Page 43 of The Next Chapter

Lola is looking at me. I think I have her attention. I plough on.

‘We started the company with hardly any money,’ I clarify. ‘Seb’s great-granny – our great-granny – escaped Nazi Germany, while half of her family were killed in the Holocaust. It’s an amazing story, you know? We do ghost-writing too. I tend to take the lead on those and they end up being properly published. But even the more ordinary ones are cool to do. The ones that are only ever for families. I love old people.’

‘It’s good, to find work that you love.’

Hopefully, I’m at least earnest. I nod. ‘I really do. It’s special, getting to hear about someone’s life and giving them the chance to control how their story is told. I like that once it’s written, it’s always there. Plus, you hear a lot of the same things, it’s… comforting, I guess. Thinking that we’re all in this together.’

It sounds like a sales pitch, and really, it is a sales pitch, but it’s all the truth. Every single word that I’m saying. I love my job.

Lola is looking at me and I think I might have her. The thought thrills and terrifies me in equal measure.

I try an encouraging smile, trip and fall over.

The wilderness hates me.

When I’m righted again, the moment has passed, and I don’t know how to get it back. Lola asks where I went to university (Manchester), and where my parents live. I get all tight around my ribs when I mumble Manchester, because I’m not about to tell her or Noah that my parents are dead.

Hopefully they’d understand – my parents, I mean. They always understood. And anyway, I’m here because Dad wanted me to be. I’m doing what he asked. Sort of. He didn’t mention using Lola to save the business, but still.

Lola seems to relax after that. She keeps talking all the way down the mountain, becoming more animated, waving her arms around and bobbing up and down with energy.

I can see it, then, lurking beneath the surface. Lola the star. The Lola people gravitated to and wanted to be around. She’s warm, fun, interested.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that she hasn’t been figured out by now. Maybe it’s just that no one would dream that Lola Starr would be someone whose choice of footwear seems to be Crocs with socks. Even I don’t wear Crocs with socks and I’m patently uncool.

She asks if I have a partner and my eyes dart to Noah before I admit that no, Colin and I broke up nine months ago.

She tells me I’m young, that if I ever want to find someone, I have my whole life ahead of me.

It’s not how I see myself at all. I feel older than I am, if anything. Not in the sense that I’m an old soul (though I’m probably one of those too), more just that I feel worn out. Ground down by it all sometimes.

Underfoot, the ground starts to level out. I don’t have my arms out anymore because the path here is less treacherous. None of these things make me as happy as they should do.

I don’t know if I’ve done enough to get Lola to change her mind. And time is running out. We’re leaving tomorrow.

The thought makes me walk even slower, and I stop completely when Lola starts talking about the biodiversity of the region. Never in my life have I been so interested in heather. Don’t get me wrong, I like heather, it’s all nice and purple. But now, I’m obsessed. I hang off every word that Lola says about the stuff because she’s obviously so caught up with it all. She’s talking faster than I’ve heard her, her accent getting stronger and stronger.

‘The bees like it real nice,’ she finishes.

‘Who doesn’t love bees? Better than wasps anyway.’

‘You know,’ Lola says, ‘wasps only get aggressive when their queen makes them redundant. They don’t do so well, without a purpose.’

And of course, Lola is a fan of the wasp. Though maybe I have more in common with them than I realized.

Talking and walking are two skills which when attempted in combination are apparently beyond me. I stumble constantly over loose stones, only managing to avoid landing flat on my face again by Noah’s hand on my shoulder. Lovely hand. When I look up, both he and Lola are looking at me, their heads tilted to opposite sides as if in a mirror.

I carry on walking to break the strange tension I sense. And trust me, I can spot tension a mile off.

Though out here, I’m not sure I trust my senses. Noah and Lola follow behind, chatting normally again, so maybe I imagined it all.

When we emerge onto the road leading back to the hotel, I’m not at all sure how I feel about the walk ending.

Should I mention the business again? It’s a fine line. If we go too heavy, we’ll give ourselves away.

I swear, it’s like someone stuck my brain in a tumble dryer and set it on spin.

Lola follows us all the way through the gardens. She’s moved onto talking about the hotel now. How she wants to do it up properly, grow the business. About how there aren’t enough hours in the day for everything that she wants to do. How she needs a magic money tree. I wonder if Lola had some sort of catastrophic brain injury after she quit the band and gained a whole new personality.