‘Really?’ he exclaims, and I nod.
‘It was pretty scary. A doctor told me it’s your body’s response to stress.’ I don’t add that simply talking to this new specialist at the surgery seemed to ease something in me. Perhaps I’d just needed to feel heard? I nearly cried as she explained – patiently – how a combination of progesterone tablets and oestrogen gel could help me. It seems I should never have been prescribed antidepressants at all.
‘But Josie,’ Rupert says, ‘you’re always so calm and in control!’ Has he forgotten that I stormed out of the shop? ‘I used to take beta blockers,’ he adds, ‘but my doctor said they were bad for my heart…’
‘You have heart problems?’ I exclaim.
He grins, teeth bared. ‘Only in situations like this.’
I look at him, overcome by a surge of sympathy. I want to hug this man, panicking in his sea of notes, ink blots staining his fingers. It’s often intrigued me, how he has this innate confidence whenever wealthy buyers saunter into the shop, whereas I often feel ill-prepared for life, as if dropped randomly into the wrong place – even with my own daughter.
‘I’ll do it,’ I announce.
‘What? You’ll do what?’ Rupert asks.
‘I’ll do your talk – your speech or whatever – if you’d like me to.’
He splutters and shakes his head. ‘You can’t do that—Can you?’
No, I can’t, I think as I perch on an unyielding ornate armchair. At least, this kind of thing is not what I’m good at. Not at all. Some people, when they’re raised by timid parents, go the opposite way. They’re fiery and brave and won’t let anything get in their way. With my mum and dad, their fearfulness seeped into me. The pulling out of every plug at night, bar the fridge. The refusal to go on holiday anywhere other than Mrs Blackfoot’s guest house in Morecambe because ‘it’s what we know.’
My wonderful parents, I reflect a little while later, as I sit at the desk in Rupert’s room, wading through his unintelligible notes for his speech. Lovely Mum and Dad, putting on their bravest faces as they’d waved me off to London with Dale Watson. It must have been awful for them. I’d been shocked when they’d announced, suddenly, that they were moving to the Northumbrian coast, to be near Mum’s sister. Leaving the house they’d moved into just after it had been built in 1951! It seemed utterly out of character. But maybe they were actually braver than I was. After all, I’d left my home town in a hurry with no plans, no thoughts of how I’d survive, and barely any money. That wasn’t brave. I was just running away – from Shane and Ravi, from everything, really. I didn’t even know what I hoped to find.
I pore over Rupert’s inky scribbles, relieved that he headed out to let me crack on with this alone. Checking my phone, I realise with a start that the conference kicks off in less than an hour. He only ever writes with a fountain pen from a little stationery store in Knightsbridge. However hard I try to decipher his blots and scribbles, it doesn’t make any sense.
So I decide to start afresh. I glance through the tall bay window, aware that Rupert is out there somewhere, pacing around, possibly having a cigarette. For a moment I watch a woman strolling along across the lawn with a small, fluffy white dog. A gardener is clipping at shrubs. Nothing bad can happen here, I tell myself.
And then I focus on the matter in hand, using my notes app to write a speech. Realising that it wouldn’t look good to be constantly checking my phone, I copy out my main points on a sheet of thick cream hotel notepaper.
I plan to talk about how a small business like ours – is it okay to say ‘ours’? – is steeped in history and that’s what people love, discovering our little tucked-away shop off Piccadilly. They come in, wide-eyed, as if they’ve discovered treasure which, in a way, they have. Or perhaps they’re regulars. We have plenty of those. People who wander in for a browse and a chat, just for the joy of it. A tucked-away corner of London where they can enjoy a little respite from the bustle of the everyday. We specialise in art books because who doesn’t love beautiful things? No one needs a precious book filled with sketches or etchings or the most amazing paintings ever made. But who doesn’t love to see these things?
That’s what I say as I stand on the stage, not in a band of three now, with Ravi as our frontperson, but completely on my own. A solo performer. In the huge conference room, with its glittering chandeliers, in front of hundreds of people, I talk about the passion we have for our bookstore and how every customer is special to us, whether they spend hundreds of pounds on a single book, or just want to wander around and inhale the atmosphere. How everyone is welcome.
‘I’ve learned this from Rupert,’ I say, catching his eye. He’s sitting, bolt upright, at a table with some new friends he’s made from a railway enthusiasts’ bookshop in York. He raises his eyebrows and smiles. ‘In our modern world,’ I continue, my voice wobbling only slightly as it rings across the room, ‘service and sales aren’t enough. Yes, our online sales are the backbone of what we do. But that wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for our beautiful shop, tucked away in a little arcade, that people love to step into. We need the personal touch, and passion, and we need to matter.’
I stop and realise my hands are shaking. There’s a tiny lull and the tinkle of crockery somewhere. And then the applause starts and I realise the whole room is clapping enthusiastically.
I press a hand to my mouth, hardly able to believe what I’ve just done; that I managed to pull this off. An image of Ravi, clutching the mic at one of our gigs, pops into my brain: how fearless she was. Perhaps a little of her bravery has finally rubbed off on me? Then I glance to my right, where one of the conference organisers mouths ‘well done!’, and I step down off the stage and stride across the room, weaving my way between tables.
Rupert stands up and waves. I zoom to his table and flop down with a gasp of relief, onto the chair next to him that he’s saved for me.
42
I’m so unused to praise that I don’t quite know what to do with it. ‘You were great,’ enthuses a small man, his sandy hair combed immaculately over the bald zone. ‘That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Passion?’
‘’Cause none of us are in it for the money,’ a younger woman jokes.
Rupert pats my arm affectionately. ‘You, Josie, saved my bacon today.’
I chuckle, about to say ‘Oh, it was nothing’ – but actually, it was a lot. As my heart rate gradually returns to something like normal, Rupert catches the attention of an elderly chap in a lilac shirt sitting across our circular table. ‘Jonathan – it is Jonathan, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ the man says.
Rupert glances at me with something like trepidation. ‘Erm, Jonathan’s experienced something similar to our processed cheese situation himself. With an order, I mean. Jonathan specialises in first-edition railway books…’
The man nods, fixing his gaze on me over the sea of coffee cups and water glasses and name cards. ‘There have been a few of us,’ he starts, ‘and we’ve done a bit of detective work.’
I look at him, not getting it at all. ‘Detective work about what?’
