Page 100 of Postscript

‘Yes, thank you,’ he says, saluting the sky. ‘He says he’d do …’ He flips me onto my back and lands on top of me. ‘This.’

I yelp out of fright and dissolve into laughter. I smile and run my fingers across his face. ‘You should always just do what Gabriel would do. That’s what I want.’

‘Yeah?’

I examine him. Though he’d been speaking in a playful tone, perhaps Ginika had been right about Gabriel’s jealousy of Gerry.

‘You’re not competing against him,’ I say.

‘I was, but you can never win against a ghost,’ he says. ‘So he and I had a chat, and I told him that, with all due respect, he and I have a common goal, i.e. loving you, so he needs to take a step back and trust me. Too many chefs and all that.’

‘That sounds a bit weird. But lovely.’

He laughs, and kisses me gently.

‘Gross,’ Ava says, and we stop kissing immediately and look to the door to find her watching us, her face all twisted in disgust. She closes our door, and the TV gets louder in the other room.

Gabriel rolls off me and pretends to cry again.

The meeting with Maria Costas was important. I went there looking for new members of the PS, I Love You Club but I left with a larger idea, a broader perspective of how I should be approaching this. She was right: I need to set boundaries for myself, so that I don’t allow every single person’s story to live in my heart and affect my life. I can’t have every member in my home three times a week, and I can’t spend full days traipsing across the city on treasure hunts. I can’t miss Sunday roasts and I can’t take time off work. The year of the meltdown, as Ciara calls it, is over.

I stand in the Magpie stockroom. One wall has floor-to-ceiling shelving, full to the brim, there’s a rail of clothes waiting to be washed, steamed and ironed. A basket of clothes and a box of items we won’t sell and will instead send to charities. There’s a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a steam iron. It’s the busy but organised control room of the shop, but if I just … I pull a chair across the floor to the back of the room, facing the door. I sit down and imagine a desk before me, with a chair facing me. I imagine a couch, perhaps by the washing machine and tumble dryer. I close my eyes. Imagine.

There’s a rap on the door and I open my eyes. Fazeel steps in with his mat rolled up under his arm.

‘It’s noon,’ he says, with a smile.

I grin and jump up from my chair. ‘Volunteers! Yes! That’s it!’ I go to him and hug him.

‘My, my, you are happy today,’ he says, laughing, hugging me back.

‘Ciara!’ I yell. ‘Ciara, where are you?’ I enter the shop.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she says. She’s lying on her back beneath a mannequin, head hidden under the skirt.

Mathew is sitting on a stool, arms folded, watching her.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

‘Her leg fell off,’ Ciara responds, voice muffled.

‘Is it wrong that I’m turned on by this?’ Mathew asks.

I laugh. ‘Ciara, get up, get up, I have news. I have an idea!’

‘So,’ I say excitedly to my family, who are seated around my parents’ dining table tucking into their Sunday roast. Gabriel and Ava have joined us this week and Ava hasn’t stopped laughing at Declan and Jack’s childish antics, which they’ve played up for her. ‘I’m going to turn the Magpie stockroom into a PS, I Love You office.’

‘Yes!’ Ciara says in a celebratory high-pitched tone, fist-punching the air. ‘Though perhaps not the entire stockroom!’ she adds in an equally celebratory tone, smile frozen on her face.

‘I’ll meet people there. Clients.’

‘Yes!’

‘Then, because there’s only one of me and hopefully there’ll be lots of people who require my services, I will employ volunteers to help me carry out the physical tasks, and there we have the all-new PS, I Love You Club!’

‘Yes!’ Ciara squeals, clapping her hands excitedly.

Ava laughs.