Chapter 41
Despite several drinks with Rupert after dinner, I wake early, surprisedly clear-headed. He beams, waving, as I spot him occupying a window table at breakfast. ‘Fabulous! Boarding-school eggs,’ he enthuses when his full English arrives.
‘Honestly, you like them like that?’ I ask. For a posh hotel, the scrambled egg looks particularly rubberised.
‘Oh, yes. Best part of the day.’ He chuckles and sips his coffee, taking a bite out of the sausage.
‘Texture of a horsehair mattress.’ He grins, and I imagine his childhood home, a grand pile out in Berkshire, lumpen beds sprawled on by golden retrievers.
For a moment, he looks wistful. I wonder if he’s missing the big tin of Nescafé at the bookshop.
‘Only because my mother was a top class egg-rubberiser,’ he adds.
I laugh and spread honey from one of the miniature jars onto my toast. I decide not to mention how thrilling I find them – these tiny jars of honey and marmalade and jam.
Our jovial conversation has petered out anyway, and having devoured the rest of his breakfast, Rupert has pushed his plate aside.
‘I think I’ll pop back to my room and have a little lie-down before this thing today,’ he announces.
I look at him in surprise. ‘D’you feel okay? About doing your talk, I mean? You look a bit stressed…’
‘Just a bit!’ He grimaces. ‘Public speaking? It’s my worst nightmare.’ He picks up his coffee and drains it, wiping his mouth on what I’d call a serviette and he would definitely call a napkin. ‘Don’t mind if I dash off, do you?’
‘Er, no. Of course not,’ I say, and off he goes.
I’m grateful, actually, for a little time to dawdle over breakfast. Having been given a top-up of coffee, I’m planning on doing another circuit of the buffet, and remember how thrilled Cora was the one time I managed to take us abroad on holiday.
The Spanish resort was a little down at heel but the breakfast buffet – ‘a choosing breakfast’, she called it – was magical.
We’d heaped our plates, giggling over how much we’d taken, but still managing to guzzle it all.
However, when I go back up to the buffet my appetite has gone, and I think of Rupert in his room, revving himself up for the ordeal ahead.
As I leave the restaurant I check my phone for the umpteenth time.
Shane still hasn’t replied – although my message has been read – and I take this to mean there’ll be no more contact between us.
Charming, I think. But then my behaviour hasn’t been exemplary either.
In the hotel foyer, a little concerned now, I call Rupert. ‘Just thought I’d check everything’s okay and if I can help with anything?’
‘No, I’m fine, Josie. But thank you.’
I start to head up the thickly carpeted stairs. ‘So you have all your notes and everything?’
‘Virtually a thesis!’ he exclaims.
‘Can I pop up for a moment? Are you decent?’
He splutters. ‘Of course I’m decent.’
I find him pacing around his room and sweating visibly, his cheeks florid. He grabs a tiny bottle from the desk at the window and waves it at me. ‘Rescue Remedy,’ he announces.
‘Does that work?’ I ask.
‘Hope so. This is a little embarrassing, Josie, but I should explain that I’m prone to panic attacks—’
‘Oh, I had one too,’ I cut in, ‘when I was driving.’
‘Really?’ he exclaims, and I nod.
‘It was pretty scary. A doctor told me it’s your body’s response to stress.
’ I don’t add that simply talking to this new specialist at the surgery seemed to ease something in me.
Perhaps I’d just needed to feel heard? I nearly cried as she explained – patiently – how a combination of progesterone tablets and oestrogen gel could help me.
It seems I should never have been prescribed antidepressants at all.
‘But Josie,’ Rupert says, ‘you’re always so calm and in control!’ Has he forgotten that I stormed out of the shop? ‘I used to take beta blockers,’ he adds, ‘but my doctor said they were bad for my heart…’
‘You have heart problems?’ I exclaim.
He grins, teeth bared. ‘Only in situations like this.’
I look at him, overcome by a surge of sympathy.
I want to hug this man, panicking in his sea of notes, ink blots staining his fingers.
It’s often intrigued me, how he has this innate confidence whenever wealthy buyers saunter into the shop, whereas I often feel ill-prepared for life, as if dropped randomly into the wrong place – even with my own daughter.
‘I’ll do it,’ I announce.
‘What? You’ll do what?’ Rupert asks.
