The Last Piece of My Heart

by Paige Toon

  ‘To write the sequel.’

  She thinks she’s clarifying it, but I’m even more confused.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Fay loves my blog?’

  ‘Loves it!’ Sara repeats. ‘She thinks your voice is spot on!’

  ‘I thought you were about to tell me that she wants to sign me up.’

  Sara clears her throat. ‘She does. For the sequel to The Secret Life of Us.’ She points at the book I’m holding.

  What?

  ‘Nicole was about a quarter of the way in,’ she explains. ‘She left behind a stack of notes. Fay’s been trying to find the right person to complete it.’

  ‘She wants me to be a ghostwriter?’ I splutter. ‘But what about my book?’

  ‘You’ll still write it,’ Sara says evenly. ‘Think of this as a stopgap, your way in. This is your chance to get your foot through the door of a major publisher. You can write your own book alongside this one while you continue to build your profile, and the advance you’ll get will pay for your travels. It’s the perfect solution.’

  ‘But. . .’ I’m still reeling. ‘What makes anyone think I’m up to the job? Surely there are a million other more qualified authors who could do this?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there are, too,’ she says smoothly. ‘But Fay wants you. She’s even read the novel you wrote a few years ago. The plot wasn’t quite there,’ she says hurriedly, quashing any hope of resurrecting my old romantic-fiction dream, ‘but the point is, Fay knows you have it in you to pull off fiction. She thinks your style is fabulous.’

  ‘She does?’ I allow myself to feel a little flattered, as well as incredibly daunted.

  ‘Have you read The Secret Life of Us?’ Sara asks.

  ‘No,’ I admit, studying the book in my hands.

  ‘Take that copy,’ she says. ‘You won’t be able to put it down. The protagonist is a travel writer just like you, so you should be able to identify with her brilliantly. It is the biggest compliment that Fay believes you can carry Nicole’s baton to the finishing line.’

  ‘I just. . . I’m not sure. . .’ I’m struggling to get my head around all of this. A young woman, dying so abruptly. . . A bestselling author leaving behind an unfinished sequel. . . Me – me! – being the one to complete her work. . .

  ‘Read the book,’ Sara urges, and I sense she wants to wrap up our meeting. ‘And keep in mind, Bridget, this is a great opportunity. Give me a call as soon as you’ve reached the end so we can discuss the finer details. I’m around all day tomorrow.’

  She seems very confident that I’m going to go along with this hare-brained scheme.

  Her conviction is founded, because I call her back first thing.

  Chapter 2

  It’s a beautiful sunny day in early June when I step off the bus in Padstow, Cornwall. The tide is out and the view stretches right over the Camel Estuary as I climb the hill, revealing a series of long, smooth sandbanks punctuating the clear, bluey-green water. The smell of fish and chips wafts through the air, making my tummy rumble. My appetite will have to wait. It’s already three thirty in the afternoon and Nicole’s husband, Charlie Laurence, is expecting me.

  When Sara explained that Charlie wanted to oversee the writing of his wife’s book, I was apprehensive. The job was already going to be challenging enough – would he make it even more difficult?

  I come to a stop outside a modest, terraced, redbrick house. A narrow, slate-topped veranda stretches across the front, sheltering a charcoal-grey door and a bay window. Apart from a lavender hedge bordering the wall adjacent to the street, the tiny paved area is devoid of plants.

  Movement catches my eye at the window, so I quickly walk up the path and knock on the door. There’s not even time to check my reflection in the glass before it opens to reveal who I’m assuming is Charlie.

  He looks to be in his early thirties, and is around six foot tall and slim, with green eyes and shaggy dark-blond hair held back from his forehead with a mustard-yellow bandana. He’s wearing a faded orange T-shirt and grey shorts, and his face and limbs are sun-kissed the colour of honey, all the way down to his bare feet.

  Wow.

  ‘Charlie?’ I check hopefully.

  ‘Hello,’ he replies with a small, reserved smile, holding back the door. ‘Come in.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

  ‘Tea?’ he offers.

  ‘Thank you, that’d be great.’ I jolt as the door closes with a clunk. I’m nervous.

