Brand New Friend (31 page)

‘And?’

‘Well, maybe it isn’t.’

Rob laughed. ‘I love this. This is so you – former politics and English student Jo Richards versus Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychoanalysis.’

‘All I’m trying to say is that maybe it’s just a lazy way of looking at things. It’s like going out with someone you don’t fancy because you can’t think of a good reason to say no. Sometimes I think people mistake love for a friend with love for a person they fancy because it’s easier than trying to give a name to something that hasn’t got one.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I do . . . sort of . . .’ he said, ‘ . . . but the thing is I’ve got a bit of a problem with your little theory.’

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘It’s this,’ said Rob and he kissed her.

It had been a long time since Rob had kissed someone who wasn’t Ashley. A very long time indeed. And while Rob kissed Jo and Jo kissed him back it was mainly Ashley who was on his mind. Part of him thought he might explode, or spontaneously combust. Or something else equally pyrotechnical because he was kissing someone who wasn’t his girlfriend. But he didn’t.

‘That wasn’t what I was expecting,’ said Rob, eventually.

‘What
were
you expecting?’ asked Jo.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rob. ‘I suppose I always felt sure that if we ever did kiss I wouldn’t feel anything. That it would be a let down and I’d realise I wasn’t attracted to you after all. But that’s not really the case is it?’

‘No,’ said Jo. ‘It isn’t. The truth is, you and I were never going to work being just good friends. Not that it’s impossible for men and women to be good friends and nothing more, but it’s impossible for us. I’m sure I knew it when we first met but I didn’t want to face up to it. I don’t know what you and I are, Rob, but we’re definitely not just good friends, are we?’

‘No,’ replied Rob.

‘We’re lovers with terrible timing,’ Jo smiled. ‘I can’t help but think that if we’d met years ago – before you found Ashley – we’d have been perfect together. I know I could’ve made you just as happy as she makes you now.’

‘But we didn’t meet first,’ replied Rob, unable to look at her. ‘We met second. And even though I know I shouldn’t feel what I feel for you the fact remains that I love Ashley. I’ve never stopped loving her. Through all that’s happened it’s never occurred to me that she isn’t right for me – because she is.’

Jo reached up and touched his face. ‘I know,’ she said, as tears formed once more in her eyes, ‘and that’s why it would never work between us. She owns your heart. What we have is special – I’ll always cherish it – but the difference between our love and the love you have for Ashley is like the difference between knowing something in your head and knowing it in your heart. In your head you think you love me because we see the world the same way, we feel the same things – in a way we’re almost like twins – but what you and Ashley have is much more special because it’s not about what you have in common, it’s about the way she makes you feel in your heart. And the heart wins every time. It’s how we’re built. And I’d never want it any other way.’ Jo stood up and Rob did too, holding her hands.

‘So this is where we say goodbye for good,’ she said.

‘Are you sure there’s no way round this?’ asked Rob.

‘No,’ Jo said. ‘This really is goodbye. It’s for the best.’ And then she placed a hand on either side of Rob’s face and kissed him again. Rob wrapped his arms round her and held her tightly, unsure that he could ever let her go.

‘See you in another lifetime,’ she whispered. Then she turned and walked away.

Dear Jo
,

Love
,

‘On behalf of all of us at Waterstone’s, Deansgate,’ said the woman with the bright pink hair into the microphone, as the applause died away, ‘I’d like to thank Ms Richards for joining us tonight – I’m sure we’ve all been entertained by what we’ve heard. And before we conclude this evening’s event she has kindly agreed to answer questions, after which she’ll be available to sign copies of her book for those who would like one.’ She paused and smiled encouragingly at Jo. ‘I’d like to put the first one, if I may?’ she asked. ‘Could you tell us what you consider your favourite part of being an author?’

Jo moved back to the lectern and the other woman stepped aside.

‘What’s my favourite thing about being an author?’ she mused aloud, into the microphone. ‘My favourite thing about being an author is that, unlike most people, on a good day I can go to work in a T-shirt and my boyfriend’s boxer shorts and on a bad day I can sit in front of the computer stark naked.’

She got a reasonable laugh for that joke (much better than the response she’d had at the Library Literary Festival in the East Midlands, where it hadn’t even raised a smile), then went on to expand on her usual writing day – missing out the endless trips to the kitchen to make cups of sugary tea and investigate the fridge.

Then she asked if anyone else had a question for her. A young auburn-haired woman in an expensive-looking leather jacket raised her hand. ‘Hi, Jo,’ she said. ‘I read
Fifty Words For Snow after
I’d read a review of it when it came out in hardback and absolutely loved it. I’ve been recommending it to all my friends ever since. How did you get into writing?’

‘Thank you for your question and kind words,’ replied Jo. ‘Before
Fifty Words For Snow
I wrote a novel in my twenties and I didn’t think it was any good at all. A friend of mine read it some years later and encouraged me to send it out to a few agents. It was unanimously rejected and I was ready to give up but the same friend told me that instead of wallowing in self-pity I should get on and write another. For a long time I didn’t take his advice and then one day, a few months after I’d moved to London, I thought about him and just started writing. At the time I had a bar job so any time I wasn’t working or sleeping I was writing. Nine months and several edits later I sent it to a literary agent, who took me on right away. And a month later I found myself with a two-book contract with Cooper and Lawton. The rest, as they say, is history.’

