The Authenticity Project

by Clare Pooley

  There was one moment, just yesterday, when I found myself gasping at the phosphorescence in the South China Sea at night, and it made me think that perhaps I could rediscover that sense of wonder and joy. I hope so. I don’t think I can bear the idea of living the rest of my life with no highs.

  So, what now? I can’t go back to my old job. Even if I could manage to mix with the old crowd and work the markets while staying sober, I rather burned my bridges. When I resigned to my old boss (while high, obviously. Last hurrah, and all that), I let slip that at the last office party I’d shared a gram of coke with his wife and shagged her on the very desk he was sitting behind. I’d then made a joke about going out with a bang. He’s unlikely to give me a glowing reference.

  By this stage, Riley’s eyes were on stalks. He didn’t think people like Hazard actually existed in Perth.

  Anyhow, working in the City eats away at your soul. You never actually make anything, other than more money. You don’t leave a legacy. You don’t change the world in any meaningful way. Even if I could go back there, I wouldn’t.

  So, Riley. What are you going to do now?

  Riley gasped out loud at seeing his name written on the page, causing the middle-aged woman sitting next to him to look at him, curiously. He smiled at her, apologetically, and carried on reading.

  The Authenticity Project didn’t land in your bag by chance. I’ve spent the last four weeks looking for the right person to take it on. You’re carrying Julian’s book back to the same part of the world I took it away from. I wonder whether you might be the right sort of person to be a friend to Julian, or a lover for Monica. Or both. Will you go and find the café? Will you change someone’s life? Will you write your story?

  I hope one day I’ll find out what happened next, because I’ll miss this notebook. At a time when I was floating aimlessly in space, it kept me tethered to the space station.

  Bon voyage, Riley, and good luck.

  Hazard

  * * *

  • • •

  IT’D BEEN TWO DAYS since Riley had arrived in London, and it still felt surreal, like he was living in a travel show. His apartment in Earl’s Court appeared to be in the middle of a gigantic building site. Everything around him was either being torn down or rebuilt. It gave him an unsettled feeling, as if standing still would put him at risk of being demolished and remodeled.

  Sometimes, Riley wished he’d never found The Authenticity Project. He didn’t like knowing other people’s secrets—it felt like prying. Yet, once he’d read their stories, he hadn’t been able to forget about Julian, Monica, and Hazard. It was like being partway through a novel, becoming invested in the characters, then leaving it on a train before you reached the end.

  He’d not been able to resist checking out the café. He’d thought he could have a look at Monica, maybe Julian, too, to see if the reality matched the images he couldn’t shake from his head. That wouldn’t do any harm. What he wouldn’t do, he’d promised himself, was to get involved. But, as he’d walked toward Monica’s Café, his sense of anticipation had increased, to the point that, when he reached the door, he’d quite forgotten about remaining a spectator, and, having seen all the people inside, he’d pushed on the door handle.

  Before he knew what had happened, he’d found himself joining an art class taught by Julian. And now he was wandering around this awesome market with Monica.

  Monica was so different from the jolly, fun, and uncomplicated girls Riley hung out with back home. One minute she was opening up to him about her mother’s death, the next minute she’d clammed up and started talking about profit margins on the items she was buying. That was a bit of an eye-opener. With his gardening business, he’d worked out prices by having a rough guess at costs, then adding on however much he thought his customer could afford. He always took a loss on the work he did for Mrs. Firth (recently widowed), but charged the hedge funder down the road double. That seemed the fairest way to work.

  He decided not to suggest this to Monica, as she was really scientific about her pricing. She muttered about percentages, overheads, and volume discounts and worked it all out without a calculator, jotting down notes in a tiny book she kept in her pocket.

  Trying to get close to Monica was like playing the children’s game of Grandmother’s Footsteps—slowly edging forward whenever she wasn’t looking, and constantly being sent back to the beginning whenever she turned around and caught him moving. But, instead of being off-putting, it only made him want to know her more.

