A Year of New Adventures

by Maddie Please

  Blue hair girl disposed of my battered ballerina pumps and I teetered off to catch the bus home. By the time I got there I was almost crying with pain. They were the sort of shoes made for nipping from a car to the safety of a barstool and no further. I slung them into the back of the wardrobe with the black bin liner of discarded clothes. It was that sort of day, evidently. Well at least I’d tried.

  *

  I spent the next couple of days scrubbing and cleaning to try and get rid of Kitty’s nicotine miasma. The spare room was so nice I almost felt like moving in there myself, but I suddenly felt a little skip of confidence. Perhaps I would be able to make a job out of this? I mean I had my food hygiene certificates; I could get additional insurance. Perhaps I needed more towels and bed linen, but when I thought about running a retreat for one author at a time, I felt rather excited. But how would they find me?

  I needed to work on my Facebook page. I needed to add some extra tweets and think about a new Twitter page. What was Instagram anyway? And Pinterest? I needed to finish that website and get all the free publicity I could. But I wouldn’t take any mug shots until the swelling and inflammation on my face had died down.

  That evening I sat down with my laptop and opened a new Twitter account @writerscottage.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It took me a while to get things going I don’t mind admitting. I had more than a few sleepless nights, wondering if I had the courage or the stamina to do this on my own. Even though Helena didn’t cook when we did retreats she was always encouraging and supportive and did her fair share of washing up.

  I spent hours on Twitter and Facebook updating my profile and my availability. I’d even started a blog, describing what I did and adding a couple of nice comments from Kitty Ford-Wilson. I emailed every writers’ group in the country and when Helena gave me a list of addresses I sent posters to all the libraries. Many times – when I was juggling my finances and wondering how I was going to cope – I considered giving up and getting a job in the supermarket but something stopped me. This was the new me. This was the me with ambition and determination and properly fitting underwear.

  Helena and I did our June weekend retreat and it went well. We had four quiet, sensible people who enjoyed themselves and appreciated the peace. Nothing went wrong, no one got food poisoning or fell down the stairs, so it was a success but this time it was different. All the time my mind was on ways to advertise my one-on-one retreats, how to make them attractive to writers. And, of course, Helena was missing Nick.

  I got back home to an email asking for availability in the next month. Caroline Bennet, recommended by Kitty.

  I began to get more requests for information. The number of enquiries I’d had was increasing every week, and I was thinking of producing a brochure.

  When I looked over my diary (yes, I had one now, a proper one that Uncle Peter had been given by a stationery rep and never used), I could see things were changing.

  And the funny thing was although it was tricky keeping track of who had phoned for details, who was thinking of coming, and what they would or wouldn’t eat, it was the most exciting thing I’d ever done.

  There were so many things I liked about my new business. Occasionally I was contacted by a writer who was already successful, sometimes even a household name. They were nearly always friends of people who had heard of me.

  I had all sorts of people contact me and they began to book. Most of them were women who were doing final edits, and some had school-age children or elderly relatives to consider. The story was always the same; they had a deadline to meet and they were panicking. Instead of worrying about other people, they needed looking after. It gave me a great feeling.

  I bought catering-size tins of coffee beans and tea bags; I made cakes and fresh soup and bread. I used pretty china and vintage glasses from the junk shop and put fresh flowers in their room. (Unless they had hay fever or asked me not to of course.)

  At this rate I would be able to do more than one or two a month. Perhaps I would be able to move to that house overlooking the sea in Cornwall. Or the stone longère in Brittany?

  *

  The weeks were starting to slip past. Nick and Helena were just about inseparable and had morphed into NickandHelena – the ultimate badge of coupledom – and were about to head off to Barcelona together. Both of them were so keen to defer to the other’s choices that it would be a miracle if they ever decided where to go, what to eat, or what to see while they were there.

