Page 51 of The Next Chapter

‘I think I must have been about six,’ Lola says, and I spot her as a child. She’s closest to the man who must have been her dad. He has his arm around her, smiling wide. Lola is half hidden behind him, squinting at the picture, her hair as long and blonde as it is today. Over his other shoulder is a guitar. It is the one in the corner. I’m looking at a family heirloom.

In the picture, around Lola and her dad, there are the other children, all at various heights. Jessie, her youngest brother, is still a baby, balancing on his mum’s hip.

I wonder what happened to all of my aunties and uncles. Surely most of them are still alive. They’ll only be Lola’s age, some slightly older, some younger. They all have Lola’s wispy hair. Her small features. Obviously, I must get my looks from my birth father. Maybe I can ask Lola what happened to them in a later session and claim it as research. Maybe she’ll tell me willingly without even asking. Because I can’t deny that this session has thrown up a lot.

‘Pa had just got out of jail, I think,’ she tells me. ‘He hadn’t been in long, but long enough to know he didn’t want to go back.’

I nod, clocking a tall, wiry man with long hair and a moustache. It’s Lola’s mum that I zero in on, though. Perhaps it’s just what Lola told me about her that’s affecting my perception, but she looks exhausted. She’s holding Jessie and her other hand is resting on her hip. She’s thin. Her hair, which is just like Lola’s, long and blonde, is straggly. She’s smiling, but it looks forced. I think of the difficulty I have keeping Elton and Dad’s plants going and then look at all of those children her mum had before she was even my age. No wonder she was exhausted.

‘Is your mum still alive?’ I ask, before I can help myself.

Lola shakes her head.

‘We lost touch, after I left home. But my brother Jessie wrote to say she’d passed thirty or so years ago.’

Thirty years. I’m thirty. Lola’s mum died the year I was born.

Suddenly, I’m hot all over. It’s like my skin is stretched too tight over me. I don’t fit. The walls in the office seem to get closer, trapping me. I need to get out of this crowded little office and go someplace to think.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I say. It sounds like the platitude that it is, because the truth is, grieving parents who were total top tier, gold star parents is really hard. But I have a feeling that grieving one when things were more complicated is even harder still.

Lola nods.

We do an awkward shuffle as I try to manoeuvre around her and the giant dog to get to the door. My arms and legs don’t seem to be working as well as they usually do.

‘So, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to do another session this week?’ I’m back to brusque, business like, trying to ignore the weird tight skin sensation. ‘We’re a little short on time. It won’t compromise on quality, though, don’t worry. I’ve done it before from time to time.’

I mean when people are dying and they don’t think they’ll have six weeks left. But I don’t tell Lola that.

She nods. ‘That’s good for me. How’s Wednesday after breakfast, same time?’

‘Perfect.’ I smile. I just need to keep my shit together for a few more minutes. ‘If we could finish up your earlier childhood in that chapter, that should work nicely for chapter two.’

‘I’ll see you then, Lily,’ she says.

‘Not if I see you first.’ I have literally no idea why I said that, but Lola leans back and laughs and like before, she looks ten years younger. As if the shadows which hang around her sometimes just disappear, floating off into the stratosphere.

I do an awkward wave and step back into the corridor, letting my breath out once the door to the office is closed behind me.

It’s impossible not to feel like the ground has shifted somewhat. Before I got to know Lola, she was just a figment of my imagination. And even if that figment was a fame hungry, drug-addled egomaniac, it was never more than two-dimensional.

But it’s like every moment I spend with the real Lola, she becomes more fleshed out, and hearing her history is only making it more so. I just don’t know how to feel.

Heading back towards the cottage, I wonder how on earth I’m going to survive the next few weeks.

Chapter Nine

It’s closer to midday by the time I’m opening the cottage doors. Noah is nowhere to be seen and as I’m literally stranded here, I decide to make a start on the first chapter of Lola’s memoirs while it’s all fresh in my head. Plus, the chance to think about everything she said without an audience holds a lot of appeal.

I send off a quick email to Seb to say that I’ve done the first session and that I’m working on chapter one today. He replies to say that Kitty is putting the feelers out to editors at publishing houses and that she’ll need the first three chapters from us before she makes a deal.

It’s the same process we’ve been through before, but even the thought of someone reading what I’ve just heard makes me feel unsure. Lola has been so private; I don’t understand how she could possibly want this now.

I open the patio doors wide, pleased to find that I can just about stretch my laptop cable outside if I pull the white plastic furniture closer to the doors. I make a drink and a sandwich from my ever-dwindling food supplies, then get set up thinking that it really is a shame that no one’s around to witness how brilliantly normal I’m being.

It’s very hot. How is it so hot? Skye is meant to be unpredictable weather wise. The Inner Hebrides are not known for wall-to-wall sun. They’re the sort of place true crime documentaries are filmed.

It is an unspoken law of this land that as someone who heralds from the UK, I am meant to maximize time spent in the sun. But as the glare of my laptop almost blinds me and my legs stick together and to the plastic chair, I think, actually I don’t love it sunny. For one, there’s all the chafing. So much chafing. And there’s just so much pressure to be enjoying yourself in the sun. Probably, admitting this out loud would see me stripped of my citizenship and driven out of the country so I keep my sun aversion to myself.