Chapter 3 Ed
Chapter three
Ed
The garden at the rear of Bess' gallery and café is scraggly in summer growth and neglect. Against the back wall, Lutek's workshop issues the crackle and spit of metallic artistry within.
It is wholesome and steadying and I breathe it in before telling myself I am a big, brave boy and if I can damn well take on Bess Harvey, I can damn well reach her to do it.
I push open the door to the internal stairwell that gives access to the flats above and the roof above them, and wish for approximately the sixty-third time that Bess preferred to have post-work debriefs in the pub like a normal person, or within the four walls of her flat where falling to your death isn't on the list of imminent dangers. Or any list.
But this is her chosen space to unwind and I must endure it if I want to spend time with her.
I absolutely want to spend time with her.
Opening the door to the roof, I spy Bess in the far corner, reclining in a sun lounger. I can't help but stop and hold my breath and watch her before the impulse to be near her takes over.
I can't see her face. I can't see much of her from this angle, in fact, but I drink in her presence anyway.
Bess Harvey has a loud presence. Even when she's not saying anything. The things she does with the intention she gives them is...bold. And it's hard not to admire her for it.
Take now for instance. She takes a sip from a glass and raises a pair of binoculars.
This is because Bess is, apparently, an "avid urban bird watcher", but in reality, a G'n'T and a nosy squiz at other people's lives from the comfort of a sun lounger on the gallery roof is how she prefers to relax at the end of a working day.
Voyeurism is not a particularly laudable pastime, which I have pointed out to her, but in typical Bess fashion, she's completely unapologetic about it. Her rule is no looking at anything conducted in private: No windows, no back yards.
I have also pointed out to her that being a voyeur with one principle is probably cold comfort to those she spies on. It didn't make her voy – or whatever the verb form of voyeur is – less, though.
Bold is not part of my vernacular. I am uncomfortable with the idea of behaving loudly, but it makes Bess exceptional. Sure – misguided and somewhat startling on occasions, but exceptional never-the-less.
No longer able to resist the pull into her orbit, I make my way over to her. The spare sun lounger squeaks as I lower myself into it.
Without removing the binoculars, Bess acknowledges my company by saying, "Mrs Kavanagh is digging another hole in her front yard. Haven't seen her husband since the winter."
I don't respond. The notion is utterly ridiculous and we both know it. But Bess pursues it anyway to get a reaction, or for entertainment, but most likely for both.
She adjusts the focus. "She dug one two days ago, but there's nothing growing out of it. It's just a mound of dirt. Much easier to dispose of parts, I s'pose, than an entire body at her age."
Of course I'm entertained. She is always entertaining, but I play my part anyway by clucking my tongue. "I think my eyeballs just got friction burn off the back of their sockets."
"Still, her roses could do with the fertiliser. Waste not want not."
The whole thing's a marginally good distraction technique. But she's only delaying the conversation I need to have with her. I pull in a slow lungful of air through my nose. My exhalation has a hint of sigh to it. "Bess?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think next time there's inappropriate behaviour in the library you could have, I don't know, a conversation with the patrons?"
I wait for her to point out it's not her job to police my library, and yet she is called on to do exactly that whenever I'm absent, so she'll do it her way if she damn well wants to. This, unsurprisingly, is not our first Bess-metes-out-vigilante-justice-in-the-library rodeo.
Instead, she says flatly, "Doesn't make for good sport."
Good sport. I want to be mad, and I know my role as library manager is to be mad, but I just can't find it within me to be anything other than mildly irritated and somewhat amused.
She lowers her binoculars and I see her extraordinary face for the first time in twenty-four hours.
It's like being bathed in the first rays of sunrise, which might be a bit of a cliché, but it absolutely has that effect on me.
She has almond-shaped eyes, accentuated by flicks of eyeliner in each corner.
They are light hazel and utterly heart-arresting when they fall on you.
She reaches for the thermos by the side of her recliner and her light-brown hair slides off her shoulders to obscure my view of her face. I won't go as far as adding another cliché such as "and it's like the clouds shrouded the sun", but I am tempted.
The ice cubes tinkle as she unscrews the top. Pouring a drink into the thermos' lid, she hands it to me and holds her glass for a clink.