  The summer months had been disappointing but, as is often the way, late September was turning out to be glorious. The flowers in my small and largely ignored garden were still blooming. I don’t know what half of them were – they were there courtesy of my grandmother. There was a pink rose tumbling over the garden wall, and the purple thing that grew alongside the house had lost its blossoms. It could have been wisteria. Or lilac? I kept meaning to find out.

  One afternoon I was standing outside my back door with a mug of tea and I suddenly remembered the straggly, wet garden at our February retreat when Oliver had arrived so unexpectedly. Ha! I wondered what he would think of me now. Now I was used to bossing well-known writers about and not putting up with any nonsense. I’d deal with him very differently now if he turned up and that’s a fact!

  Why was I thinking of him all of a sudden? I’d not heard from him at all since our last meeting. A couple of weeks back Godfrey had showed me an article in one of the trade journals he received. Ross Black had officially left Marymount – his American publishers; I bet Gideon March was furious. He had signed with Appalachian – a small publisher based in Vermont.

  There was even a picture of Oliver shaking hands with the managing director, a bearded man in a checked shirt who looked like a lumberjack. He was about to produce Oliver’s next book – presumably the long-awaited Death in Damascus – and he looked as though he had won the lottery, which in a way I suppose he had.

  I waited until Godfrey wasn’t looking, cut the picture out, and put it in my purse.

  *

  My mobile rang: unknown number.

  ‘Billie Summers?’ A woman’s voice, with a slight London twang.

  ‘Yes, can I help?’

  ‘My name is Fee Gillespie. I’ve heard about your retreat services from a friend of mine, Imelda Collins. I wonder if I could book in for a few days really soon? There’s some final editing to run through and I’m told you can offer privacy and peace and quiet.’

  ‘That’s what we do,’ I agreed, rather pleased with how things were working out.

  I thought back; Imelda Collins had been a dream. She had come along having been recommended by Pippa, which was unexpected and rather nice of her. Imelda was a tiny little woman who had needed time to finish her latest bonkbuster – Filthy Linen. I’m not making it up – that’s what she called it.

  She liked to read out snippets to me over her tea breaks and some of the things she came up with almost made me curl up with embarrassment. Vivienne would have loved her.

  ‘Yes, but does that scan?’ she’d asked me on one occasion, her face creased with concern. ‘Does that sound right?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s physically possible,’ I’d replied and we spent an interesting half- hour thinking about the logistics, and she happily changed things a bit to accommodate the space available for three sex-starved people in a single train berth on the way to Scotland.

  But back to my latest call; Fee was still there.

  ‘Fabulous. How soon can I book in? It is an actual emergency,’ she drawled.

  I’d heard this before. Usually from writers who had missed their deadlines and who had irate editors on their backs.

  ‘Just putting you on hold while I check. Is that OK?’

  I clutched my mobile to my chest, resisting the urge to hum ‘Greensleeves’, and eventually found my proper, grown-up diary; it was in the vegetable rack for some reason. Not My Cat was sitting on the kitchen windowsill meowing silently as usual. I t
urned my back on him. Fee and I discussed dates and cost and her particular requirements (definitely no shellfish) and she rang off having booked a long weekend. I went back to my tea with a glow of satisfaction.

  *

  Meanwhile, in the bookshop things seemed to be perking up. Uncle Peter and Godfrey had pulled themselves back from the brink of destruction and they credited Kitty Ford-Wilson and her signed books with the first bit of good luck they had enjoyed for some time.

  Since then I had got into the routine of getting all of the published writers who stayed with me to sign some of their books and they had proved very popular. Uncle Peter had a special shelf to display them, and that morning when I went into the shop with their elevenses (raspberry muffins) they had sold quite a few but they still had a lovely selection.

  Hot Summer Daze and Getting into You by Imelda Collins. The titles said it all really, unmitigated rudeness and generally based in the Lake District.

  Tears for Araminta and The Last Wish by Caroline Bennett – Regency sagas of betrayal, abandoned babies, destitution, and dukes. Thrilling stuff.

