Jo didn’t order room service. Ordering room service made her feel awkward. She never knew if she was supposed to tip, and if she was supposed to tip, she had no euros in her purse anyway. She did have seventy-five pence in sterling, but she’d rather tip nothing than insult someone with that paltry amount.
She felt the need to get some fresh air. The glass of wine had hit her harder than normal, and she still felt fuzzy-headed. Admittedly, she thought, that could be down to Ewan’s critique of her work. He’d asked her questions as if she knew what she was doing. Questions about pacing and plotting, and characters and metaphors. Jo had done her best to bluff it, but the truth was she just wrote what she wanted to write. She didn’t overthink it – unlike every other aspect of her life. She sat down and let the words flow. Yes, occasionally she would edit a piece to death to find a rhythm to a sentence that made her feel giddy inside, and she’d admit that she got a bit crazy when she found exactly the right word to capture what she was trying to say. She definitely made sure her stories had a solid beginning, middle and end, but the rest?
There was no thinking about symbolism when she described the dry heat of the sun, how it yellowed the grass and made everything slow down, as if everyone was melting like thick tar on the road. She just closed her eyes and remembered what those hot days felt like, how they nipped at all her senses, and then she wrote. Did that mean she had been doing it all wrong?
Ewan had talked Jo through structure. He told her all stories, books and movies had a distinct midpoint where something very important happens. She’d scoffed at first, but when he’d listed example after example, including Clara’s favourite movie of all time, The Princess Bride, she’d begun to wonder how on earth she was able to put pen to paper when she knew none of this stuff. She never felt more as if she was holidaying in someone else’s life.
‘These are things we learn,’ Ewan said. ‘I didn’t have the first notion when I started either. That said, before I wrote the first McCreadie books, I wrote two absolutely awful books which will forever stay in a drawer. And if they ever come out of that drawer, it will be to burn them. No one will ever want to publish them as the great forgotten works of Ewan McLachlan,’ and he laughed.
They had said their goodbyes shortly after, and she had been grateful to go back to her room, where she’d stared at the notes she had taken and wondered if this was just confusing her more than helping her feel more confident.
Pretty much like her momentary desire to kiss Ewan was confusing her rather than helping her to feel more in control of her life. In fact, this whole day/experience was confusing her. Right then, she would have given anything to be curled up on her bed at home with Clara, but she knew that wasn’t possible. So she did the next best thing.
She called home and spoke with her mother, asking how Clara was. She was informed that Clara was curled on her favourite seat with Buttercup in her arms and her eyes were already drooping.
‘She’ll sleep well tonight. But how are you? How is the big once-in-a-lifetime opportunity going?’
Her mother’s voice was so full of hope and excitement for her that she absolutely couldn’t bring herself to say that she was feeling a little off-kilter. That Ewan had told her things about writing which made her feel as if she was totally winging it. And she was too nervous to order room service and was really quite hungry.
‘It’s good, Mum,’ she said. ‘He’s making me think about things in a very different way.’ That much was true, after all, if not the full story.
‘I know I keep saying this,’ her mum said, ‘but I’m so proud of you. Not only for impressing someone of his calibre, which I never doubted you’d be capable of. But also in taking this chance. Acting so spontaneously. You should absolutely do that more often.’
Jo made a vague affirmative noise. If only her mother knew how, at that very moment, it was taking all her guts not to hitch-hike back to Derry and go into hiding for at least the following twelve months.
‘Okay, darling. I need to get back to Clara and the movie. I’ll send you a sneaky picture in a bit. She’s ridiculously cute.’
Jo smiled. ‘That would be lovely, Mum. And give her a kiss from me, will you? Tell her she’s the best wee sister in the world.’
‘And doesn’t she have the best big sister in the world too?’ her mother said and Jo allowed the warm glow of her praise to wash over her. That, after all, was what really mattered. She could achieve nothing else in life other than to be a good sister and it would be enough.
Later, when she couldn’t ignore her rumbling stomach any longer Jo walked into the centre of town and bought a bag of chips from The Four Lanterns which she liberally doused in salt and vinegar before eating them direct from the bag as she walked to the shorefront. She desperately needed a break from her work – the notes Ewan had given her no longer making sense in front of her tired eyes. Fresh air, and something to eat, would do her good.
It was a dry evening with just the slightest chill in the air. Families and couples with dogs walked along the beach lost in conversation, while Jo sat on the sand and listened to the waves crash to shore. She tried to absorb everything around her. The warmth of the chips, the tang of the vinegar. The snippets of conversations carried on the breeze. She sat and thought of how she felt in that moment. How she would write it down if she had a notepad and pen with her. How she would try and make sense of her day. How the characters in her book, if she fast-forwarded them to the present time, could slip into the day she’d been having. Into this bizarre day when the sun was starting to set, and the sky was clouding over with grey clouds heavy with the promise of downpour.
Ideas started to flood her mind and she wrapped what was left of her chips up and stood up to walk to the bin to dispose of them.
What she absolutely was not expecting to happen was to have Paddy run full pelt at her, almost knocking her off her feet. Confused, she looked around her as Paddy jumped up to say a very excited hello. By the rapid wag of his tale, it was as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks, even though it had only been around thirty-six hours.
‘How on earth did you get here?’ she asked him, as she crouched down and scratched at his neck in just the way he liked. She looked up again, took in the walkers on the beach, figures huddled in small groups in jackets now zipped up to their necks. How she wished Paddy could talk and tell her exactly what had brought him there. It was a Friday night, and highly unlikely that he was being walked by Noah, who would be up to his eyes in work at The Ivy Inn, especially without her support.
It must be Libby, she thought, and in that moment she really, really hoped it was Libby, because she could definitely use her take on her sudden and unexpected attraction to Ewan, and her confused feelings on just about everything else.
‘Is it Libby?’ she asked Paddy, in the vain hope he would suddenly have developed the ability to speak in human. Of course, he hadn’t and instead he was just happy to continue to rub his head against her and wag his tail in an exceptionally excited manner.
Jo looked down the beach again to no avail and was starting to think she might have to try and smuggle Paddy back into the hotel when she heard his name being called on the wind.
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ she said to Paddy, who, funnily enough, still hadn’t gained the ability to speak. He just looked up at her, his dark brown eyes a picture of complete innocence. If he could speak, she imagined he would say, ‘Don’t blame me.’