‘Well. Anna spends half her life trying to convince kids that works of great literature – even if they’re hundreds of years old – still have something to say to us, here and now. I’ve seen her plan enough lessons to know the trick is putting the right twist on whatever text they have to study.’
‘I’m listening,’ Jack said, and he was. Rachel had his full attention; it was nerve-wracking, exhilarating, like being trapped in the beam of a searchlight.
‘So what if …’ Rachel was thinking on the spot now, but she felt like she was chasing an idea worth pursuing. ‘What if instead of focusing on the houses and the stuff inside them, we thought about whoownedthem or worked in them? Humanised it all a bit?’
Jack nodded at her, his green eyes bright with interest.
‘Most of these places are hundreds of years old,’ she continued, fizzing with excitement. ‘Each one has to have had at leastoneresident with a story worth telling. Right?’
‘Sure. You’d certainly think so.’
‘So, we find those stories. And we use them as a hook – we create content about the love affairs people had, the gambling debts they ran up, the insane art collections they amassed … We bring historical facts into focus through the drama.’
‘That sounds like a strategy to me.’ Jack grinned.
‘You think?’ Rachel grinned back. Her smile was broad, sincere and unguarded; delight at having hit upon the right approach made her forget, for a moment, who she was bestowing it upon.
‘There’s actually loads we could do with this,’ Jack said, suddenly energised, dragging a hand through his hair again. Rachel wondered if it was unconscious, or an affectation designed to make other people think about tangling their own fingers in it. Either way, she wished it didn’t work. ‘We could encourage social sharing,’ he went on. ‘Get people using hashtags to mark which stories resonate with them. If we can convince Humphrey to spend the money, we could do someamazinginteractive stuff through a BHGH app: maybe even augmented-reality content where you could put your own face in a portrait, an important item of clothing or whatever.’
‘That could be cool.’ Rachel nodded. ‘I think there’s something here. I’ll pick a couple of the bigger properties and see how the approach might work – check it has legs. Maybe we could catch up again tomorrow when I’ve mocked up some new materials?’
‘Perfect.’
Jack placed his hands flat on the tabletop, then pushed himself up out of his chair, still smiling. ‘Guess we should get on, now we know what we’re doing.’ They both bundled coats, scarves and gloves back on before waving their thanks to Cyril and heading out into the cold.
As they walked the short distance back to the office, Rachel felt elation and unease fighting for supremacy inside her. The thrill of beginning what she knew would be good work was muddled with disquiet at how well she and Jack had pulled together: how easily they’d come up with a plan worth pitching.
She’d never wanted to be paired with him – everything in her had resisted the idea that they could be a team. Yet this had been natural. Effortless.
Even worse, it had felt good.
‘I’m really not sure about this, Greg,’ Rachel said as she stepped across the threshold of Viva Vinyasa yoga studio on Thursday night. ‘I have no coordination, no flexibility and no balance. I’m going to topple over and kill someone.’
Greg, lurking behind her in the doorway, gave her a gentle shove and said, ‘Don’t be idiotic. The mats are well spaced and you’d never kill anyone even if you did land on them. Maybe just cause extensive bruising.’ He pushed her again, harder this time. ‘I promised you katsu curry and cocktails after this, but my side of the deal only stands if yours does.Go.’
Reluctant but resigned, Rachel trudged forward and found a mat in the furthest corner of the room. There were only two others nearby, which she reasoned reduced the chances of her accidentally battering a fellow yogi. Greg took the mat to her left, adopting a serene cross-legged pose that Rachel thought she should probably try to imitate. She let the studio’s plinky-plunky music wash over her as she shut her eyes, instructing herself to relax.
Moments later the yoga teacher appeared as if from nowhere. ‘Namaste,’ she said, in precisely the kind of breathy, ethereal voice Rachel had expected. ‘Welcome to our friends and to our newcomers tonight. I’m Jasmine. I’ll be with you this evening as we breathe through a flow of poses to stretch, unwind and strengthen your muscles and minds. My wish,’ she continued in her airy sing-song, ‘is that we’ll leave here tonight a little sweaty, perhaps, but … serene. Settled in our very deepest selves.’
Sweaty but serene?Rachel tried not to laugh.
‘This woman talks like a cult leader,’ she hissed at Greg. ‘I bet she’s actually from Barnsley or somewhere, and her real name is Sharon. Beneath her accent lies a northern lass desperate for escape.’
Greg stuck his tongue out at her. ‘Shut up, you cynic. Jasmine’s an excellent teacher. And as far as I know, she’s from Henley-on-Thames.’
‘We’ll begin with some deep breathing, as always,’ Jasmine crooned. ‘Then we will gliiiiiide into mountain pose.’
Everyone in the room began arranging their bodies into elegant shapes. Greg seemed to know what he was doing, so Rachel parked her sarcasm in favour of trying to copy him. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself and her cluelessness.
As Rachel tried to keep up, the effort required to do the right things at the right times drove all other thoughts from her mind. It was a little like when she was running: holding her body in positions that challenged it rendered her unable to ruminate on anything else. For this she was grateful.
Over the past few days Rachel and Jack had continued working on the new strategy for British House and Garden Heritage, in preparation for next week’s presentation. Rachel knew their stuff was good, but the pleasure she’d taken in creating it unnerved her. Some part of her knew their old closeness had helped rather than hindered them.
When they were brainstorming, their chemistry was undeniable – ideas sparked like tiny electric shocks between them, occasionally flashing bright enough that Rachel worried other people might notice.
Outside those conversations, though, Rachel remained angry with Jack – and afraid of what might happen if she let her resentment go. Years of dismissing him as all style and no substance had ended abruptly, with the uncomfortable realisation that, while he obviously lacked humility, Jack didn’t want for intelligence. Working with him so closely over the past few weeks had reminded Rachel that he was creative and clever, as well as stupidly charming.
Lying on her back on her yoga mat, her limbs dewy with perspiration, Rachel heard Jasmine say, ‘And now come back to yourselves, back into this room. Let your consciousness drift up,liftinto the here and the now. Allow any worries still lingering in your mind to dissipate, fade away, like ripples on a pond.Be well,’ she concluded, impressively.