  The only thing taking the edge off Riley’s enjoyment, apart from Monica’s strange obsession with bacteria, was the knowledge that he had to tell her about The Authenticity Project. It felt deceitful knowing more about her than she did about him, and he was, by nature, a very honest person. What you saw was what you got with him.

  He hadn’t been able to mention the book when he first met Monica, in the middle of that art class. It didn’t seem fair to say, “By the way, I know all about your desperation for a husband and a baby” in front of a crowd. But the longer he left it, the more difficult it became. And now, somewhat selfishly, he didn’t want to ruin the mood of the day by embarrassing her and making her feel uncomfortable, which confessing to knowing her deepest secrets was bound to do. He felt like he was walking around carrying an unexploded bomb among all the artisan cheeses, hams, and chorizo. In the end, he decided not to say anything. It was quite possible that he wouldn’t see Monica again after today, in which case, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  And then, he’d ended up kissing her.

  She’d been talking about London landmarks, or something. He’d rather lost track, as he’d become mesmerized by the fact that, with her dark hair, red lips, pale skin, and cheeks rosy from the biting wind, she looked just like Snow White in the Disney cartoon. She was so strong and fearless. Usually a girl like her would scare the pants off him. Yet he’d read her story. He knew that, underneath the tough exterior, she just wanted rescuing. Feeling, for a fleeting moment, like the handsome prince in the fairy tale, he’d kissed her, and she’d kissed him back. Quite enthusiastically, actually.

  He’d happily have stayed like that forever, nose to nose, on a bridge over the Thames, were it not for the secret that slid between them, like a barrier. How on earth could he tell her now?

  He wasn’t sure whether to curse Hazard, or thank him.

  SIXTEEN

  Julian

  Julian was having guests for tea.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had proper visitors, not just political canvassers, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was trying to do something he believed would be described as “decluttering.” But, after two or three hours of hard work, he’d barely made a dent in the decades’ worth of acquisitions that were crowded into his sitting room.

  He at least needed to make enough space for everyone to sit down. Why had he let it get like this? What would Mary, who had always kept the place so spic-and-span, say? Perhaps the compulsion to fill every inch of space was because it made him feel less alone, or because every single object was imbued with memories of happier times, and the objects had proven more reliable than the people.

  He’d filled up both dustbins outside his cottage with rubbish, then he opened the door to the understairs cupboard and squeezed as much as he could into it: books, magazines, a stack of vinyl records, three pairs of Wellington boots, a tennis racket, two lamps that no longer worked, and a beekeeping outfit left over from a short-lived hobby two decades ago. He leaned his back against the door afterward to close it. He’d deal with it all properly later. At least he’d cleared the sofa and a few chairs.

  The buzzer sounded. They were on time! Julian wasn’t expecting that. He had always turned up to social events at least thirty minutes late. He’d liked to make an entrance. Perhaps prompt timekeeping was the latest fashion. He had so much to learn.

 
Julian walked out of the cottage and over to the black gate that led out to the Fulham Road. He opened the gate with his customary flourish and ushered in his three guests: Monica, that pretty Australian boy Riley, and Baz. Benji, they’d told him, was minding the shop.

  “Come in, come in!” he said as the three of them stood, openmouthed, staring at the paved courtyard, with a bubbling fountain in its center, the neatly mowed lawns, ancient fruit trees, and the little village of studio buildings.

  “Wow,” said Riley, “this place is awesome.”

  Julian winced at the use of American slang, accentuated by the Australian uplift, but decided to let it go. Now was not the time for a lecture on the beauty and versatility of the English language.

  “I feel like the little girl in The Secret Garden who’s followed the robin and discovered the magical place hidden behind the wall,” said Monica. She was far more lyrical than Riley, Julian noted with approval. “It’s like being in a different time, in another country.”

