Chapter Eight
Conversation had stalled after that, Petra remembered when she was lying in bed later, regretting her quip. She had been trying
hard, since arriving in Portneath, but there was seemingly no end to her talent for saying the wrong thing.
Perhaps it was because she was a literary agent—an ex-literary agent—but she was pining to know more. Ross had definitely been given a two-book deal, so what had happened to his
advance for book two? Had he been made to pay it back? It was rare, but she had heard of that happening. He didn’t seem to
be working but clearly had some money . . . she mustn’t be nosy . . . But—ooh—she wondered how much that book had made him? Probably not as much as the man
on the street thought, she told herself, knowing the industry too well.
Feeling mildly ashamed of her nosiness, and not able to sleep, Petra reached for her phone. She googled his name—not for the
first time—and found the Bookseller article about the signing, and then—of course—there had been all the coverage about the debut book’s extraordinary success.
These all basically said the same thing.
He was from a tiny village in the Scottish Highlands.
His father was a postman; his mother worked in a factory; he had been exceptional in school, receiving a full scholarship to a prestigious Edinburgh academy and then getting a scholarship to Oxford; he completed his creative writing MA with distinction by his mid-twenties, debuting his first novel at just twenty-nine years old, and then .
. . tumbleweeds. He had no LinkedIn profile, or any other social media presence, come to that: no writing website, no author page, and his agent no longer listed him as a client on the agency website.
So, she concluded, putting her phone down with a sigh, as before, Ross McCloud, darling of the literary world, had deliberately
and thoroughly scrubbed himself from the map. And the single thing she was dying to know was also the one topic of conversation
she dared not bring up with him. People didn’t suddenly lose their abilities for no reason. If she knew anything about storytelling,
it was that when something dramatic changed, there was always an inciting incident. So . . . what had been his?
In the same ballpark, she admitted to herself as she snuggled down to sleep, were other hopelessly impertinent, unaskable
questions such as—their now almost-daily catch-ups notwithstanding—what was he doing with himself for the rest of the time?
She was increasingly sure he was writing again. He had hinted as much.
Now, that was something her re-emerging literary agent self was dying to read.
Petra would do most things to avoid conflict, so when Tuesday evening came around, she was genuinely nervous.
Flo’s instructions were to do very little in preparation, so after closing Petra just fiddled around, clearing a space in the middle of the shop and putting out some chairs.
She gave the mugs a good wash too, as they were quite stained, and dug out a couple of plates for the chocolate biscuits to go on.
She had splashed the petty cash for some fancy chocolate ones, hoping to quell any violence via distraction.
Flo arrived first, with Diana and Mungo in tow.
Having only ever seen Diana from a distance, Petra discovered she was just as elegant up close: a tall woman in her sixties
or seventies with an armful of tinkling silver bracelets, a glamorous mane of blond-gray hair, and a general impression of
trailing chiffon scarves. She smelled absolutely delicious too.
Mungo, a man of a similar age to Diana, was also pristine, with his pressed woolen trousers and a scarlet sweater that looked
so soft it could only be cashmere. He responded to Flo’s introductions in a deep, gentle voice, taking Petra’s hand in both
his own. She would have avoided this if she could without being rude, as—through nerves—her paw was so cold and sweaty.
“You’re freezing,” he exclaimed, rubbing her hand between his warm, dry ones with their impeccably clean nails. Nobody got
their nails that shiny without buffing, Petra thought. “You poor thing,” he went on, chafing briskly and then insisting on
repeating the maneuver on her other one. “Is there some heating you can put on? Would you like to borrow my jersey?” he added,
making as if to strip it off there and then.
“I’m fine!” Petra assured him, but he insisted on fetching the little electric space heater from the office and then went
to find her in the tiny kitchen behind the shop to help with the coffee and tea.
“I can do all this,” he assured her, waving her away. “Why don’t you go out and talk to Diana. She loves having new people to boss around.”
Flo and Diana were deep in intense conversation. “The peasants are revolting,” Diana was declaring. “There are ‘factions.’
There will be blood before the evening’s out,” she added darkly. “’Specially as it’s Beatrice’s turn to choose the next book
and she always chooses such dreary ones.”
“Goodness, so she does,” agreed Flo, turning to Petra. “Well, that’ll get everything out in the open, at least. Something
has got to give.”
