I sense a tiny window – although it is more of a spyhole, really, in a door that already seems firmly closed – to persuade her thatGraveyard Heartisn’t autobiographical. ‘It’s my first non-crime novel. And you’re a celebrated writer. You’re Booker-bloody-nominated. I was worried you might hate it.’
‘Well, you were right. I do hate it.’ She looks at me with narrowed eyes and a faint smile, as if she’s trying to work out what she ever saw in me. As if she’s finally realised how out ofmy league she really is. ‘In fact, I’ve never read anything I’ve loathed more.’
This hits me harder than even I was expecting. It takes me a while to find my voice, the way it does when you’ve been winded. ‘Well, I’m gutted about that. Obviously. I was really hoping you’d love it. I was hoping... you’d be proud.’
She doesn’t say anything else. Just picks up her bags, two in each hand, and gets to her feet. Pushes past me, hauls the whole lot out on to the doorstep.
I just stay where I am on the floor, shaking my head, knowing – because I know Andrea – that I don’t stand a chance of saving this.
A few seconds later, I hear her sports car start up. She revs it pointedly once, twice. And then she is gone.
67.
Rachel
October 2017
‘This issoabout you,’ Ingrid says, waggling her proof ofGraveyard Heartat me. She is between meetings in LA, swigging alternately from a coffee and something green as we FaceTime.
Ingrid seems to glow a little harder every time I see her, though I guess that’s unsurprising, given she now has the wellness world on speed-dial, adds spirulina to everything and claims to have regular facials that involve being rubbed very firmly with some kind of placenta. In contrast, Polly and I are on the sofa at her place, where we’ve been watchingLa La Landand mainlining chunks of shop-bought rocky road by the fistful, straight from the tub.
I have lost count of the number of people now who have confidently informed me that I am the love interest inGraveyard Heart. But I’ve never asked Josh – the book’s actual author – if it’s true. And nor will I. The way I see it, he deserves his creative privacy.
Ingrid starts reading from the back cover. ‘A love story to define a generation.’
I roll my eyes, although I am smiling, because I can never be annoyed with Ingrid. I miss her too much. Not that it’s hard to find her, these days, if I need a quick fix of her. She’s forever popping up on TV, and in papers and magazines, has featured in countless rising star lists, presented her own TED talk, appeared on numerous podcasts. Her app has hundreds of thousands of subscribers now, and the company recently hit a multi-million-dollar valuation. I am infinitely proud of her, my brilliant, fearless friend.
‘Has Oliver read it?’ Ingrid asks, flipping through the proof again.
‘Oliver doesn’t read fiction.’
Next to me, Polly pops another rocky road and says, ‘What does he read?’
I try to think. ‘Cereal packets? Instruction manuals?’
Ingrid suppresses a smile. ‘Mmm. He definitely won’t get this, then.’
No. He probably wouldn’t.
I read it on the very first day the bound proof landed on my doormat, though I could only get through it in short bursts, and kept having to put it down, because I genuinely feared my heart might give out. When I was done, I felt exhausted – but in a good way – from the two-hundred-plus pages of emotional torment.
Over the screen, a pause unfolds.
‘What?’ I say, feeling a thump of disquiet in my belly as I look between my friends.
Polly lets out a breath. ‘Andrea dumped Josh. After readingGraveyard Heart.’
‘What? Are you serious?’
‘She thinks it was about you,’ Ingrid says.
Fiercely, I shake my head. ‘Josh doesn’t do that. Write about real people, or situations. He wouldn’t.’
Ingrid shrugs. ‘Well, she was pissed off enough to ditch him.’
‘When was this?’
‘Few weeks ago.’