  “It was founded in 1925,” Julian told them, encouraged by their enthusiastic response, “by a sculptor called Mario Manenti. Italian, obviously. He modeled it on his estate near Florence, so that he’d feel at home when he was in London, and only let the studios to other like-minded artists and sculptors. Now, of course, they’ve all been converted into apartments. I’m the only artist left, and even I haven’t painted since Mary . . .” His voice trailed off. Why had he not realized that Mary was his muse until she was no longer there? He’d assumed a muse must be ethereal and fleeting, not the one always around being taken for granted. Perhaps if he’d understood that, things would have been different. He rallied himself. Now was not the time for introspection and regrets. He was busy.

  Julian ushered them over to the bright-blue painted door that led into his cottage.

  “Look at the floor!” Monica said to Riley, gesturing at the wooden boards running the length of the ground floor; they were almost completely covered in paint splashes, as if a rainbow on the ceiling had exploded, occasionally broken up by bright, Moroccan-style kilim rugs. “It’s almost an artwork in itself.”

  “Don’t just stand around gawking. Sit, sit!” said Julian, as he led them over to the newly cleared chairs and sofa around a coffee table fashioned from a large piece of beveled glass, balanced on four stacks of antique books. In front of them, laughing in the face of the local council’s clean-air policy, a roaring fire burned in the grate.

  “Tea! English Breakfast, Earl Grey, or Darjeeling? I might even have peppermint. Mary used to like it,” said Julian.

  As Julian pottered around the little kitchen area, putting tea bags into a pot, Monica searched the shelf he’d pointed out to her for the peppermint tea. Finally, she found a metal tin with an old, yellowing label marked PEPPERMINT. She opened the lid to take out a tea bag. Inside the tin was a folded-up piece of paper. She unfolded it carefully and read the words on it out loud: “Always remember to offer your guests a biscuit.”

  Julian put the kettle down and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, my goodness. That’s one of Mary’s notes. I used to find them all the time, but that’s the first new one in a while. She was obviously worried about how I’d cope on my own, because when she knew she was going, she started hiding notes all over the cottage, giving me helpful tips. Damn, I forgot the biscuits. But don’t panic. I have crumpets!”

  “How long ago did she die, Julian?” asked Monica.

  “Next March fourth it will be fifteen years,” he replied.

  “And you haven’t opened this tin since then? Perhaps I’ll have the English Breakfast.”

  Monica stopped in front of a pencil sketch, pinned to the shelf above the stove, of a woman stirring a large casserole pot, and smiling over her shoulder.

  “Is that Mary, Julian?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. That’s one of my favorite memories. You’ll see them pinned up everywhere. There’s one in the bathroom of her brushing her teeth, one in there”—he gestured back toward the living room—“of her curled up in her armchair with a book. I don’t believe in photographs. They have no soul.”

  They sat around the fire, in varying degrees of comfort, depending on which of Julian’s various items of decaying furniture they’d landed on, toasting crumpets over the fire.

  “I feel like I’ve been transported into an Enid Blyton novel,” said Baz. “Julian’s just like Uncle Quentin. Monica, are you going to suggest a trip out to Kirrin Island with a tin of sardines and lashings of ginger beer?”

  Julian wasn’t sure he liked the idea of being Uncle Quentin. Wasn’t he a pedophile?

  “I’m wondering if you lot could help me with something,” he said.

  “Of course,” said Baz, automatically, without even waiting to hear what Julian was going to ask.

  “I’ve been thinking that I might need a mobile telephone. So you could get in touch with me if there’s some problem with the art class, or something.” Having blurted that out, he rather wished he could take it back. He didn’t want to sound needy or make anyone feel obliged to telephone him.

  “Do you really not have a mobile already?” asked Baz, with the total incomprehension of one born after the invention of the internet.