  The Best Christmas Ever, Christmas Bride, and Sleigh Ride to Love by Polly McKenzie. Self-explanatory: Christmas stories with gorgeous covers, masses of snow, and fairy lights – compulsive reading.

  Pride of place went to the latest treasure: Tudor Propaganda by Mary Starcross, a weighty tome heavily tipped for the Booker Prize. That wouldn’t stay on the shelf for long.

  ‘Any more for us?’ Godfrey asked, seeing me nosing around the shelves.

  ‘Not yet, I have someone booked in for the weekend though. Fee Gillespie. Ever heard of her?’

  Godfrey did a bit of googling and then shook his head.

  ‘Never. And there’s nothing on Amazon, but then she might write under another name. What genre?’

  ‘I forgot to ask. Anyway, she’s coming to do some final edits. I’ll let you know. Where’s Uncle Peter?’

  ‘Upstairs, bit of an upset tum. I told him not to eat the leftover curry, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘Oh I’m sure he’ll be fine. But I think I’ll eat his muffin all the same,’ Godfrey said with a wink.

  I went upstairs to see my uncle and found him sitting in his favourite chair sipping iced water. I know he is over seventy but today for the first time he actually looked it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said. I went over to feel his forehead. His skin was cool and dry under my fingertips.

  ‘Just old and bad tempered,’ he said with a brave smile. ‘Bit of a gannet when it comes to curry. You know me.’

  ‘Have you seen the doctor? Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, pet. The doc has no cure for greed as far as I know. How are you? How’s business?’

  We had a nice chat for a few minutes and I made him some peppermint tea and left him watching daytime TV and tutting. That evening he rang to say he was feeling much better and eating scrambled eggs on toast. Phew.

  *

  On Friday morning I was busy putting the finishing touches to the two rooms upstairs I had started to think of as ‘the writers’ rooms’. Everything looked fine. There were fresh flowers in the cut-glass vase by the bedside, some bottles of still and sparkling water. The coffee machine was primed and ready to go.

  The sun was shining. There were a few birds tweeting in the garden. I’d made a dish of chicken liver pâté for lunch, and a broccoli and cashew nut quiche for the evening meal. I’d baked a beautiful loaf of bread too. I felt sure Fee Gillespie would have nothing to complain about. I did a little bit more tidying up and mopped the kitchen floor. I may be a good cook but, as we know, I’m not a tidy one.

  Then it was just a question of waiting for Fee to arrive; I expected her any time after midday. I updated my website to include a couple of nice reviews I had been sent and did a bit of tidying.

  I knew the weekend would go well, but there’s always that little bit of doubt isn’t there? What if she arrived and she hated me on sight? Or didn’t like quiche? (She should have said something.) Or what if she had terrible BO, or halitosis? Or chewed gum all the time (pet hate) and left it stuck under the chairs? (Justifiable homicide.) You think that doesn’t happen? Think again.

  No. I would do something I’d been meaning to do for a long time. I had downloaded a new app on my phone called 5k – No Sweat. I had a few hours spare, I would go for a run.

  I went and found my sports bra and wrestled myself into it. By the time I’d done that I felt I’d done 5k already. I didn’t actually have any running gear so I wore some tracksuit bottoms I’d found in the wardrobe when I was continuing my clear-out, and a fleece.

  There was an Annoying Woman on the app who told me to spend five minutes warming up those sleepy muscles. I went out into the back garden where no one could see me and swung my arms about. Then I went out into the road where I had to walk briskly for five minutes. I’d been going for less than a minute when my mobile rang.

  ‘Hi, Billie, it’s Mum. What are you doing? You’re panting.’

  ‘I’m going for a run.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can. And because I’ve got a sports bra I’ve never used and it’s so tight I can hardly breathe. What do you want?’

  Mum laughed and started rabbiting on about what her neighbour had been doing. Something to do with a jumble sale to raise money for the church.

  ‘She said they needed a new organ and I said don’t we all, dear. I don’t think she quite got the joke. Anyway—’

  At that moment, Annoying Woman on my mobile broke into our conversation.

