Chapter Forty-Four
Grace and the others stayed in the bar area until all the seats in the ballroom were filled.
The air was thick with chatter until Lee signalled that everyone was in, and it was time to begin.
He dimmed the house lights, and silence fell as the small stage area at the far end of the room lit up with spotlights suspended from a bar on the ceiling.
Annie grabbed Grace’s hand, and their little group crept in to stand at the back of the room, nerves jangling.
Whispers started to rustle from seat to seat when Dani and Lorna, Parker’s keyboard player, followed Crush to the raised area. The air began to thrum with excitement when, without looking out at the audience, Lorna slid the cover off a Yamaha keyboard, and Crush unveiled her bass guitar.
‘All right?’ Crush said into a microphone, a broad grin on her face.
She blew her fringe to the side, revealing her dazzling blue eyes, bright and impish.
‘Thank you all for coming along to Reading Rocks. I’m Crush …
’ She held the microphone aside as applause clattered around the room, then moved it back to her mouth.
‘I like you lot already.’ She grinned as the audience laughed.
‘I want to start by telling you a bit about why we’re here.
Ten years ago, this fella’ – she held up the framed picture of Frank which she must’ve brought through from the bar – ‘came into my bookshop – Books En Parade, since you ask. You can find it just down the road.’ She winked.
‘And he suggested starting a book group. Of course, I said yes, I mean, that’s not a face you say no to, is it?
Anyway, about a year later, this guy was having a tough time at work, he was tired and finding it hard to concentrate.
We all know the feeling, right?’ The audience nodded.
‘He suggested we try a new format for book group, one where people still got to come together with other readers, but with less pressure to finish a book in a set time frame, or read a book they didn’t connect with, or listen to self-aggrandizing knobheads tell them how they could have written it better.
You know the types.’ A few audience members chuckled, and several raised their eyebrows and nodded at each other.
‘Frank wanted everyone to feel welcome at our book group, young, old, any background. He didn’t believe in reading snobbery, or that everyone should have to share their opinions. He just wanted to build a safe and welcoming community for readers, so that’s how our silent book club was born.’
Crush’s face turned serious. ‘Sadly, we lost Frank eighteen months ago, but we were very fortunate that his wife, Grace, joined us. I don’t think she’ll mind me saying that coming along to our book club has helped to lift her out of her grief, and we’d love to be able to do the same for anyone else who might be going through something similar.
’ She held her hand over her eyes and peered to the back of the room. ‘She’s at the back somewhere.’
Heads turned and Grace gave a small wave.
‘Grace told us that one of Frank’s ambitions was for more people to have the opportunity to join a silent book group.
He knew how valuable it is to be part of a community, even if you’re an introvert, or you’re going through a difficult time.
That’s why we put our heads together to see how we could reach out to other readers and independent bookshops, and between us, we came up with our Desert Island Reads thing.
When that took off, we decided to start fundraising to support readers with disabilities and mental health issues, and people who are lonely or grieving.
Now that’s where you lot come in.’ She pointed a finger at the audience.
‘There’s booklets with all the lots you can bid on around the room.
Bidding closes at eleven tonight, so get on it as soon as we’ve given you what you came for, an evening with the incredible, Sunday Times bestselling author of For the Sake of All That’s Good, Naomi Newton. ’
The audience clapped and cheered.
‘But before that, in memory of our Frank, Parker have reformed for one night only to play the song that’s become the theme tune to Desert Island Reads … this is “Puncture Wounds”.’
She passed the microphone to Dani and swung her bass strap over her shoulders.
The room stilled, anticipation pulsing like electricity.
Dani closed her eyes. Lorna played the first instantly recognizable notes on the keyboard, then the bass notes vibrated under Crush’s fingers, so deep Grace could feel them in her bones.
Dani opened her eyes and fixed the audience with a piercing glare, then she opened her mouth to sing, the melodious words filling the air with a powerful melancholy, ‘Tell me, baby, the story of your life. How the words are puncture wounds, and who it was that held the knife.’
The hairs lifted on Grace’s arms. It was beautiful.
‘How exactly am I meant to follow that?’ said Naomi, taking to the stage when the applause eventually died down.
‘You’re the reason everyone’s here,’ yelled Crush from where she was now standing next to Grace and Annie.
‘Well, in that case, thank you all for coming, and for supporting this brilliant and important cause. As many of you will know, my novel, For the Sake of All That’s Good, has the theme of grief at its core.
’ She went on to tell them more about where the idea for the book originated, explained her writing process and her road to publication.
The audience was rapt, hardly blinking as one of the year’s most celebrated writers shared her experiences with them, then went on to tell them about her own Desert Island Reads.
‘And now I’ll take any questions you have,’ Naomi said. ‘If you have anything to ask, please raise your hand and a random rock star will bring a microphone to you.’
Everyone laughed and a few hands shot into the air.
Grace turned to see Jude straighten up from where he’d been bent over looking into a video camera at the side of the room.
Jasmine stood next to him and Grace’s heart lifted to see him take Jasmine’s hand in his.
He raised his other arm and Crush took a microphone over to him.
‘Hi, yeah, thanks,’ said Jude. His voice was too quiet, so he moved the mic closer to his mouth. ‘I listened to the audiobook of For the Sake of All That’s Good, and loved it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Naomi.
‘The way you wrote the two neurodivergent characters was incredible, so I wanted to ask what research you did to make sure you got it right?’
He handed the mic back to Crush, who gave him a squeeze on the wrist and a supportive smile. Jasmine gazed up at him, her face full of adoration.
‘Great question,’ said Naomi. ‘And I’m glad you liked the representation.
Getting that right was very important to me.
This isn’t something I talk about a lot, because, frankly, it’s no one’s business, but my husband and both my kids are neurodivergent.
To be honest, I think I probably am too, just not quite as diagnosable as the rest of my family.
’ She laughed. ‘It’s funny, but when you know the signs, suddenly you realize everyone you know, or at least like or find interesting, is on the spectrum somewhere.
I’m over-sharing here – did you know that’s an ADHD trait?
– and I’ve started to do that really annoying thing of diagnosing everyone.
Someone will tell me about their anxiety, or their addiction issues, or how they’ve fallen out with their mother again, and I’ll be like …
’ She scrunched her lips to the side and tapped her chin with her index finger.
‘Have you ever considered you might have a neurodivergent condition? Drives my family insane.’
She pulled a face, and the audience laughed.
‘I do it all the time with my writer friends. Honestly, most creative people are completely bonkers’ – she held her hand out – ‘in the very loveliest way. You know when you read a book and it takes your heart in its hand?’ She held her flat hand out to the audience.
‘You know what I mean?’ A few people nodded.
‘Well, I believe the writer has to have had those feelings, or something very similar, to write them and, in my experience, people with ADHD especially, feel things very deeply, to the extent that it can cause physical pain. They transfer that pain onto the page, and that’s when you get the most moving work. ’
She looked over at Jude. ‘I didn’t actually answer your question, did I?
Let me try again. I researched those characters by living with the people I do, by being the person I am, and by surrounding myself with people I find most interesting, and they shared some of their magic with me.
’ She flicked her fingers out as if spreading magic out over the audience, and from the look on their rapt faces, they were all completely under her spell.