  “Well, I haven’t been terribly mobile for a while, and nobody tends to telephone me, so what would be the point? I use that,” he said, gesturing at a dark-green Bakelite telephone in the corner with a dial and a heavy receiver attached to a coiled cord. Monica went over to look more closely. The disk in the center of the dial read Fulham 3276. “Besides,” continued Julian, “you can slam down a phone like that. You can’t slam down a mobile. Imagine, a whole generation who’ll never know the joy of slamming down a phone.”

  “My parents had a phone like this in the hall, when I was little,” said Monica.

  “I did have a mobile phone in the past. In fact, I was an early adopter,” Julian told them. “I was given one of the first models to try out, since I was rather fashionable back then, and one of the magazines wanted to interview me on whether I thought they would catch on. I’ve probably still got it somewhere.”

  He tried to pull himself out of his chair, but it was much deeper than the one he usually sat in. Baz held out his hand and helped him to his feet. “Thank you, Baz,” he said. “These days, if I sit for terribly long, everything seems to seize up.”

  “You should take up tai chi, like my granny,” he said. “She swears by it. Only way to start the day. Keeps the old body moving and the mind alert, she says.”

  “So, did you say that they’d catch on? Mobile phones?” asked Monica.

  “No!” Julian said with a laugh. “I said no sane person would want to be tracked down all the time, I certainly didn’t, and that it was an invasion of privacy!”

  Julian reached up to a high shelf in the corner of the room and brought down a large, dusty cardboard box. Inside it was a phone that could hardly be described as mobile. It was shaped like a brick, with a long, solid aerial protruding from the top, and was larger than Monica’s handbag. You’d need a small suitcase to carry it around.

  “Julian, that is the exact model that Gordon Gecko owned in Wall Street,” said Riley. “You could sell that on eBay for a fortune. It’s a proper collector’s item.”

  “I did have a much more up-to-date Nokia, too,” said Julian, “back in the nineties, but when it gave up the ghost, after Mary went, I didn’t bother replacing it. I’ve never had one of those clever phones.”

  “Smartphones,” corrected Riley.

  “But you do have access to the internet, right?” asked Baz, in shock. “You’ve got a laptop or something?”

  “I’m not a total Luddite, young man. I have a computer. I keep up to date. I read the newspapers and all the fashion magazines and watch television. I suspect I know much more about the influences on the Spring/Summer 2019 looks than even you do! After all, one
thing I have plenty of is spare time.”

  Baz picked up a viola, leaning against the bookcase, covered in a film of dust. “Do you play, Julian?” he asked.

  “It’s not mine, it’s Mary’s. Please put it down. Mary doesn’t like anyone touching her viola.” As he said it, Julian realized that he’d spoken in an unnecessarily curt voice and could easily be accused of overreacting. Poor Baz was looking a little taken aback.

  “Can I use your dunny?” asked Riley, causing a welcome distraction. A dunny? This was central London, not the outback. Julian decided to let it go and pointed Riley back toward the front door.

  A huge crash caused Monica to spill some of the tea she was drinking on her lap. They all turned around to see Riley, rooted to the spot in shock, surrounded by a mountain of objects that had erupted out of the cupboard like Jack from his box. A mound of records, which had fallen out of their sleeves, Wellington boots and magazines, and, balanced on the top, a beekeeper’s hood.

  “I think I got the wrong door,” he shouted back to them, trying to push everything back into the cupboard. This was an impossible task, as the pile of contents seemed to take up twice as much room as the cupboard they’d escaped from.

  “Do leave it, dear boy,” said Julian. “I’ll sort it out later. I need to do a trip to the dump.”

  “Don’t you dare, Julian!” said Riley, looking horrified. “I’m sure there are some real treasures in here. I’ll help you sell them online.”

  “I couldn’t possibly ask you do to that,” protested Julian. “You have far better things to occupy your time, I’m sure. Or, at least, I’d have to pay you a fair wage.”

  “Tell you what, if you give me 10 percent of everything I make, then we’re both happy. You get rid of some of the clutter, and I get some funds for my trip. I’m dying to see Paris.”