Chapter Thirty-One
Jasmine gawped around the glass room attached to Grace’s kitchen, her dark eyes reflecting the brightness outside.
It was early July, and miraculously the sun had shone for nearly a full week, turning the lawn beyond the glass more brown than green.
Cotton wool clouds skittered across the sky making it look like a pretty watercolour painting. ‘Wow.’
‘Grandpa designed all this,’ Jude said.
‘He was a man of many talents.’ She smiled at Grace, who was sitting at the table with a notepad open in front of her. ‘You two must’ve made a very impressive team.’
Heat rushed to Grace’s cheeks. ‘He was the impressive one. I was just the wing woman.’
‘Don’t put yourself down,’ said Crush, slapping Grace on the back, making her biro skid across the page.
‘You’re the one making all this happen.’ She pointed at the pad on the table which already bore a list of bullet points to action, then noticing the line across the page.
‘Sorry, don’t know my own strength.’ She took another look around the room.
‘You sourced all the furniture, am I right?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘Antiques have always been my passion.’
‘Cool,’ said Crush. ‘Do you keep your hand in?’
Grace nodded. ‘I’m sometimes asked to find pieces for customers I’ve worked with over the years. It’s nice to have a project.’ She grinned. ‘Not that I’m short of things to occupy me these days.’
‘I was wondering if you’d help me work on the bookshop?’ said Crush. ‘I’m a bit over the Friends vibe now. I think I’d like something classier, you know, dark wood, the odd signature piece.’
‘You can’t get rid of the orange sofa,’ said Jasmine. ‘Annie would kill you.’
Grace laughed. ‘I’m sure we could incorporate the old and the new.’ Her insides felt like they were glowing. Combining her old passion with her new seemed almost too good to be true.
‘All right. We’ll talk later, yeah?’ Crush nodded, appearing satisfied.
‘Great,’ said Grace. ‘Come and sit down, everyone.’
Crush dropped into a chair. ‘I can’t wait to rub our success in Zed Fellows’ nasty little weasel face.’
‘Hell yeah. Annie can’t make it today, right?’ Jude said.
He looked at Grace and she shook her head. ‘Afraid not. She’s got a cold and didn’t want to pass it on to the rest of us.’ That’s what her text said, and Grace had no choice but to take her at her word.
‘Okay. Hope she’s better by the time we record.
’ He looked at the notes on the pad. ‘Now, the first point on the agenda is the venue for recording the videos about the books we’ve chosen.
How did you get on with that Jasmine?’ Grace was impressed by Jude’s professionalism.
If only they’d known this was in his future when he was a timid seven-year-old.
She could see him now, tears rolling down his cheeks because he had a spelling test the next day and, no matter how many times he went over and over the letters, he wrote every word differently each time he tried.
Rosie told her about finding him awake at midnight, hours after she’d turned off his bedroom light, scouring the page of his spelling book, still trying to learn the words.
Even the memory of his tear-stained cheeks was enough to bring a lump to Grace’s throat, fifteen years later.
She looked at him now as he watched Jasmine, his face serious, and wished she’d been able to tell him this was his future back then.
She wished she could have told all of them, her small family, so full of love and concern for each other.
Despite Frank’s loss, she knew how lucky she was to have them.
‘BBC Radio Kent have agreed to give us two hours in one of their recording studios to do our stuff in return for an interview for them to broadcast, so I’m pretty happy with that result.
’ Jasmine seemed ten years older than she looked when she was speaking too, although in Grace’s eyes that still only made her the age she actually was.
She tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear as she looked around the group.
‘Interviews?’ said Crush. She bit her bottom lip. ‘I’d rather—’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Jasmine, holding out her hand. ‘I told them this is entirely about the book club, and that you don’t do interviews. You won’t be asked to do any more than your slot on the novels you’ve chosen, I promise.’
‘Legend,’ said Crush, punching Jasmine on the arm. Jasmine wobbled and Grace wondered if they’d all end up with unintentional bruises from Crush’s affectionate thumps by the end of their endeavours.
‘Two birds with one stone,’ said Grace. ‘Excellent work.’
‘I know. I was pleased with the offer,’ said Jasmine, a shy smile making round apples of her cheeks. ‘They get content, and we get a professional set-up and additional exposure. Win-win.’
‘And are you sure about letting us use “Puncture Wounds” as the signature tune?’ said Jude, looking earnestly at Crush.
‘Yeah, seriously, no problem. I’ve spoken to everyone from the band, and they’re cool with it.
I mean, they should be, I wrote the damn lyrics as well as the bass line.
’ Crush laughed. ‘I still made them both email with their written consent, though. When you’ve been burned as much as I have in that industry, you end up trusting no one entirely, not even the people you used to think of as family.
’ She leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her.
‘If we’d been half as savvy back then, I’d be living on a yacht off St Tropez now, not running a bookshop. ’
Grace remembered something she’d read about Parker taking out a lawsuit against its management shortly after the group disbanded. She didn’t recall the outcome, but from what Crush just said, it didn’t sound like it ended well for them.
‘Is it wrong to say I’m glad you run our local bookshop?’ said Grace.
