t tamp it down any longer and blurt out a question. ‘Why?’
He sighs.
‘Come on, Darcy, give me something. I’m not trying to push you or change you or persuade you to come over. I just want to knowwhyyou stay so hidden and hate people so much?’
He’s quiet for so long that I start suspecting if he didn’t have Mrs Potts on his lap, he’d have got up and walked away.
‘Because I don’t look like other people.’
‘No one looks like anyone else. We’re all different. The world would be boring if we all looked the same.’ I hate things about the way I look too. My lips are too big; they look like I’ve had fillers even though I haven’t. My hair is too short, but it looks weird if I try to grow it out. ‘Very few people wouldn’t change something about themselves.’
‘It’s more than that. I’m… damaged.’
I’m trying to piece together a theory about him. The general avoidance of people, the way he keeps to himself, the disguise he’s never seen without on the rare occasions he’s seen at all. He’s mentioned things he used to enjoy but now doesn’t. ‘Something happened to you?’
‘More likeIhappened tosomething.’ He snaps it so bitterly that it must wake Mrs Potts because he whispers a profuse apology to her and promises he won’t do it again.
I can’t work out what his words mean. ‘No one is so damaged that they don’t deserve love. Friendship. Support. You don’t have to be alone, Darcy.’
‘Oh, don’t you start. You’reneveralone on Ever After Street, even if you want to be. As evidenced by Witt inviting himself into my shop to tell me, many, many times. Ali from 1001 Nights, that magician who wears eyeliner from the carousel, Sadie and her cousin who I think I’ve terrified enough that they always come together… safety in numbers when visiting the street’s resident beast.’
He tries to make a joke of it, but there’s a shuddery sound in his breathing and I get the feeling that he’s just a little bitmore touched than he wants to admit that our neighbours are constantly trying to bring him out of his shell, a bit like they do with me by checking in every morning, and how they still come, even when I push them away.
The night air is growing chillier. I’m wishing I’d bought a blanket or something to sit on because the cold concrete path is turning my backside numb, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I should get up and tackle some more weeds, but I sit there for a while longer, enjoying the feeling of having a companion here, someone who is kind, generous, clearly an animal lover, funny, and always does what he says he will. The world needs more people like Darcy, even ifhedoesn’t think so. ‘I got an email address for U.N.Known today.’
He snorts and then apologises to Mrs Potts for another disturbance before he realises I’m not joking. ‘Oh, you’re serious? Who the hell is giving out his email address?’
‘Someone at the agency he was once represented by.’
‘Well, let’s hope they enjoy getting sued for invasion of privacy. Pretty sure it’s not okay for them to hand out authors’ private contact details to anyone who asks for them.’
‘It’s nice of you to be so concerned for the “anonymous prat” author of this book you hate.’ I quote his own words back to him. ‘And I’m not anyone, I’m a professional bookseller. And I think it was a last-ditch attempt at getting through to him.’ I tell him about the aggravated agent, wishing I hadn’t said anything given how riled up he gets by any mention of my favourite book.