‘I’ll do your talk – your speech or whatever – if you’d like me to.’
He splutters and shakes his head. ‘You can’t do that—Can you?’
No, I can’t, I think as I perch on an unyielding ornate armchair.
At least, this kind of thing is not what I’m good at.
Not at all. Some people, when they’re raised by timid parents, go the opposite way.
They’re fiery and brave and won’t let anything get in their way.
With my mum and dad, their fearfulness seeped into me.
The pulling out of every plug at night, bar the fridge.
The refusal to go on holiday anywhere other than Mrs Blackfoot’s guest house in Morecambe because ‘it’s what we know. ’
My wonderful parents, I reflect a little while later, as I sit at the desk in Rupert’s room, wading through his unintelligible notes for his speech.
Lovely Mum and Dad, putting on their bravest faces as they’d waved me off to London with Dale Watson.
It must have been awful for them. I’d been shocked when they’d announced, suddenly, that they were moving to the Northumbrian coast, to be near Mum’s sister.
Leaving the house they’d moved into just after it had been built in 1951!
It seemed utterly out of character. But maybe they were actually braver than I was.
After all, I’d left my home town in a hurry with no plans, no thoughts of how I’d survive, and barely any money.
That wasn’t brave. I was just running away – from Shane and Ravi, from everything, really.
I didn’t even know what I hoped to find.
I pore over Rupert’s inky scribbles, relieved that he headed out to let me crack on with this alone.
Checking my phone, I realise with a start that the conference kicks off in less than an hour.
He only ever writes with a fountain pen from a little stationery store in Knightsbridge.
However hard I try to decipher his blots and scribbles, it doesn’t make any sense.
So I decide to start afresh. I glance through the tall bay window, aware that Rupert is out there somewhere, pacing around, possibly having a cigarette.
For a moment I watch a woman strolling along across the lawn with a small, fluffy white dog.
A gardener is clipping at shrubs. Nothing bad can happen here, I tell myself.
And then I focus on the matter in hand, using my notes app to write a speech. Realising that it wouldn’t look good to be constantly checking my phone, I copy out my main points on a sheet of thick cream hotel notepaper.
I plan to talk about how a small business like ours – is it okay to say ‘ours’?
– is steeped in history and that’s what people love, discovering our little tucked-away shop off Piccadilly.
They come in, wide-eyed, as if they’ve discovered treasure which, in a way, they have.
Or perhaps they’re regulars. We have plenty of those.
People who wander in for a browse and a chat, just for the joy of it.
A tucked-away corner of London where they can enjoy a little respite from the bustle of the everyday.
We specialise in art books because who doesn’t love beautiful things?
No one needs a precious book filled with sketches or etchings or the most amazing paintings ever made.
But who doesn’t love to see these things?
That’s what I say as I stand on the stage, not in a band of three now, with Ravi as our frontperson, but completely on my own.
A solo performer. In the huge conference room, with its glittering chandeliers, in front of hundreds of people, I talk about the passion we have for our bookstore and how every customer is special to us, whether they spend hundreds of pounds on a single book, or just want to wander around and inhale the atmosphere. How everyone is welcome.
‘I’ve learned this from Rupert,’ I say, catching his eye.
He’s sitting, bolt upright, at a table with some new friends he’s made from a railway enthusiasts’ bookshop in York.
He raises his eyebrows and smiles. ‘In our modern world,’ I continue, my voice wobbling only slightly as it rings across the room, ‘service and sales aren’t enough.
Yes, our online sales are the backbone of what we do.
But that wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for our beautiful shop, tucked away in a little arcade, that people love to step into.
We need the personal touch, and passion, and we need to matter. ’
I stop and realise my hands are shaking. There’s a tiny lull and the tinkle of crockery somewhere. And then the applause starts and I realise the whole room is clapping enthusiastically.
I press a hand to my mouth, hardly able to believe what I’ve just done; that I managed to pull this off.
An image of Ravi, clutching the mic at one of our gigs, pops into my brain: how fearless she was.
Perhaps a little of her bravery has finally rubbed off on me?
Then I glance to my right, where one of the conference organisers mouths ‘well done!’, and I step down off the stage and stride across the room, weaving my way between tables.
Rupert stands up and waves. I zoom to his table and flop down with a gasp of relief, onto the chair next to him that he’s saved for me.