‘Seems like it.’
Daniel dropped them on the table, and Quinn organised it.
‘Say, Quinn, how did you realise you were gay?’
The question hit him out of the blue. Quinn thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I guess I kind of already knew. People around me would talk about members of the opposite sex and I wasn’t all that interested.’
‘Hmm. I see,’ Daniel said before disappearing into the back of the shop to put away his coat and bag.
As Quinn leafed through the letters, his breath held, he was relieved that he hadn’t received anymore eviction notices. He supposed final meant final. Thinking about the girls, he wondered if he should have let them know about his predicament.
He took his time reading the newspaper with a fresh mug of coffee on his oak table and incense burning in all corners of the shop, an aroma of cedar and sandalwood filling the air. A part of him worried Harold may walk by, see him like this, and use it as evidence that the shop needed to go. Yet, in all honesty, days like these were rare for him.
He turned the page, pushing away thoughts of Harold, when he saw a photograph of Hermione Sage, Noah’s mother.
actress looking for GHOSTWRITERthe headline read.
Quinn leaned forwards in his wingback armchair, the springs squeaking, and read:
Disgraced actress Hermione Sage has announced her autobiography via her website, only it’s yet to be written. Taking to her personal website, the actress has asked for a ghostwriter to write her life story, documenting her rise to fame and her life after the cameras stopped rolling.
Sage, 70, has starred in many Christmas films with the Romance channel, as well as a string of Hollywood movies, but her career ended after a sex tape involving her and a married man was leaked. Sage has since disappeared from the public eye.
It’s not yet clear if Sage will refer to the sex tape, something she has never talked about in public.
Ghostwriters are being asked to apply via a Google doc link created by Sage.
Quinn went to his computer, found Hermione’s website, and clicked on it. It took an age to load, almost like it hadn’t updated since dial-up internet. He spotted her latest blog post entry asking for writers to pitch a sample of their work.
Hay-On-Wye was a small place, and gossip spread with speed. Especially when it involved Hermione Sage. Hermione had been a local, and when she starred in aRomancemovie, she jetted off to the States, where a new life awaited her. The locals of Hay were thrilled, but rumours had already spread about affairs and strained family relationships. Then, of course, the tape leaked, and Hermione’s career crumbled overnight. The studios didn’t want to work with her anymore, and that was that.
Quinn had seen her since then, but only once. She had walked through town, everyone going quiet and staring at her as she went by. He knew she lived across the border, just a few minutes away from Hay, in a small village known as Cusop, a sleepy town in the shadow of Cusop Hill that belonged in a cosy murder mystery novel.
Now, the generations that didn’t know Hermione as an actress referred to her as ‘the witch of Cusop Dingle’, whilst the adults either called her the recluse or the spinster of Cusop Dingle. Hermione became a joke, and it forced her to stay indoors.
As Quinn grew up, many spooky stories spread about Hermione and the house in the small village. Rumour was that she now lived on ‘millionaire row’ in the home once owned by Richard Booth, the King of Hay, prompting some to refer to her as ‘the queen that never was’.
At the time, Quinn hadn’t realised that Hermione was, of course, a victim. The man who leaked the tape went on with his life, never being referred to, and in fact, writing a book about his ‘sordid affair’ with the actress. Hermione had been the butt of many a joke, with her films pulled from air, and was never offered more work.
Quinn sometimes drove through the village of Cusop Dingle, and his mind would always drift to Hermione, wondering if she was being looked after, wondering what she thought about the whole situation.
He wondered if she had a publisher.
Before he knew what he was doing, he clicked on the link Hermione shared and read the submission guidelines.
She wanted three chapters.
She wanted the writer to explain why they wanted to write her story.
And she wanted to know she could trust the writer to support her.
Quinn stared at the submission, lost in thought.
There was no way he could write it.
Could he?
ChapterFourteen
