Chapter Twenty-Eight Tuscany Wednesday 5 August 2015
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tuscany
‘Happy hour again,’ commented the psychological thriller writer, a dry fellow called Martin Lang who was here to get away from his wife, or so he told everyone – daily, with a cheerful roll of the eyes – when everyone knew he was actually setting his next thriller right here in Arezzo, Tuscany.
‘It’s five o’clock somewhere,’ defended Henrietta, writer of the Anne Boleyn series of time-slip novels, ‘and who needs an excuse? We may be writing, but we’re still on holiday.’
Some writers’ retreats were alcohol-free zones; this one, at a beautiful Tuscan farmhouse on the rise of the Casentino Valley in Arezzo, was definitely not.
Henrietta had taken full advantage of the ‘all drinks included’ manifesto on the four days of the retreat so far.
At breakfast, then at the late lunch the writers would break for at 4 p.m. – with white, red and rosé supplied along with huge salads and tomato-and-mozzarella tarts – then at dinner served at 9 p.m. Margo, their host, was an Irish woman who had moved to Tuscany in the mid-1970s and was now fluent in both the language and the cookery.
The company was Henrietta, Martin, Clemmie and Samantha – two giggling fifty-somethings who both wrote romantic comedies set in Cornwall – and Olivia Sackville, who had now joined the ranks of bestselling authors.
Their table on the terrace had a yellow tablecloth and a saltshaker in the shape of a cockerel.
Double doors flung wide open behind them led to the spacious living room of Villa Margo and the six bedrooms that lay off it.
Beyond the pool and the boundary of the property were the sloping terraces of the vineyards that Olivia could see from her room with a view at the far end of the villa, and which they overlooked now: the combed neat lines of the vines, a red tractor rolling along a distant lane, a man in a cap sitting high on its seat.
All Olivia had wanted was sunshine, peace and quiet, a warm pool to swim in, a simple room with white bed linen and the breeze from an open window, and the quiet pressure of other writers.
It was new to her, the communal writers’ retreat – company – but her new novel was turning out to be an absolute pig.
She had written three quarters of it but still didn’t really know what it was about, so when her agent had told her of this retreat and encouraged her to go, after one of Olivia’s epic brainstorming (read: moaning) sessions, she’d taken a deep breath and agreed.
The other writers would spur her on. The other writers, slaving away, would inspire and motivate her. She would give it a try.
Between mealtimes, it was quiet when they all disappeared to their rooms, and if Olivia listened really carefully, she could hear the tap-tapping of keyboards and coffee cups being set down on tiled tables, and Henrietta’s snores.
For now, the air was filled with Martin’s laments about the London Book Fair, Henrietta’s slurps, and Clemmie and Samantha babbling like a stream through a brook about men and tropes and bestseller lists.
Clemmie nudged Samantha. ‘Go on, ask her,’ she said.
‘Ask who, what?’ Henrietta looked up from her drink.
‘Olivia,’ said Samantha, fixing her with an intense look. ‘We’ve been really respectful around you for the past four days, respected your privacy and all that, but now we have questions.’
Olivia smiled. ‘Go on.’ She adjusted the strap of her pink sundress, one she’d bought from a designer boutique on the King’s Road last year after a lunch with Stella and Annabel to celebrate her thirty-sixth birthday.
‘OK, how does it feel to have a bestselling book?’ said Samantha.
‘Or rather, bestselling books – a handful of them. To be a great big success, a superstar author, like “one of the top one per cent” successful. I mean, we’re floundering down at the bottom like minnows.
We’re doing OK . . .’ She looked at Martin and Henrietta, clearly including them.
‘We’re enjoying it. It’s a lovely life, writing – who wouldn’t think so?
We do make enough to come somewhere like this .
. .’ She wafted a hand around. ‘But to know that everyone is waiting for your next book to come out, actually waiting for it, bated breath waiting for it, and that you’re pretty much guaranteed every book is going to be a success. What is that like?’
Olivia considered her answer. ‘It’s really nice,’ she admitted, ‘and it can happen to anyone, I believe. You need a lot of luck and ideally a great marketing team, and you need constant hope, even when you feel you can’t possibly have any left.’
In 2010, The Florist on Fenton Street had continued to flounder, and Olivia continued to work at the London Library by day and the cleaning job by night.