Her eyes meet mine and my heart arrests. But only for a breath before I re-assume my role and pull my cup out of clinking range. I throw in some eye narrowing for good measure.
She shrugs. "Suit yourself." She takes a sip from her glass then plucks a crisp from the open packet on the table between the loungers.
I thumb the TikTok app open on my phone and hold the screen out for her to see. "Today's stunt wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?"
The video shows an interior of a plane. The plane Bess was in during her recent return journey from visiting her parents after their latest attempt to reboot their marriage by moving to The Isle of Mull in The Inner Hebrides.
The camera jerks and there's a chorus of startled screams.
A woman clutches the armrest with white knuckles, her eyes screwed tightly shut.
The man next to her crosses himself.
The footage continues to jump, people continue to loudly express their fear, and the camera swivels around to Bess' face.
She does not look impressed.
She says, "This is the worst turbulence I've ever experienced in my thirty-odd years of flying, and you know the thought that's most pressing in my mind right now?
It's not 'I'm too young to die', or 'If I get out of this alive, I'll stop my selfish ways and volunteer at an animal shelter'.
No. It's 'I'll be really pissed off if we crash and I don't get to finish this book'. "
She thrusts the cover at the camera, the title and author big and clear. "The only romance I allow in my life is through the medium of fiction. This book is really bloody good and I need to know how it ends." She says the last words through the gritted teeth of frustration and impatience.
Bess pulls the book out of shot. The camera shudders violently and an oxygen mask appears in front of her face.
The chorus of screams ratchet up a notch in volume and pitch.
Turning her head towards the aisle, she shouts, "Shut up everyone, I'm trying to read!"
The video ends.
Neither Bess nor I say anything for a moment.
I know I shouldn't probably be amused by it, but it's so very hard not to be. I make a semi-decent display of pretending not to be anyway. "Your unlimited ability to show sympathy for your fellow human beings constantly amazes me."
Bess waves a dismissive hand. "It's not as if we were actually going to die. When was the last time a passenger jet crashed on British soil?"
She's not wrong, but I am obliged to call her out on her flippancy. "And you took it as an opportunity to exploit their suffering for your own exposure?"
"I didn't expect exposure. I expected the five people who follow me to think it as amusing as I did. It's not my fault it went viral and made the author a kajillion dollars in book sales."
"Right. Which, based on today's stunt, has also turned lucrative for you. How much did the author of whatever book you got in shot pay you?"
She places her glass to her lips and says the words quickly before taking a drink. The "five thousand pounds" is loud and base-y in the near empty glass.
Five thousand pounds?
I voice my incredulity by saying, "Five thousand pounds?"
"It's the going fee for an influencer on Booktok with a large following, okay?" She says with mild petulance. "I don't set the market rates." She aims the binoculars at Mrs Kavanagh again, but she must have gone, because she raises them to scan the row of houses behind.
I allow this new potentially lucrative reality for Bess to sink in for a few seconds. And as much as I think I should be disapproving, I'm right back at admiration. I tell her as much.
She lowers the binoculars and looks at me. "Because I'm an entrepreneurial badass?"
"Pretty much. God, what I'd give for being paid what I'm worth, let alone five thousand pounds a minute.
" I am, like all people employed in a female-dominated industry, woefully underpaid for what I do.
"Or do you actually read the books you pimp?
So it's more like five hundred pounds an hour.
Which is less hitman and more lawyer, but – " I wag my head from side to side, calculating the amount. "– still an unbelievable rate of pay."
Bess sniffs. It sounds defensive. Probably because it is. "I...no comment."
I can't let that lie. "You push a product you haven't actually sampled?"
"I read the first couple of pages and it didn't grab me. Look, ultimately it doesn't matter."
"No. Not if you have absolutely zero integrity."
Ignoring me, Bess says, "At the end of the day, I'm an artist and what I'm doing with those videos is a form of art.
The authors – or their publicists know this.
" She raises a finger. "For which, I finally get remunerated.
Do you know how much money I've been paid in my entire artistic endeavours?
Zero. Once, a painting I did of a stained-glass roof depicting male genitalia, raised twenty pounds in a charity auction for the coastguard. I'd called it 'Crass Ceiling'."
I snort. "As in 'glass ceiling'?"