She looked at it, nodded to herself. ‘Well you’re not menopausal,’ she said, holding up a stick that read ‘pregnant’, and Marjorie burst into tears.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Davey

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Davey

JULIET HAD BECOME WITHDRAWN and clingy. She didn’t want to be left alone; she became his shadow, unless he was on stage. She never came to shows anymore. She wanted to go home to Nashville. She didn’t mind if he hired a live-in nanny, she just wanted to get off the road. He was confused: one minute she was stuck to him, the next she was demanding to be a thousand miles away.

Juliet all but had a breakdown at Christmas when they were snowed in and all the international flights were cancelled. She spent Christmas Day in bed, crying her eyes out, and even a Skype calls from Grace, Lenny and her cousins, her gran and granda and Kyle didn’t help. She was inconsolable, and nothing he did seemed to make a difference. She was unfocused, and her ability to learn was suffering.

‘What can I do?’ he begged her, but she said she was fine and asked him to please leave her alone, so he did. She was deeply unhappy and there seemed to be nothing he could do. I’m failing. I’m letting her down.

‘What do you think the best thing to do is?’ Francie asked one night when they were talking on the phone.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bollocks,’ he said.

‘Don’t be cryptic – I’m not able for cryptic.’

‘Ask yourself: what does she need, and do it. That’s what being a parent is.’

‘It’s not working here,’ he said, and the words fell out of his mouth like lead plates.

‘So sort it.’

‘It’s not that easy. I can’t let Casey down.’

‘Casey will find another drummer. All that little girl has is you,’ Francie said.

That was it. The decision was made, the course of his life utterly changed during one conversation. But deep down he’d known it was inevitable; from the moment he asked his dying sister to consider him as Juliet’s guardian his life had changed utterly. It just took him a year and a half to notice.

He knocked on Juliet’s door, armed with his new plan.

She shouted at him: ‘Go away.’

‘I have news,’ he said.

‘Please, Davey, please go away.’

She sounded so terribly sad.

‘I’m sorry, Bunny,’ he said, and he was met with silence, ‘but I was thinking, as soon as you finish your exams we could move back to Ireland. What do you think?’ he asked, talking to Juliet’s closed door. He heard a rustle and then footsteps on the floor, the door unlocking and creaking open. He was met with her puffy eyes and quivering lip.

‘Seriously?’ she asked.

‘Seriously.’