Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harry was the first of the members to arrive for the photo shoot arranged for early June. He released Earnest from the carrier. The cat stretched his front paws into a downward-facing dog before shaking his abundant fur and strolling into the room.
‘You look very smart,’ said Grace, taking in his navy blazer, pink and blue striped tie and shiny shoes.
‘It’s not every day we’re asked to model, is it Earnest?’ Earnest raised his dark face to Harry. ‘And don’t you look dapper in your new collar?’ He scratched Earnest under a baby blue collar, and was rewarded with a loud purr.
‘A new collar,’ said Grace. ‘Goodness me, we have pushed the boat out.’ She turned at the jingle of the doorbell.
Annie arrived wearing her usual striped T-shirt and jeans.
She considered Harry and pursed her lips.
‘You look all lovely and I’ve turned up in my everyday togs.
’ Earnest stalked over to her. ‘And even you’re dressed up in a lovely new collar.
’ She stroked him, his white fur flattening under her firm hand.
‘I can’t believe I’ve been outdressed by a cat. ’
‘You look great,’ said Rosie. She had her camera on a strap around her neck. ‘It’s important to feel comfortable, and you don’t want everyone to think they have to wear a bow tie when they turn up to book club, do you?’
‘Oh,’ said Harry, his mouth drooping. ‘I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Should I go home and change?’
‘No, of course not, sorry. I meant everyone should wear what they feel comfortable in.’ Rosie touched Harry’s arm. ‘You look perfect.’
‘Do you even own casual clothes, Hazza?’ said Annie.
Harry viewed his crisp shirt and the perfect crease in his trousers. ‘I sometimes go without a tie, if the occasion calls for informal attire.’
‘You’re fine as you are,’ said Rosie. ‘That’s what we want to convey in the pictures, isn’t it? That everyone is welcome, whatever their age, race, background?’
Jude lumbered through the door carrying a holdall. The sling was gone and Grace thought he looked very handsome in a baggy cream jumper and khaki combat trousers.
‘You’re late,’ said Rosie. ‘You were meant to be here half an hour ago to help set up.’
‘Sorry. I don’t know where the time went.’ He placed the bag carefully on the floor and began to take out a portable lighting rig and put it together. ‘I could have sworn I left enough time to get ready.’
‘Ha. Never heard that before,’ said Rosie.
‘You can talk,’ said Grace. ‘You’re not exactly Mrs Reliably Punctual, yourself.’
Rosie reverted to a child and stuck her tongue out at her mother, then turned back to Annie.
‘As I was saying, the fact you lot are all so different and you all read different kinds of books is …’ She trailed off as the doorbell rang again and they all turned to see Jasmine enter wearing a beautiful gold sari.
The shimmering material draped across one shoulder and over her arm, leaving the other bare.
Gold bangles glinted in the light as she crossed towards them.
Jude stopped adjusting the lighting rig. ‘Wow.’
‘I know it’s a lot,’ Jasmine said, smiling shyly. ‘But I decided it might encourage more people from my community to come if they saw me in traditional dress.’
‘You look stunning,’ said Rosie. ‘Absolutely stunning.’
Jasmine’s cheeks pinked. ‘Thanks. My mum couldn’t believe it when I came downstairs in this. She’s always telling me I suit a sari.’
‘You do,’ said Grace, glancing at Jude, who was all but dribbling.
Jasmine kicked at the embroidered hem, the toe of her satin slipper peeping out. ‘It’s not ideal when you’re running for a bus, though. I should at least have put my trainers on with it.’
‘Man, you look the dogs,’ said Crush, who came through from the stockroom carrying a pile of books.
She put them on a table. She wore her usual uniform of low-slung black jeans and a vest with skulls in a variety of sizes and colours.
Her thick hair hung over her eyes, shaggy as ever.
Grace hoped that made Annie feel a little better.
She hadn’t made a particular effort herself, but when you were almost seventy and your wardrobe consisted of grey, black or beige linen smocks over loose-fitting trousers and Doc boots, you already stood out from the crowd.
Jude once told her she was the coolest gran he knew, and that memory often made her smile when she assessed her outfits in the mirror in her bedroom. ‘Right, who are we waiting for?’
‘Just four or five more.’
At that moment, the door opened and a woman wearing an elegant bottle-green suit stepped through. It took Grace a moment to see past the suit and realize the woman was Tracy. ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Look at you, all suited and booted.’
Tracy grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all corporate on you.’ She lifted her gym bag. ‘I’ve got my usual clobber in here. I came straight from work, so haven’t had time to change yet.’
‘Sorry for asking you all to come this early,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s just that natural light is so much better.’
‘No worries,’ said Tracy. ‘All right if I change in the storeroom, Crush?’
‘Go up to the flat,’ said Crush. ‘Excuse the mess.’
Lee arrived a minute later, dressed in beige moleskins and checked shirt.
His hair was shiny, and his parting as exact as ever.
When Tracy reappeared in geometric print leggings, her face washed clean of make-up, Rosie corralled the group into the area with the sofa and chairs.
‘Can you all sit where you usually do at book club.’ She directed Jude to carry over a tripod with three bright lights dangling from a crossbar.
‘I know I said natural light is best, but we all like a bit of help, don’t we, so I brought back-up. ’
Grace found the muscles in her face didn’t quite know what to do when she was asked to smile for the camera.
Never one to enjoy having her picture taken, she found smiling naturally was almost impossible when people were watching.
Her fingers tingled to touch the scab on her nose, to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.
It was barely visible under the make-up she’d applied and would have gone completely had she not kept picking at it absentmindedly.
