Page 101 of One Last Thing
I stop abruptly and then I close my eyes as a fog of nonsense and folly begins to lift and I can focus on what matters. What it all comes down to. My eyes flashing open, I pick up a pair of Nico’s pyjama bottoms lying on the floor and pull them on, tightening the drawstring round my waist and tying it in a bow before grabbing my phone and my sandals.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks as I bluster around his room.
‘I have to go.’
‘Go where? Don’t you have a Zoom meeting?’
‘I’ll have to rearrange.’
‘Megan, what’s going on?’ he says, leaping to his feet as I race to the door.
‘I have to go to the airport.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’ I cry, grabbing the door handle and yanking it open.
‘Megan, wait!’ he says, picking up his car keys from the side table and grinning widely at me. ‘I’ll drive you.’
36
DAWN
Iregret buying this pain au chocolat. I realised when I arrived at Perpignan Airport that it would be a while before I had a pastry in France again and that made my terrible mood even worse, so I made the rash decision to buy a final one before I go through security. What a pitiful error. This is very sub-par. It is not fresh. I’m not sat in a bakery. This is an airport shop, for Christ’s sake. What was I expecting? I only have myself to blame.
Leaving this pedestrian pastry with one bite taken from it on the plate, I rise from my chair and lift my bag, making my way to security. I’ve checked in my luggage and wasted as much time as possible wandering around the one shop of this small airport of which I am really very fond and now it’s time to go. I got here too early, unwilling to linger at the chateau for any longer. Megan knows everything now. Her house is secured, her heart healed –romantically at least –and all that’s left to wait on is time. I will give her that, and then I will do everything in my power to contact her in the hope of providing any answers that she may need about the past or her father, and I will strive to keep a relationship with her. Even if it’s a weak one at first, I will persist in strengthening it. Iwillshow up for her.
I know she will give Henry a good send off when she’s ready.
Pausing to get the boarding pass up on my phone screen, I take a deep breath and then fix a smile as I present it to the woman at security who waves me through. Queuing to place my bag neatly in one of the grey trays –a laughably short queue in comparison to the airports I’m used to –I patiently wait my turn to send it through the scanner.
Then I hear someone calling out in the distance.
‘Mum!’
It’s a British voice. It’s a familiar voice.
‘Mum!Mum!’
It’s my daughter’s voice.
I gasp, spinning round and craning my neck to see if I can spot her. When I can’t, I grab my bag out the tray and hurry back down the side of the queue, saying ‘Excuse me! Excusez-moi!’ as I barge my way through, coming back out into the terminal.
‘Mum!’
I hear it again, louder, nearer this time, and I look around frantically until I spot her. Megan is rushing towards me, her face appearing over the shoulders of a large group of people strolling along with their wheelie cases. She trips over one, apologising to its owner as she dodges around them as best she can, before running over to where I stand, beaming at her. She looks ridiculous. She can’t have brushed her hair in two days and she’s wearing sandals and men’s pyjama bottoms that she’s having to hoist up every two seconds – they’re far too big for her – and a grey T-shirt that swamps her. Everyone is looking at her as she tears through the airport and there’s Nico right behind her. Of course he is.
‘Mum,’ she repeats breathlessly, coming to a halt in front of me as I stare at her in shock and hope, ‘oh my god. I’m so glad you haven’t left yet. I thought you’d have already gonethrough. I tried calling but the signal here is shit and then I thought I might be able to reach you once you’re through but would they allow you back out, I didn’t know, you know?’
‘What?’ I look at her aghast. ‘Megan, what are you doing here?’
‘I came to stop you!’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because . . . because we haven’t finished the quest.’
‘The quest?’
