Love Letters (20 page)

‘She’d be a very big draw,’ said Mrs Ironside.

‘I know, and I’ll try, but – well, we mustn’t get our hopes up too much.’

Mrs Ironside folded her lips, making her disapproval at this feeble attitude plain.

Friday night arrived and Laura and Grant set off to meet Monica. It was amazing how much better you got at parking if you had to practise a lot, thought Laura as she finally straightened up and turned off the ignition. Not that she’d actually been able to fit in any of the five spaces she’d tried, but she did feel much more confident handling the car now: she knew the dimensions of the car precisely. They climbed out.

‘God, I hope the car will be safe here!’ said Grant, checking that Laura had actually locked it, although he’d heard the clunk of her doing it just as well as she had.

‘We’re in Clifton,’ said Laura. ‘It’s not going to get keyed, the hubcaps stolen or broken into. You’re such an old woman sometimes!’

‘You can talk! Now come on. Let’s find this wine bar. I’m longing to meet Monica in the flesh.’

Monica was sitting at the bar, chatting to the barman. She jumped off her stool and hugged Laura. ‘So lovely to see you, sweetie! And this must be Grant! Hi!’

Grant and Monica kissed each other. ‘So,’ said Monica. ‘What are we having? Laura will have her usual pint of whiskey. Grant?’

‘Pint of whiskey? That doesn’t sound like the Laura I know and love!’

Monica laughed. ‘You should see her when she’s offshore. She’s a madwoman.’

‘I’ll have a white wine spritzer,’ said Laura, as if she’d never drunk whiskey out of tumblers, or lemonade the colour of highlighter pens, which is how it seemed to come in Ireland. Or, most importantly, offered her body to a famous writer so he’d attend her literary festival.

‘I’ll have grapefruit juice and lemonade,’ said Grant.

‘I’m buying Grant’s car, but he’s driving us home,’ Laura explained to Monica as she and Grant sat either side of her at the bar.

‘Buying a car? Haven’t you got one already? No, I suppose not,’ Monica said when she’d ordered the drinks.

‘Bookshop pay, on the whole, is pants,’ said Laura, sipping her spritzer. ‘But I do – did – really love my job.’

‘If you’re buying Grant’s car, how come he can afford to buy one in the first place if he worked in the bookshop too?’ asked Monica, reasonably enough.

‘I had a proper job in IT before I joined the book trade,’ Grant explained. ‘And a small inheritance. So that’s my financial cards on the table.’ He quickly closed the subject and turned to Monica. ‘I want to tell you just how much I love your act,’ he gushed. ‘Just fabulous. Did Laura tell you how I dragged her along to see you?’

‘I think I did,’ muttered Laura to herself.

‘And isn’t she glad I did?’ said Grant, looking at her.

Laura wondered if without Monica all the things that had happened to her lately would have happened and realised they wouldn’t. While she did wonder if meeting Dermot was going to spoil her for all the normal men she would meet in the future, she wasn’t sorry she’d met him. ‘Oh yes!’

‘Oh!’ Monica sounded a bit surprised at her fervency. ‘I love you too. Seriously, though, I’m really glad I met you because otherwise I wouldn’t have gone to Ireland and met up with Seamus again. That’s an old, turned new again, flame,’ she explained to Grant.

‘It’s all back on then?’ Laura sipped her spritzer. ‘So that agonising bike ride was worth it? Tell all.’

‘Well, a few days after we got home, he got in touch! He’d been thrilled to get my note apparently.’

‘So how long ago was this?’ asked Laura, trying hard not to be jealous. Dermot had called her but only to ask her a favour.

‘A couple of days ago.’

‘But you and Laura came back from Ireland ages ago,’ said Grant. ‘How keen is he?’

Monica flapped a scarlet-nailed hand at Grant. ‘Very keen, he’s just a bit laid-back. All Irishmen are. You just have to get used to it.’

‘That’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation,’ said Laura, although Monica was quite right – as far as her personal experience went, anyway.