She also continued working on her new book, The Stylist on Sydney Square, into which she poured more heart, and dug a little deeper emotionally.
It was about a woman living in a women’s refuge who preoccupies herself by cutting the hair of the other residents, then sets up a street salon for the homeless, and finally starts her own business – finding heart-stopping love along the way.
It was published by Dawkins Wright in early 2011 and by word of mouth, osmosis or magic, rather than marketing, it became a massive bestseller.
Readers said it was impossibly romantic, that it was bittersweet but uplifting, hopeful and inspirational, and the book flew all the way to the top of the Sunday Times Bestseller List and stayed there for several weeks.
Olivia’s career took off – whoosh! – and she was soaring, releasing a book a year, each and every one a great success, to her delight.
All the previous disappointment just fell away until she wondered if she would forget how it felt, the despair and the disenchantment of trying to make it as an author, but she knew she never would.
That every ounce of it was compounded into her happiness to make it an infinitely more satisfying drug.
The money, too, was great. She was finally comfortable.
She gave up the cleaning job, and her work at the London Library.
She sold the flat in Pimlico, packing up her memories of her father – along with quite a few tears – and taking them with her to her new house in Marylebone.
She had done it; she had achieved her dream, and she had done it all on her own.
‘Do you always get a book launch?’ asked Clemmie. ‘Laid on by the publishers? We have to organise things ourselves, don’t we, Sam?’
Sam nodded. Henrietta said she last did something at a brunch place, and had her own cake made, and Martin muttered something about a pub and three people turning up.
‘Yes, I do usually,’ Olivia admitted. ‘They are nice things to have, I suppose . . .’ For the book launch of The Stylist on Sydney Square at Parchment & Plots she had invited all of her friends, including Stella and Annabel, of course, ex-colleagues from the theatre, Alistair from the London Library, and Melodi, her partner-in-crime, who had drunk some of the fizz and had a great time.
It had been a wonderful evening. ‘Look, I’ve just been lucky, that’s all.
Really lucky. My first book was a complete flop, my second became a hit – it was all out of my hands!
Now, I just have to keep writing and doing the best I can. ’
‘Must be lovely, though.’ Clemmie sighed. ‘Success and fame.’
‘Well, I don’t think I’m actually famous . . .’
Success, Olivia thought, as she stirred her coffee.
It was lovely, but lovely things should be shared with others.
She had shared it with Stella and Annabel, and with James, in fact, for almost two years, until that had come to its natural end.
And now success kept a good part of her warm at night.
Very warm. But, she thought, as she looked around the eager faces at the table, there was another part of her that success couldn’t reach.
Another part that was lonely. But, of course, she wouldn’t be telling the present company that.
‘But you’ve been on Oprah’s Book Club! On the television. With Oprah. How on earth was that?’
‘It was . . . terrifying. OK, can we please stop talking about me? Who would like more coffee? I can go and find Margo . . .’
Olivia was rising from her seat. Clemmie had started to nudge Samantha again, but this time she was not looking at Olivia but behind her, down the cobblestone driveway to the iron gate at the front of the villa, where the red tractor had pulled up with a trailer on the back, and there was a man and a suitcase sitting inside it.
The man had his knees up, one elbow across them, and he was wearing a floppy cream suit, a white fedora and dark sunglasses.
‘Good Lord! Who’s that man?’ exclaimed Samantha.
Henrietta lowered her sunglasses and peered over the top of them. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she murmured appreciatively. The man climbed off the trailer and pulled his suitcase down after him, before brushing down the knees of his suit.
‘Looks dapper,’ said Martin, disconsolately considering his own Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and baggy shorts.
‘Definitely!’ said Clemmie admiringly.
Sam shielded her eyes and trained them on the figure who was now wheeling his case up the steep path. ‘Wine salesman?’ she suggested. ‘Twenty bottles of red in the suitcase?’
‘We are getting through rather a lot,’ observed Henrietta absently, shunting her sunglasses back up.
‘That’s not a wine guy!’ cried Clemmie, eyes like saucers. ‘That’s the crime writer, Leo Greene!’
Olivia sat back down. Leo Greene looked up, caught her eye and gave her a surprised half-wave. Henrietta was beaming. Martin looked excited. And Clemmie and Sam were simpering schoolgirls catching sight of that handsome lad from the school next door, the one they could never stand a chance with.