‘Is it wrong to say I am too?’ Crush grinned. ‘I’d be bored out of my fucking mind on that yacht.’
‘Cheers to that.’ Jasmine lifted her water, and they all clinked glasses across the table. ‘That song is so perfect for the project,’ she said.
Crush took a breath and closed her eyes.
‘Tell me, baby, the story of your life, how the words are puncture wounds, and who it was that held the knife.’ She crooned the chorus of Parker’s biggest ballad as they all watched in silence.
The hairs on Grace’s arms lifted, and above them, the sun chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud.
***
There was excited chatter in Grace’s car on the drive to the BBC Kent studios in Tunbridge Wells two weeks later.
Harry was in the passenger seat, Earnest in his bag on his lap, and Lee and Tracy sat in the back.
Annie and Jude opted to go in Jasmine’s car, reasoning they would at least be able to sit up straight in her Ford Focus.
Grace quietly asked Annie how she was before they set off, and if Jack was okay, but Annie brushed the questions away, saying they were both fine.
Grace wasn’t convinced, but what could she do?
‘You’re all very good to take a day off work for this,’ said Grace, pulling into the underground car park Jasmine had told her to park in.
‘My company are good about charitable work,’ said Tracy.
Grace and the others had spent a lot of time making sure their fundraising was compliant with the rules about charities.
They wanted to get it right and she was pleased Paz was dealing with the admin and the bank account they’d opened in order to make things official.
‘Companies like Burberry typically give at least one per cent of their profit to charitable initiatives,’ said Lee.
‘That’s great,’ said Grace, wondering why Lee was telling her about Tracy’s company.
‘What is it you do, again, Lee? Sorry if you’ve told me and I’ve forgotten.
I’ve got a brain like a sieve.’ In truth, she didn’t think her brain was any more porous than anyone else’s, but she got the impression Lee would take offence if someone didn’t store the valuable information he regularly bestowed.
‘I manage a team,’ he said. ‘I’m a line manager. I have fifteen staff under me.’
‘Oh, right. Very, erm, impressive.’ Grace noted she still had no idea what he did, other than that he was in charge of other people. He’d like that, she thought, then chided herself for being mean. He was giving up his time for book club. That was the behaviour of a nice man.
‘Man management was the most difficult part of my job,’ said Harry.
‘It was de rigueur to yell at the troops when I started out, as if that was the only leadership quality an officer needed. At first, when I found myself shouting orders at people twice my age, I wondered why they did what I said, but within months, I’d got used to being obeyed immediately and yelled more if I wasn’t.
So odd, now I look back. I think things have changed a lot since my day, and for the better in my opinion. ’
‘I’m not so sure. Recruitment for the armed forces is down significantly,’ said Lee, a touch of condescension in his voice.
Harry glanced at him briefly in the rear-view mirror, but said nothing and Grace was glad to see Jasmine’s car draw up beside hers. They all clambered out and greeted each other warmly, although Lee was less effusive than the others.
Jasmine led them up some steps and into a covered walkway. Through a window on her left, Grace was astonished to see a man sitting at a mixing desk with headphones on, speaking into an enormous furry microphone. ‘Is that a radio studio?’
‘Yep,’ said Jasmine, as the others peered through the window.
They followed her through to the High Street and left to the front of a tall stone building.
She pressed a buzzer and told the voice that crackled through a speaker who they were.
A moment later the door opened and a woman with a lanyard around her neck told them to follow her.
Grace’s eyes were wide, taking everything in as they were led through a door on the left to the green room.
She’d never been in a green room before.
Up until she joined book club, she spent most of her time inside her own four walls.
How had the world taken this unexpected turn? And why wasn’t the green room green?
Her thoughts were interrupted when the man who they’d spied through the window appeared from one of the doors at the far end of the room. He approached Jasmine with a huge smile on his face. ‘So good to see you again.’
‘And you. Thanks so much for having us in.’ She turned to the group.
‘Everyone, this is Toby, one of the stars of BBC Radio Kent. Toby, this is Grace, she’ll be the host of our interviews, then we have the members of the book group.
’ She introduced them all by turn, adding, ‘I hope it was okay to bring our club cat, Earnest?’ Harry lifted the bag, to show Earnest’s face through the mesh on the side.
‘He’s a very well-behaved house cat and we’ll keep hold of him so he’s not roaming around. ’
Toby put his hands to his face. ‘A Balinese. Oh, he’s beautiful.’
Harry grinned. ‘We had a very energetic morning of climbing and playing, so he should be quite calm.’
‘No problem.’ Toby turned to Crush. ‘Excuse me while I have a little fanboy moment.’ He held Crush’s hand between both of his. ‘I still play Parker every chance I get.’
‘Thank you for the royalties,’ she grinned. ‘All two pounds fifty.’
Toby laughed. ‘And can I just say what a brilliant idea this project is. I’m an avid reader myself and can totally see how this kind of thing could work for so many people.’
‘Thank you for helping us get the word out there,’ said Jasmine.
‘And whoever came up with the concept, well …’ He clapped his hands. ‘I bet Lauren Laverne will be straight on the phone trying to get in on the action when she hears what you’re doing. Move over Desert Island Discs, Desert Island Reads is in da house.’