‘He is laid-back but he’s also mad keen to get his band to do a set at the festival.’ Monica bit her lip. ‘Supposing they’re not good enough?’

‘Haven’t you heard them yet?’

‘No,’ said Monica, ‘and to be honest, going on what Seamus says about them, they’re a bit amateur.’

‘Just because you’re not paid for what you do, it doesn’t mean you don’t do it well,’ said Grant, for some reason feeling the need to defend enthusiastic amateurs everywhere.

‘That’s very fair of you, Grant!’ said Laura. ‘Quite out of character if may say so.’

‘Not at all. I’m always fair. After all, I did say I wanted to get involved in the festival too.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sure we’ll be able to find you a job,’ said Laura, who was pleased as Grant didn’t usually volunteer for anything. ‘Remember, it’s unlikely there’s any money attached to it. My fee is nominal as it is.’

‘I don’t necessarily have to be paid,’ said Grant. ‘I’ll have my redundancy money and my darling auntie, remember, and I’ve had some interest in the feelers I put out for bookshop jobs. Besides, apart from when it’s actually on, I’d be doing it in my spare time. I just want to have some of the fun you two girls are having.’

‘Mm, I wouldn’t say it’s that exactly – it mainly involves making endless phone calls – although the planning has been, and it has been lovely being in at the ground floor of something. Checking venues will be good, though, I should think.’ She frowned. ‘You’d probably be more use to Monica—’

‘I wish you two would pay attention,’ Monica cut in. ‘What if Seamus’s band is a pile of poo?’

‘Then they can’t come,’ said Grant simply. ‘Not only am I fair, I’m firm.’

‘Well, lucky you,’ said Monica, pushing him, as if they’d been friends for years.

‘Seriously,’ Grant went on, ‘if it’s a new festival you can’t afford to have substandard acts.’

‘What sort of music do they play?’ asked Laura after she and Monica had taken in this basic truth.

‘Irish, very traditional. I’ve asked him to send me a CD of something but he says there isn’t one. They mostly just play in pubs.’

‘Well, the musicians who played in the pub in Ballyfitzpatrick were brilliant,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve just had an idea,’ she added, leaning in.

‘Lie down until the feeling goes away,’ suggested Grant.

‘What?’ said Monica.

‘It’s an idea I had before but then dismissed. Dermot has some poems, not many but very good. Supposing we ask him to read them, and have Seamus’s band playing Irish music in between, or even very quietly in the background while he reads.’

Monica nodded, warming to the idea. ‘Could be good.’

‘The venue would have to be right though. It wouldn’t work in an echoing great hall,’ said Grant, ever the voice of reason, from his end of the bar.

‘No, it would have to be in a pub,’ said Monica.

‘What, use the pub local to Somerby?’ asked Laura.

‘Is there one?’ asked Grant.

‘Yes. And it’s lovely but I’d have to find out if they would be up for it.’

‘Don’t pubs have to have licences if they have music?’ said Grant.

‘I don’t know,’ said Laura impatiently. ‘But couldn’t they get one? It’s such a good idea – even though it was mine. Although . . .’ She paused. ‘We may not be able to fit many people in.’

‘That Sarah person would know,’ said Monica. ‘I’m just thinking how brilliant it would be, recreating that atmosphere in England.’ She was really enthusiastic now, in part because she wouldn’t have to face the possibility of telling Seamus he couldn’t play at the festival.

‘What atmosphere?’ said Grant. ‘If you’re thinking smoke-filled rooms, fiddles and great crack, there’s been a smoking ban for a while now.’

‘Oh, you had to be there, Grant!’ said Monica. ‘There were times when the people enjoying themselves most were the ones outside flicking cigarette butts into the bin, but it was great, wasn’t it, Laura?’

‘Oh yes,’ she replied, thinking back.

‘There’s just one problem,’ said Monica, looking at Laura. ‘You’ll probably have to offer Dermot your body again to get him to do it.’

Laura’s insides seemed to crumple away.

