Page 67 of The Next Chapter

I’ve been eating the whole time he talks and when he’s done, I have a whole mouthful of salad so we both have to wait while I finish.

‘In secret?’ I ask.

‘Probably.’ He laughs. ‘Lola’s too…’

‘Stubborn?’ I offer.

‘She doesn’t like the thought of being a burden,’ he answers. ‘But I know how much the hotel means to her. She thinks she needs money, to do it up properly. I guess she’s not wrong…’

That has to be it, then. Lola’s selling her story for money for the hotel. I wonder why she’s so enamoured with this place. Majestic beauty aside, obviously.

‘So that’s what you’re doing this summer. The article, the repairs, the thinking of ways to bring in business, they’re all for Lola. Like a three-pronged plan?’

Noah doesn’t answer. Instead, he puts his bowl on the table and opens his notebook. His writing is all spidery, but it’s right there in black and white: ‘The three-point approach.’

And okay, a three-point approach isn’t exactly word for word the same as a three-pronged plan, but they’re still freakishly similar. He has bullet points and everything. Everyone knows that it’s not a real plan until it’s committed to page via bullet points.

‘That’s… so funny,’ I say, feeling a bit freaked out. Noah and me, we couldn’t be more different in so many ways, but we obviously have some similarities. Mainly those based around stationery and planning, but they’re pretty big ones.

I scan my eyes over his ‘Save Broadford Hotel’ plan. It’s broken down into the three things I suggested.

1. Increase footfall. Underneath, there are things like ‘increase marketing’ and ‘involve people from the island more (run?)’

2. Guest experience. Repairs to hotel, consider timetable – fit for purpose?

3. Pitch article. Hidden gems of Skye? Focus on Broadford and surrounding area. Broadford hotel at centre?

There’s a big tick next to number three.

‘Wow,’ I say.

I have to, once again, resist the urge to jump poor Noah. A ticked off to-do list will absolutely get me going.

‘You have a whole business plan almost.’ My voice is full of wonder and awe.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing really.’

‘It looks great… but does Lola… is the hotel really struggling?’ I ask.

‘Maybe. But it’s not just that. Lola, she can’t keep going like she is. She wasn’t well, last year. Nothing serious.’

Noah must see me almost jump out of my own skin.

‘But she had a chest infection that turned to pneumonia, and it took her a while to recover. I just want to help, if I can. Get her to a point where she can maybe hire someone.’

I nod. So much nodding while I try to process.

I wonder if Noah knows that Lola plans to sell her memoirs to a publisher. They’re both trying to do the same thing, save the hotel, they’re just coming at it from different angles. It really is a tangled web of deceit up here on Skye.

‘You mentioned that Lola helped you out when you were younger?’ I ask, hoping that Noah doesn’t realize how desperately I want to know about all of this. Maybe it makes me a bad person, using this thing with Noah to gather quite so much intel on Lola. My need to know her overrides any feelings of guilt, though.

Noah nods. ‘Yeah. It’s a long story, but I moved around a lot as a kid. You know how it can be.’

I don’t, actually, my upbringing was incredibly stable. But Noah is still talking.

‘I up and left home when I was eighteen. Got as far as the train station before I realized that I had no money and nowhere to go. I’m not proud of this, but I pickpocketed the wallet of some guy. Lola saw the whole thing. I thought she was going to call the police, but she didn’t. She handed the guy back his wallet, said he’d dropped it. She’d just finished doing up the cottages in the hotel and let me stay on. Gave me money with the pretence it was to write a tourist information leaflet about the area, which gave me something to do. That’s how I got into travel writing. I’ll always be grateful that she didn’t turn me in. That’s not why I come back, though. Lola’s pretty special, once you get to know her.’

Even though we’re the same age now, Noah at eighteen seems so much younger than I was at that age. When I was eighteen, Mum had just died. It ages you, losing a parent. I’d always been a sensible child but even more so after that. I never wanted to give Dad any reason to worry, things were hard enough.