She nodded to a scruffy-looking man in his twenties wearing a baseball cap and an old army jacket.

‘I just wanted to ask this,’ he said, grinning at Jo. ‘I only read
Fifty Words For Snow
recently so it’s still fresh in my mind but there’s a bit in the book where the main characters – Ruth and Danny – talk about the world’s most overrated films and Ruth nominates Brian De Palma’s
Scarface.
Was that your personal choice or something you decided was right for the character?’

‘That was my choice,’ replied Jo, as the room erupted in laughter. ‘I mean, how can you take a gangster seriously when he looks like he’s just stepped out of
Saturday Night Fever
?’

He laughed, and Jo looked out into the sea of hands before her and pointed to a dark-haired woman in her thirties.

‘Hi, Jo,’ she began. ‘I work in Waterstone’s in St Anne’s Square and we’ve sold hundreds of copies of your book and it’s still selling well. My question to you is a bit cheeky: I read in an interview that you lived with the novelist Matt Rose and I wondered what it’s like being in a relationship with a fellow author.’

‘It’s great,’ said Jo. ‘The best ever. In fact, he’s here with me tonight . . .’ She waved at a smart-looking man with arty black spectacles and a grey suit, who waved back, looking a bit embarrassed. ‘Matt and I have been together for nearly a year and have lived together for about nine months. It’s really nice to be with someone who understands the ups and downs of writing – I’d recommend it.’

Question over, Jo gestured to a man in his thirties, wearing a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

‘Hi, Jo,’ he said. ‘My girlfriend bought me
Fifty Words For Snow
because she said that the main relationship reminded her of how she and I got together – because we, too, used to be just good friends. I wondered if you were writing from experience.’

‘No.’ Jo grinned. ‘I made the whole thing up – that’s what we writers do – but I did draw on my own experience.’

‘So does that mean you’re Ruth?’

‘Ruth and I share some similarities,’ said Jo, ‘in that we both drink too much, smoke roll-ups and have a predilection for locking ourselves in other people’s bathrooms when we’re upset.’

‘Does that mean there’s a Danny in your life?’ asked the man, and chuckled.

‘That,’ said Jo, carefully, ‘would be telling.’

Over the next twenty minutes Jo fielded questions such as ‘Who is your favourite author?’ (to which she answered, ‘I’m a big fan of any Russian novelist who can write well about being miserable . . . which is basically all of them’); ‘Have you had any film interest in
Fifty Words For Snow
?’ (to which she answered, ‘A few people have indicated an interest but there are no solid offers on the table yet’); ‘Have you ever had a conversation about house prices in Chorlton and Didsbury?’ (to which, once she had stopped laughing, she answered, ‘Yes, lots, even though I lived in Levenshulme’); and finally, ‘What’s your next book going to be about?’ (to which she answered, ‘It’s called
How Soon Is Now
? and it’s about the impact that losing a brother in a car accident has on a young woman in her twenties’).

She glanced at the audience to see only two hands in the air now. One belonged to a studenty-looking girl wearing a denim jacket who had already asked, ‘Who is your favourite author?’ and the other belonged to an old man with a matted beard, who had been clutching his plastic cup of wine to his chest all evening and mumbling to himself. Jo guessed that his question would be, ‘Is there any wine left?’ because he had asked it at regular intervals ever since he’d walked in off the street. She was about to point to the denim-jacket girl when another hand shot up from the back row.

‘Okay,’ said Jo, pointing, even though she couldn’t see the hand’s owner clearly. ‘The person at the back – you can have the last question.’

‘I’ll stand up to ask it, if you don’t mind,’ replied the hand’s owner, and a big grin stretched across Jo’s face.

‘Hi, Jo,’ said Rob. ‘My wife bought me your book for Father’s Day on behalf of my little girl and I have to say, although I wasn’t sure about it to begin with, I loved it. I’ve got one question, though, and it’s about the ending. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet but I’m desperate to know what made you decide to let Ruth and Danny get together in the end. It could’ve gone either way, couldn’t it?’

‘Didn’t you like the ending?’

‘It’s not that,’ said Rob. ‘But wouldn’t it have been more true to life if they hadn’t got together?’

‘I can see what you’re saying,’ Jo said, holding Rob’s gaze, ‘and “true to life” was the way I wrote it in the first draft. But when I’d read it through I thought. Do you know what, Jo? This is your world and these are your characters and whether they’re real or not I don’t think I’ve ever met two people more deserving of a fairy-tale ending.’

Rob sat down, and the woman from Waterstone’s stood up and thanked Jo for her talk, and the audience for coming. As she turned off the microphone, Jo scanned the room for Rob but a few people from her publishers came over to say goodbye and when they had disappeared she was escorted by the woman from Waterstone’s to a table covered with copies of
Fifty Words For Snow.
A long queue had formed already and Jo had no choice but to get out her pen and turn on the charm.