‘I mean . . .’ Monica hastened to make amends. ‘I was talking in that way when you don’t really mean it literally—’

Before Grant started asking awkward questions, Laura rushed in to cover her tracks. ‘You were speaking metaphorically,’ she said. ‘That’s what you meant. Me offering to sleep with Dermot is a metaphor for – well, saying I’d do anything to make him come to the festival. Because obviously, I wouldn’t really offer to sleep with him, would I?’ Fairly sure she’d protested far too much to uphold her status as a lady, Laura looked helplessly at Monica.

‘No, of course you wouldn’t,’ Monica confirmed. ‘No one would.’ She laughed, sounding a bit artificial. ‘Let’s have another round!’

‘Oh do let’s,’ said Laura. ‘I’ll pay.’ She had jumped off her bar stool, twenty-pound note waving, before she realised she was already at the bar and could order from where she had been sitting. She could feel Grant’s eyes on her and knew there’d have to be explanations on the way home. Had she enough money, she asked herself, to get so drunk she wouldn’t be able to talk? But look where that had got her last time. No, she would just have to bluff her way through. Grant would never believe she actually had agreed to sleep with Dermot to get him to come to the festival. It was so out of character. Phew!

Fortunately for Laura’s peace of mind, the subject changed and they went on to have a great night out. Grant and Monica got on as well as Laura had known they would and Monica had agreed to employ Grant – for free of course – as her second-in-command at the festival. He was delighted.

And suddenly it was midnight and time to go home.

They were barely in the car before Grant piped up, ‘You didn’t really offer Dermot Thing your body to get him to come to the festival, did you?’ Grant was now as proprietorial about the festival as Monica and Laura were.

‘Oh come on, Grant!’ Laura felt that indignation was her best defence. She might have known nothing would get past him. ‘Would I do a thing like that? How long have you known me?’

Grant drove in silence for a worryingly long time. ‘No, I suppose not. In some ways you are a bit of a professional virgin.’

‘Exactly,’ said Laura, glad the dimness of the car would mean he wouldn’t see how very near the truth he’d got. ‘I wouldn’t throw away my virginity on a one-night stand with a drunken Irishman, now would I? I mean, if I was a virgin, I wouldn’t do that!’ She paused, digging herself deeper. ‘Or even if I wasn’t! Oh, shut up and drive, Grant.’

Her friend glanced at her but didn’t speak. Laura knew Grant wouldn’t let the subject drop completely. He was just biding his time. But she was grateful to him for not mentioning it again as they made up the sofa for him and she crept up to her own bed. As she pulled the duvet round her she smiled. On the whole she was very lucky with her friends.

Chapter Ten

Laura sat in her car outside the school shaking with nerves. In a moment, when the minute hand landed at twenty past two, she would go in. She was about to tell a school full of children about the short-story competition. She had her notes; she had practised to herself in the mirror and had told herself it didn’t really matter if the children all ran off screaming. Yet she was still terrified and she didn’t think imagining her audience in their vests and knickers would help either.

After this, she was visiting the offices of the local paper, to talk to them about the festival. That would seem like a jolly social occasion after trial-by-small-children. Then, later, came the reward: her weekly chat with Dermot, ostensibly to discuss the entries for the writing course. In practice they talked about all sorts of things. It was Dermot’s notes she had in her hand now, vibrating gently.

It was early afternoon and a beautiful spring day. The air shimmered with the promise of the summer ahead and the small, country primary school was of the type described in books by Laurie Lee and other such rural writers. It was picturesque, probably extremely inconvenient and the first of a few she would make similar visits to. The idea was to go to as many local schools as possible to foster interest in the festival in general and the writing competition in particular. Once she’d done it the first time, she knew she’d be fine and even enjoy it. After all, she used to do storytimes in the shop and had loved them. But although her confidence had grown so much over the last couple of months, her old shyness would occasionally reappear, as now. To say she was nervous didn’t quite cover it.

A last peek in the driving mirror told her she looked OK, if about ten years old, and then she got out. An attractive middle-aged woman had obviously been on the lookout for her, and appeared the moment Laura set foot on school property.