The Little Paris Bookshopby Nina George
The Dud Avocadoby Elaine Dundy
Down and Out in Paris and Londonby George Orwell
The Elegance of the Hedgehogby Muriel Barbery
16
Tilly stares out of the window, struggling to concentrate. Ever since returning to the office after Bali her heart hasn’t been in her work. It took a week of apologies, including three voicemails, five emails, a bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket, before Esmerelda Love finally calmed down and the project got back on track. Tilly should have been relieved – she could have lost her job if Esmerelda really had backed out of the publishing contract – but she has struggled to feel much of anything at all.
As she forces herself to look back at her computer screen and the editorial notes she’s been compiling for another project – the tell-all tale of a twenty-something heiress – she thinks back to her conversation with Harper about her job. Is this really what she dreamed of? Suggesting a privileged It girl change ‘Birkin’ to ‘Birkin bag’ in her manuscript to avoid alienating readers who might not know the supposedly infamous handbag model? Or has she just given up?
And then an email lands in her inbox that changes everything.
From: [email protected]
Subject: The late Joe Carter
Dear Matilda,
I hope this email finds you well.
Apologies for the delay in getting this to you, but due to some complications with Joe’s estate – namely stocks and shares that needed selling, and a life insurance policy that we only recently found among his paperwork that you kindly shared – it has taken some time to secure all the funds owed to you as the main beneficiary of his will.
I am pleased to inform you that probate has now been granted and the full amount owed to you should now be in your account. Please contact us if you have yet to receive the funds.
With best wishes,
Deepti Chopra-Jones
Solicitor
Chopra, Hanson & Cole
Tilly immediately opens her banking app.
‘Bloody hell.’
Her colleagues look up, glancing in her direction.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, looking at the number again to check it’s correct.
Joe had always earned more than her – he worked in the City, while publishing is notorious for running mostly on passion. She knew what he earned, and that he had various savings, but she didn’t know exactly what those looked like. Whenever she tried to gently probe him when he was ill, Joeassured her he had made a will and had paid a solicitor to act as the executor, so she didn’t have to worry. But he wouldn’t tell her any more, as if talking openly about the future would be to admit defeat. And yet she is now staring at a life-changing amount of money. Not enough to set her up for good, but enough to buy her some time.
She blinks rapidly, trying very hard not to cry. How is it that Joe is still looking out for her, even nine months after his death? First the books … and now this.
Looking around the office where she has spent so many hours over the past seven years, she knows suddenly what she needs to do. What Joe would want her to do. And maybe what she should have done a long time ago.
She crosses between the desks, stacked with memoirs she would never read if she wasn’t paid to work on them, and knocks on the door to Sade’s office.
‘Come in!’
Her boss looks up expectantly. ‘Is everything OK? You look pale. Well, paler than usual, which is pretty impressive. Do you need a snack? I think I’ve got some cereal bars in here –’
‘I’d like to hand in my notice.’
