‘Yeah, I remember that. Mind you, she’s done all right out of it now, hasn’t she? Sunning herself over there in Spain. So perhaps your phase was all to the good. Jason’s did nothing but land him in hot water.’
Jenna leant against the kitchen counter, giving Linda a long and sympathetic look.
‘You brought him up all alone,’ she said. ‘That can’t have been easy.’
Linda reached in her handbag and brought out a packet of cigarettes.
‘I’m gasping,’ she said. ‘Mind if we go outside for a bit? It’s stopped raining.’ She stood up and Jenna followed her to the patio doors. ‘Seeing as you’ve banned me from drinking,’ she added, loudly but without too much rancour. She seemed to have accepted the situation.
They stood on the damp patio slabs while Linda lit up. The place was still empty. Jenna couldn’t help straining her eyes for signs of a potentially lurking Harville.
‘You’re all jumpy. What’s up?’ said Linda.
‘Oh, nothing. You do understand my point of view, don’t you?’ She held Linda’s bloodshot eyes with her gaze. ‘This is such an important night for Jason. It could make him. But it could also break him. It’s enough to make anyone a bit jumpy. Especially somebody that loves him.’
Linda took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘Aye,’ she said at last. ‘You’re all right, you. You do love him, I get it. I wondered at first. Thought you must be using him for something. But you’re on the level, I reckon.’
‘Yes, I am. Thanks for recognising it.’
There was a crackle in a nearby bush. Jenna jumped forward, then saw it was a bird, rising out of the branches.
‘What the heck’s up?’ Linda flicked ash into a pot holding a perfectly spherical bay tree.
‘I saw someone earlier,’ Jenna confessed, wanting to get her spooked feelings off her chest. ‘Someone I didn’t want to see.’
‘Why the bloody hell did you invite them then?’
‘I didn’t. Look, have you finished that cigarette? Because I need to see Jason and Tabitha. Come upstairs for a little rest, won’t you?’
‘Oh, come on, I’m fine. I’ll just stay out here if I’m showing you up.’
‘I don’t know if you should stay out here on your own . . .’
‘Who is thi
s person you’ve seen? A hitman?’ She was joking but her voice was laden with indignation.
‘No, of course not. It . . . OK, if I tell you, don’t tell Jason. Not tonight. It can wait till tomorrow.’
‘Don’t tell Jason what?’
He stood behind them at the open patio door, clutching a bottle of champagne, looking bright-eyed and flushed and full of his brilliant self.
‘G’is a swig of that, love,’ said Linda, snatching the bottle from him and upending it into her mouth.
Jenna rolled her eyes.
‘Nothing. How are you doing? I’ve hardly had a moment to . . .’
Jason put his hands on her shoulders and bent to kiss her neck, then her ear.
‘They want me,’ he murmured. ‘They want me real bad.’
‘I knew they would,’ she said, pleasure flooding in to replace her nervousness. ‘I knew it. Didn’t I say so?’
‘I’ve sold a few already,’ he said. ‘Tabitha reckons it’s her most successful opening night in years. But we want you out there. I’ve come to get you.’