Page 20 of The Next Chapter

Noah and I just stand there. He’s probably letting Lola speak, but I’ve definitely moved into gawping territory. I… just… I didn’t think my pitch had worked. And I know that this is exactly why we’re here, but I thought our chances of success were low. Like Hades low.

I wonder now if maybe I was using the memoirs thing as an excuse this whole time.

Nope. No. Not helpful.

She’s still going. ‘It’s something of a coincidence, but I was looking for a service like the ones y’all offer. Been thinking about it for a while, if I’m honest. The money, see – I can’t lose the hotel. Not ever.’

She’s hardly talking in full sentences and she’s out of breath, but she’s still doing better than me.

I’m not talking at all. ‘It’ll require um…

delicate handling, the things I’ve got to say.

But if you wanted to stay, I could move some bookings around to free up the cottage for the summer.

No charge, of course, while we work on this, but I’d be more than happy for y’all to stay there.

Seb too. Noah’s here for the six weeks. I think it could be beneficial, financially, I mean, for us all. ’

Six weeks.

Lola wants me to stay for six more weeks. Six. Seb too. And Noah will be here.

Oh. My. God.

‘That’s… very generous, Lola. We’d… I’d have to check with Seb. And I wouldn’t want you to be out of pocket.’ It very much sounds like the hotel finances are in the same state as the rest of the place, so Lola’s in no position to be offering a freebie.

Lola waves a hand at me. ‘Nonsense.’

‘Lola hasn’t been so good at remembering to make money from this place,’ Noah adds, making them both laugh. I join in, though my laugh sounds forced and loud. So loud.

‘I need one of those business plan things y’all keep talking about.’

My brain is short-circuiting, leaving me capable of only one-syllable words.

‘Seb, I need to ask Seb,’ I say.

I think there’s a plan. Maybe a bit of a plan.

‘Course, whatever y’all need. I’d need some assurances, before we begin. But we can talk about the finer details later, once y’all have decided.’

I gaze at her some more.

At this stage, the prospect of interviewing Lola seems almost ridiculous. Half the time, I’m rendered mute in her presence.

‘Seb,’ I force out.

Lola, too, looks like she wants to say more, but I can see something shifting in her, almost like a shadow passing over her face. She’s returned to quiet Lola already, the bubbly, chatty version going back into hiding. She nods. ‘Y’all know where to find me.’

She turns and leaves, walking back through the gardens to the hotel. It’s just me and Noah then.

‘Do you think you’ll stay?’ Noah asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I babble, injecting a potent dose of false cheer into my voice.

‘I’m behind on Mr Vandergilden’s memoirs and I just don’t know if Seb will be able to spare me.

Plus, there’s Elton, I need to get back for Elton.

Cats get separation anxiety too, just like babies.

But, well, I mean, I would like to write Lola’s memoirs, I think. And it’s, you know, money.’

‘She’s had a pretty interesting life,’ Noah replies. ‘Hard at times.’

Interesting. I add this information to the box in my brain labelled ‘LOLA’.

‘But for what it’s worth, I’d like you to stay.’ Noah doesn’t meet my eye and he works his bottom lip between his teeth. I think we’re flirting here. And a better woman than I might be able to resist that, you know, because he’s an adventurous traveller and I’m about as adventurous as a glow worm.

‘You’d like me to stay?’ I ask, my brain still tripping over the prospect of writing Lola’s memoirs. However, from what I can gather, flirting involves a lot of asking the other person a question you already know the answer to but in a slightly seductive way.

Noah nods, slowly. Peak flirt. ‘I really would. You could help me with more of my research.’

Oh. Maybe that’s why he wants me to stay. For research not ravishing.

‘I’ll talk to Seb and come back to you,’ I tell Noah, thumbing behind me to my cottage and breaking the maybe-flirt by talking about my fake brother.

‘Well, let me know what you decide. I, er, I’m not surprised that Lola asked you to write her memoirs. I mean, I’m surprised that she wants it all written down but not that she asked you. You’re really passionate, when you talk about it.’