  Charlie gestures down the hall, indicating that I should lead the way. The television is on in what I presume is the living room, but I don’t look in as I pass, and a moment later we spill out into a galley-style kitchen. It continues onto an extension containing a two-seater sofa backed up against the left wall and a round table at the end.

  He fills the kettle and gets out two mugs. ‘How was your journey? Did you drive?’

  ‘No. Tube from Wembley to Paddington, train to Bodmin, and bus to here.’

  ‘Sounds harrowing.’

  He’s polite and well spoken, but he hasn’t made eye contact with me once since I stepped over his threshold.

  A noise sounds out from the direction of the living room.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he says, exiting the kitchen.

  I take a deep breath and force myself to exhale slowly while taking in my surroundings.

  The internal walls are exposed and the bricks have been painted with thick, white masonry paint. The worktops are fashioned out of old railway sleepers, sanded and varnished to a dull shine. French doors at the end open up onto the back garden. It’s neat and tidy in here, but it looks like a right tip out there. My attention drifts to the table and the wooden chairs encircling it.

  Two chairs.

  And one highchair.

  That was another thing Sara neglected to mention at our meeting last week.

  When Nicole died, she left behind not only an unfinished manuscript and a grief-stricken husband, but a five-week-old baby daughter, as well.

  Life can seriously suck.

  Charlie is talking in low tones in the living room. Another wave of nerves washes through me.

  Babies freak me out. They don’t seem to like me, and I don’t particularly like them. What if I make them cry? What if I make this one cry? If she takes offence at me, Charlie probably will, too, and he may well pull the plug on this idea.

  Earlier this week, I met up with Nicole’s editor, Fay. She’s a lovely, warm woman in her late forties and she revealed that the decision to go ahead with the sequel came down to Charlie. He wasn’t at all sure, from what I gather, but he felt a responsibility towards Nicole’s readers and in the end, gave the go-ahead, as long as the job was done well by the right person. I’m still not convinced that I’m the right person, but, after reading Nicole’s book, I’m as keen as anyone to find out what happened next. Even if I have to write it myself.

  The prospect is admittedly terrifying, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. If this meeting with Charlie doesn’t go well, there won’t be a bridge to cross.

  The kettle boils, so I distract myself by pouring hot water into the mugs. A moment later, Charlie returns.

  ‘CBeebies only distracts her for so long at her age,’ he says, knowing he doesn’t need to explain his circumstances because I’ve already been made well aware of them. ‘Milk?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ I move away from the worktop to give him some space. ‘How old is your daughter?’ I ask.

  ‘Eight and a half months. Sugar?’ He flicks his eyes up to meet mine.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘My mum was supposed to be here, but she had an emergency at work,’ he reveals, stirring two teaspoons into his own cup.

  ‘What does she do?’ I ask.

  ‘She and my dad run a campsite. They had a burst water main or something.’

  ‘The campsite on the hill?’

  ‘No, they’re about an hour away. A coup
le of mates of mine run the one on the hill. Do you know it?’ Charlie picks up his cup and finally looks at me properly. I thought his eyes were green, but they’re getting on for hazel.

  ‘Only because my dad mentioned it. He’s stayed there a few times in his campervan,’ I explain.

  His daughter cries out again.

  ‘We’ll go through,’ Charlie says quietly, nodding at the door. I wait until he leads the way.

  I see her legs first, bare and chubby and kicking back and forth like nobody’s business. Then the rest of her comes into view – her pastel-coloured babygrow adorned with bunnies, and fine, slightly curly, light-blond hair. She’s strapped into a bouncy chair in front of the television, and Charlie drags the contraption across the wooden floor towards him as he takes a seat on the sofa nearest to the bay window. He pushes on the back of her bouncer to make it move and she giggles.

  ‘This is April,’ he says, sticking his tongue out at his daughter before nodding at me. ‘That’s Bridget,’ he says more civilly.

  ‘Hello, April!’ I reply, cringing because my voice sounds too loud and overeager.

  April looks over her shoulder at me, her expression vacant. Then her mouth breaks into a toothy grin and she says something unintelligible. Charlie pushes on the back of her bouncer again and she happily returns her attention to him.