She glanced around and noticed Harry and Lee seemed to find it perfectly easy.
Even Earnest was looking directly into the lens.
‘I don’t know what to do with my hands,’ she said.
‘I’m grasping them in front of me like a maiden in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. ’
‘A what?’ said Jude.
Grace had to squint past the bright lights to see him. ‘The Pirates of Penzance?’ She suspected he was the wrong demographic and gave up. ‘I just feel a bit awkward.’ She picked up a book. That helped.
‘I think I’ve got the group shots, now,’ said Rosie, after moving around the group for ten minutes. ‘So you can all relax.’
Grace allowed her smile to drop and immediately felt like she had jowls that hung to her chest. She massaged her face with her fingers, glad to feel her jawline still where it usually was.
Crush pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. ‘What time did you say the journalist was coming?’
‘Around six-ish,’ said Grace. She’d had the brainwave to call up the Southeast London Examiner that morning and, to her delight, they’d agreed to send a reporter along to interview members of the book club about their new membership drive.
‘And you’re all right doing the interview?
’ asked Crush. Grace and Annie both nodded.
‘I’ve never talked to the press. Always let other members of the band do it, and then it became a bit of a thing.
Because I never spoke in interviews, journalists made it their mission to get something out of me.
The more they asked, the more I pushed back.
They were fascinated by this kid who’d been through the care system and become a rock star.
They wanted my story, but it was my story, you know?
I didn’t want them to manipulate it and make it something different.
I knew they’d twist it to the sensational splash they wanted, and I didn’t want to give them the chance.
’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘It’s one of my little Russian dolls, but I’m not opening it up for everyone else to handle. ’
‘That’s absolutely your right,’ said Grace. ‘And a very wise decision, in my opinion. No one has a right to your story.’ She momentarily wondered if she should be telling Frank’s story. She wished he was here to ask. Rosie, Jude and Paz were behind it, so she hoped she was doing the right thing.
‘Let’s do some individual shots now,’ said Rosie. ‘Can you all pick up your books? I’ll start with one with Crush behind the counter, if that’s okay?’
Crush dutifully took her copy of The L-Shaped Room by Lynn Reid Banks and stood in front of the yellow wall with the beautiful mural of ivy and floating book pages.
‘Maybe you could have the book open on the desk and lean on your elbows as if you’re reading in between customers?’ said Rosie, dipping down, holding the camera to her face as Crush did as she was directed.
‘It’s like the old days,’ said Crush, a grin spreading across her face, ‘only it’s a book instead of a bass.’
The door opened and all heads turned to see a man with stringy grey hair pulled back into a thin ponytail step into the shop. ‘Aye, aye,’ he said. ‘Some things never change.’
Crush’s smile dropped. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I work for the Southeast London Examiner these days, Penelope, didn’t you know? I see you’re still posing for the camera.’
Grace’s ears pricked up at the name. Crush didn’t look like a Penelope.
‘Why would I know where a sleazebag like you worked after you were thrown off Melody Maker? And it’s Crush to you, actually.’
The man dropped his head to one side. ‘Here’s me thinking I was in your every thought.
And I wasn’t thrown off Melody Maker, actually,’ he mimicked her tone.
‘It was … what did your band say when that dozy cow Dani was so coked up all the time she lost the ability to string two notes together?’ He tapped a long, dirty fingernail on his chin.
‘Artistic differences. And if you’d given me one little interview, things could have been different. ’
Crush drew herself up to her full height. ‘Whatever.’
‘So, shall we start?’ He didn’t acknowledge anyone else in the room. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’
Crush looked around at all the faces watching her.
The atmosphere had completely changed with this man’s arrival, as if he’d brought an unpleasant smell into the room with him.
Grace assessed his grey skinny jeans, the knees baggy with wear, greasy hair and tatty biker jacket and suspected if she got close enough there might be a bit of a whiff.
This wasn’t what she’d envisioned when she was on the phone to the Examiner.
She’d expected someone more Clark Kent than Catweazle.
‘You’ll be talking to Grace and Annie,’ said Crush. ‘Not me.’
‘I’m sure our readers would prefer to hear from an ex-member of Parker, than some old …’ He stopped. ‘Than two ladies from a silent book club. You have to give the audience what they want, you know that, Crush.’ He said her name with an obsequious air that made Grace want to slap him.
‘I don’t give interviews, you know that,’ said Crush, playing the same verbal game as him. She held the book to her chest. Grace could see she was uncomfortable.
‘We’re very happy to talk to you, Mr …?’ Grace stepped forwards and forced herself to hold out her hand.
‘Zed Fellows,’ said the man, taking Grace’s hand and shaking it limply. ‘And thank you, but I really would like to interview Crush.’
‘Not gonna happen. I didn’t talk to you back then and I’m not going to talk to you now, so if this is you trying to settle an old score, then you’re going to be disappointed.’
The man opened his arms and stuck out his bottom lip.
‘Old score? Surely you don’t think I’ve held a grudge for that long?
’ He nodded slowly. ‘You still have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?
All that silent, enigmatic stuff might’ve worked when you were a rock chick, but this is a business in a crowded market and I’m offering you free exposure, so you might want to climb down off your unicorn and enter the real world. ’
Crush slapped her book down on the counter, walked through the room, opened the door to the flat and disappeared.
‘I think that’s your answer, pal,’ said Rosie. ‘Now, where would you like to sit for the interview with Grace and Annie?’ She spoke firmly and Grace’s chest filled with pride. She didn’t want to talk to this odious man, but if it would help the book club and further Frank’s cause, then she would.