‘I feel passionate about it.’ I can’t tell if we’re veering back into flirting territory and anyway, I need some space.

A chance to clear my head. I manage to say ‘bye’ like a vaguely normal person but then stand and watch as Noah puts his hands in his pockets and walks back to his cottage.

Me watching like that is possibly slightly less normal.

Taking a deep breath, I pull open the doors to my cottage.

Seb is sat on his bed, the theme tune to America’s Next Top Model playing out of my laptop. We always turn to nostalgia TV when we’re hungover, stressed or in today’s case, both.

‘Lola wants me to stay and write her memoirs,’ I tell him, my back against the doors.

Seb shuts the laptop.

‘Ohmygod, you did it!’

‘I know.’

‘I don’t want to be dramatic but ohmygod.’

‘ I know. She wants me to stay for the summer.’

‘Ohmygod.’

‘I know.’

‘You have to stay!’ he says. ‘I can’t believe our evil plan came off!’

‘Hang on, is it evil?!’ I’m pacing up and down the living area of the little cottage, looking around and trying not to panic.

I’m doing a rubbish job of that by the way.

‘You never said it was evil. I can’t stay!

We should do the meetings on Zoom. Same as we do for everyone else.

I’m behind on Mr Vandergilden’s memoirs – I’m not happy with the chapter on his fourth divorce. ’

I’m talking at a hundred miles an hour. ‘And the game hunting stuff won’t write itself. Plus, Elton needs me, he’s probably already wondering where I’ve gone. I’ve never left him for this long already! How can I stay?’ I’m the human equivalent of an exclamation mark at this point.

‘Relax,’ Seb says, then laughs as if the idea of me relaxing is completely ridiculous.

He’s not wrong. ‘I’m in the group chat with Mr Cains.

I’ve seen the pictures. Elton is showing zero trauma from the separation.

Seems happier than ever, in fact, and you know Mr Cains loves to have him.

He’s lonely on his own. They’re probably both better off without your whole stressy vibe. ’

I purposefully unclench my hands.

‘And this isn’t any old client,’ Seb says, ‘this is fucking Lola Starr. You have to stay.’

‘But six weeks here.’ I try to bring the conversation back to the reasons why me staying is a bad idea. ‘I never go on impromptu holidays. I had an itinerary ready for two months before we had that day in London last year.’

Seb taps a finger against his chin.

‘The way I see it, it’s only six weeks. People survived in the Gulags for decades.

And you can come home at any point in that time if it all gets a bit much, right?

’ I nod, trying not to recall the eight-hour vomit marathon that was my journey here.

‘And you’d probably regret it, if you didn’t hear her out.

’ I nod again, knowing that he’s right. At some point this weekend, things have changed.

I’ve been confronted with a totally unexpected version of Lola.

And I want to know more, because right now, the whole thing is making no sense.

‘Plus business,’ Seb finishes. ‘That’s why we came up with this whole evil plan.

Okay, she doesn’t know who you are, but you get to hear the whole lot and if at the end of it, you like her, you can tell her who you are.

If you think she’s a bit of a knob, well, then you can slink back off to Manchester and never grace the shores of Skye again. ’

‘You said evil plan again.’ My mind is whirling. Everything Seb has said is right, though. It would give me chance to get to know Lola in a safer way.

‘Okay, we should stay,’ I tell Seb.

‘I mean, I’m not staying. I need to get back to the office. I’ll come back for you in six weeks.’

‘What?!’ I almost shout and then remember that Noah could hear us. ‘What?!’ I ask again as an angry whisper. ‘You expect me to stay here on my own? You’re abandoning me?’

‘It’s cute that you think everything is about you. I’ve spent the whole weekend pretending to be your brother, you’ve used all your best friend tokens. And anyway, it’ll do you good to have some time on your own.’