“There won’t be actual fighting, will there?” asked Petra anxiously, remembering Ross chuckling over the “handbags at dawn” suggestion. God knows
what passed for normal behavior in these circles.
Diana and Flo both broke into peals of laughter. “Absolutely not,” Flo said at last, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye.
“Poor child. We’ve frightened her half to death with our dramas.”
“It’ll be fine,” Diana reassured Petra, rubbing her upper arm bracingly. “Leave it to me. I’m used to making people behave
themselves.”
“It’s ‘do as you say, not as you do,’ then,” Mungo interjected cheekily as he came into the shop with a laden tray of mugs
and chocolate biscuits.
Diana threw him a quelling look, but it didn’t look to Petra as if he took much notice. Clearly this was all just the normal
banter between the two of them, much like the relationship she had with Ross. Was she allowed to call it a “relationship”?
she wondered. What was it now anyhow? A friendship? Something else?
There was no time to ponder as people seemed to arrive constantly from that point.
Soon there was a circle of eight women, with Mungo as the token male.
They were all chattering loudly, exclaiming over the fancy chocolate biscuits and helping each other to tea from the big tin kettle.
It all seemed perfectly affable to Petra. For now.
Two women who introduced themselves to Petra as Joan and Muriel—and could only have been sisters, they looked so ridiculously
alike—set themselves slightly apart from the others, chatting quietly just to each other, until Diana called them to order.
“So, the book was The Fox Wife; who’s read it?” Diana raised her own hand and cast her eye around the circle. “Up or down, Genny?” she queried a sweetly
smiling woman in a denim shirt, who couldn’t have been much older than Petra.
“Ish?” Genny replied. “I didn’t quite get to the end.”
“Shall we avoid talking about the ending, for Genny’s sake?” Diana asked the group, generating a quiet moan from more than
one quarter.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry!” interjected Genny quickly. “I don’t mind! I think I’ve guessed it anyway . . . I’ll be interested
to find out if I’m right.”
Even this exchange made Petra nervous, but—after that—things seemed to go smoothly. They were a nice bunch, and the love of
reading was apparent. It was delightful seeing people get excited about books, Petra thought, remembering with a pang how
she too had loved reading as a hobby. Now it was her job, and there was no returning to those innocent and joyful times, not
entirely.
Petra was aware of The Fox Wife but hadn’t read it, feeling it would require too much brainpower and concentration, both things she had very much lacked in the months prior to leaving London.
It was amazing to realize now how much that inability to concentrate had been panicking her.
Even remembering it now was making her anxiety levels soar.
“All right?” murmured Mungo, who was sitting beside her. His expression was a mixture of concern and reassurance, making Petra’s
eyes flood with tears. Now he—and anyone else who noticed—would have her down as an anxious wreck, she told herself angrily.
Great.
She gave him a wobbly smile, and he surreptitiously whipped out a pristine white handkerchief, passing it to her under cover
of the book he was holding in his lap. She dabbed gratefully.
“Better?” he asked, out of the corner of his mouth, while looking dead ahead.
She nodded. “Thank you, you’re so sweet,” she whispered.
There it was again: that feeling she had had after meeting Freya, Flo, and the others. It was a community that had each other’s
backs. And that they had a good life out here, miles from London, where she had convinced herself the action was, several
unrelentingly stressful years ago. People were happy here. And kind.
Diana had been leading the discussion with questions about the book, but now people had stopped addressing the whole room
with their thoughts and were chatting among themselves until Diana clapped her hands. Silence fell instantly.
“Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts on tonight’s book. I think we can all agree it was a pleasant, entertaining, and thought-provoking
read. Thank you, Genny, for proposing it.”
“Even though you were the only one not to finish it,” quipped someone.
Genny smiled ruefully. “One word,” she said. “Ofsted inspection. Okay, two words,” she admitted with a shrug.
“For context,” Mungo whispered to Petra, “Genny is head teacher at Middlemass primary.”
At the mention of the school, Petra remembered she had wanted to ask Flo whether Capelthorne’s was supporting schools. She
didn’t want any of Jules and Roman’s initiatives to dissolve away on her watch.
“Aaanyway,” said Diana, looking around the room to quell further interruptions, “our next choice comes from Beatrice, of course.
Beatrice, have you chosen?”