  ‘Now run slowly and smoothly for one minute. Feel the blood flowing around your body. Think how great you are, how fantastic you are.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Mum said.

  I stabbed at my phone. ‘No one – just a mobile app.’

  ‘Anyway as I was saying …’ Mum kept up a long complicated description of a dress she had bought, how she felt about the Bake Off, and whether it would be cheaper to go to Greece or France.

  Swiftly realizing I wasn’t expected to say much I left Mum on speakerphone and tucked the mobile into the top of my bra. I staggered on, swinging my arms and breathing hard. I paused at one point to lean on someone’s wall and draw breath. Annoying Woman started up again.

  ‘Now walk for twenty seconds as fast as you can. Think about how well you are doing.’

  Mum was now on to a story about her immersion heater, and the man next door, and was asking whether Peter was any better.

  ‘Now run for two minutes,’ said Annoying Woman.

  Well I tried, but I seemed far better at the walking than the running bit. I was boiling too. I made the mistake of thinking I could pull the fleece off over my head while I was still running. The mobile pinged out of my bra, down my T-shirt and out, and I managed to kick it into the gutter. I stumbled, my ankle turned over, and I dropped like a tree trunk onto the ground where I lay panting for a moment, still able to hear my mother squawking on about some curtains she’d had dry-cleaned.

  ‘The linings just disintegrated. I think it was only the dirt holding them together.’

  ‘You have now finished the first part of your 5k – No Sweat regime. Isn’t running wonderful? Everyone loves a trier,’ chortled Annoying Woman.

  I crawled across the pavement and retrieved my mobile before it could be run over.

  ‘Billie, Billie, are you still there? The reason I’m ringing. Do you have a fish kettle?’

  I pulled myself up onto a handy bench and tried to draw breath. ‘Yes, I have a small one, but I have no idea where it is. Probably in Uncle Peter’s spare room.’

  ‘Why on earth – well never mind. I have Josie and the boys coming to visit. It’s nearly half term. Can you believe it? They’ve only been back five minutes. It serves her right for sending them to that pretentious private school. Do you know their school blazers are ninety-five pounds each? And an extra twelve pounds for the badge?
Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? I told her she would be better off letting them go to the local comp and investing their fees in a personal pension. But what would I know?’

  I was feeling a bit dizzy to be honest, not filled with the wonder of running at all.

  ‘So the fish kettle?’ I said weakly.

  ‘Oh yes, Josie says she’s been reading about fish as a brain food and she wants me to ram as much fish at them as I can while they are here.’

  ‘Does she know about the toxins …?’

  ‘Don’t! I don’t want to know. If Josie wants the young lordlings to have fish out of a fish kettle, then that’s what I shall cook. But you’ll have to tell me how because I have no idea. Last time they came to stay all they seemed to eat was chicken nuggets. I tried one – like no chicken I’ve ever encountered. It could have been hedgehog for all I know. Anyway, I’ll pop over on Sunday morning and pick it up, OK?’

  ‘Well, just remember I will have a writer staying here,’ I said.

  ‘Oh I’ll be in and out before you know it. You’ll hardly notice me. I’ll be as quiet as anything. As quiet as a little mouse in slippers.’

  The possibility of this being true was nil. My mother, unlike her elder brother Peter, is not known for doing anything (sleeping, talking, standing, shopping, having a cold, washing up) quietly.

  ‘Let me know what time you will be here,’ I said, ‘and then I will have it ready for you. Or you could just go to Peter’s and pick it up there?’

  ‘Hmm, no perhaps not.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, go and see Peter. You know he’s been a bit under the weather; you have to forgive him some time. He’d absolutely love to see you.’

  By the time I put the phone down it was twenty to twelve and I was red-faced, knackered, and starving. Well not actually starving but very hungry. I’d also had a text message from Fee to tell me to expect her for lunch at one-thirty exactly. I limped home, went upstairs, spent an energetic ten minutes getting out of my sports bra, and had a shower.