I disagree with his last point, but he’s right. He has gone above and beyond. I close my eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

‘I have absolute faith that you can. Now come and tell me about Noah. What did he look like going up the mountain?’

I move to sit next to him on the sofa bed.

‘Really fit. He just propelled himself up it with thigh power alone. It’s hard to tell, because he gets shy, but I think we’re flirting. Like, he said he wanted me to stay. But then he mentioned his research and, I don’t know, maybe he really does just want help with his article.’

‘You could be an adult about this and ask him.’

‘Please, no one does that.’

‘True. Just remember, you have more to offer than you give yourself credit for.’

I give Seb a look.

‘But when you’re at home. Yeah, out here, god knows what he sees. What has happened to your hair?’

I burst out laughing. I look like I’ve been electrocuted.

‘I’m kidding. You’re a dark horse and we both know it. Hey, remember when I found those handcuffs in your bedroom drawer.’

I groan. ‘We promised never to mention that again! I told you, me and Colin were trying to spice things up.’ Not that Colin had been on board with this suggestion, he seemed to think I was some sort of sexual deviant. Needless to say, they haven’t seen the light of day since then.

Seb pfts. ‘Please, a punnet of Scotch bonnets couldn’t make Colin spicy. I bet Noah has his own handcuffs,’ Seb ponders aloud. ‘Just think of all the no-strings holiday sex you can have over the next six weeks. I’m jealous.’

‘I don’t think that is what’s going to happen.’

‘Not if you keep wearing those things on your legs, it won’t. Just don’t ruin it before it’s even gotten started.’

That does sound like something I would do.

For something to do that isn’t thinking about Lola or Noah, I pull out my phone, wincing as I realize there’s now an angry red thirty-seven next to my WhatsApp.

They’ll all want something. I just know it.

No, that’s not fair. It’s none of our faults that we’re like this. My head is just all over the place.

Get it together, Brown. Okay, won’t be calling myself by my surname in my actual head again.

It’s just that if I’m really doing this, I need to get on top of my messages and rearrange everything in my diary for the next month and a half.

Six weeks. Do I even have enough stuff with me for six weeks? (Chances are, I brought enough for a six-month expedition.) And there’s a washing machine in the hotel. It’s on the information sheet with the schedule.

Maybe being here longer term will help me feel a bit more grounded and not in one long out-of-body experience.

‘Seriously, you don’t have to do it,’ Seb says finally, ‘but I think it would do you good.’

I get up and walk to the kitchen, just to keep myself busy. I start pulling out more cheese… and extra cheese (I really do need to go to the hotel shop), because after the morning I’ve had, nothing else will do.

‘I think I want to. It’s just confusing,’ I answer honestly. ‘I don’t know how to feel. I built Lola up as this monster, almost, in my head. Like, who abandons a baby for fame? But now she’s here, decidedly not famous, probably a bit poor, and I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong.’

Seb hums but doesn’t say anything. I’m slicing brie with such concentration, Heston Blumenthal would approve.

‘But then the thought of going over it all,’ I carry on, ‘because I guess Lola will include the baby she had but didn’t want in her story, it’s terrifying. What if she says that she had me, took one look and thought, nah, not for me?’

I’ve stopped slicing now, I’m just gripping my knife, staring down at my white knuckles.

Mum and Dad used to say that it was okay to be angry about the whole adopted thing.

I always tried not to be angry, though. Because it wouldn’t have felt fair, to be angry that I got a life with them.

So as a rule, I’m the opposite of angry.

I’m no trouble ever. I smile even when I don’t feel like smiling.

And deep down I’m worried that this time with Lola might change that. I already feel like my control is slipping. It’s the wildness of it here on Skye, it’s taking me apart piece by piece.

I shiver, goose bumps working their way along my arm.

‘I have always wondered why she left the band. It never made any sense why she left six months after she had me if it wasn’t for me,’ I say.

Seb stays quiet.

‘I’m going to do it,’ I tell Seb.

‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right call.’

‘Thanks, I hope so. Now, I really need some brie.’