  I’m tense as I sit down on the second sofa, hoping she’ll ignore me from here on in.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Charlie asks, back to making courteous small talk. He picks up the remote control and turns the volume down on the TV, not quite muting the ludicrously enthusiastic and eccentrically dressed man doing something bizarre with an egg carton.

  ‘A B&B in Padstow. It’s cheap and cheerful. My bus leaves early in the morning.’

  ‘You’re only here for one day?’ He seems surprised.

  ‘Yes, but. . . Obviously I can come back if. . .’ He looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to complete my sentence. ‘If I get the job,’ I finish awkwardly.

  ‘Oh.’ He averts his gaze and takes a small sip of his tea. ‘Fay said you’re a travel writer.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I smile with relief. This territory I can talk about for hours. ‘My mum works on a cruise liner so I grew up seeing the world in my school holidays.’

  ‘Bet that was an interesting childhood.’

  ‘It was. I lived with my dad during the term, but we visited Mum pretty regularly.’ He nods, listening. He doesn’t ask any more questions, so I carry on pitching myself to him. ‘I used to write about the places that I saw, then I built my own website and eventually started to pester magazine and newspaper editors for work. I can pretty much get work writing about anywhere, these days.’

  ‘That would’ve been Nicki’s dream job,’ Charlie says with a fond smile. Nicki, not Nicole, I note. ‘Before she got a book deal,’ he adds.

  And before her life was cruelly stolen from her.

  He breaks the long, awkward silence. ‘So you liked her novel?’

  ‘I loved it!’

  He smiles properly now, a smile full of pride, but its light reaches his eyes only briefly.

  How bad do I feel? He shouldn’t have had to prompt me – I should’ve been raving about his lovely wife’s book from the moment I got here.

  ‘I really loved it.’ I’m trying to make up for my gaffe, and for the next few minutes it’s all I can talk about.

  In Nicole’s novel, the heroine, Kit, is a travel writer who falls in love with two men at the same time: Morris, a laidback surfer-turned-entrepreneur from right here in Cornwall, and Timo, a sexy Finnish rock climber who is based in Thailand. At the end of the first book, Kit goes to Thailand to break up with Timo because Morris – her first love – has proposed to her. But, before she can come clean, Timo asks her to marry him, too. And she says yes.

  I know! WTF, right?

  ‘I detest cheating with a passion, so I shouldn’t have liked this book on principle,’ I tell Charlie, arguably too honestly. ‘But somehow Nicole made it. . . I don’t know. It’s so believable. She wrote in such a heart-wrenching way that I couldn’t help but be swept up in the story. I felt like I was inside Kit’s mind, feeling every emotion she was feeling and somehow understanding the crazy decisions she was making. It was. . .’ I shake my head, finally, yes, finally lost for words.

  I think I’ve said all the right things from the look on his face.

  ‘Do you know what was going to happen in the sequel?’ I ask. ‘Do you know who Kit was going to end up with?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure even Nicki knew.’

  I feel a surge of disappointment. Charlie leans back to put his empty mug down on the windowsill behind him. ‘But, if she did, the answer will be in her notes. She made lots of them. Let me show you her office.’

  April seems to be content sitting in her bouncer for the moment, so Charlie turns the sound back up on the television and leads me upstairs. He walks straight ahead, pushing open the door to a small room that looks out over the messy back garden. Any view of the estuary would be from the other side of the house. A large desk fills the area under the window, and there are bookshelves and filing cabinets lining the walls. A slick Apple computer takes pride of place in the centre of the desk. The room is tidy, but I can see from here that the computer screen is dusty from underuse.

  Charlie pulls open the top left desk drawer to reveal a series of notebook crammed inside.

  ‘Nicki was always writing in these,’ he says.

  He closes that drawer and opens the next to expose more notebooks.

  ‘I haven’t gone through them.’ From the tightening of his voice, I take it he hasn’t wanted to. ‘But all of her research is in here.’ He opens another drawer. ‘She also used to keep diaries when she was younger. Her dad moved to Thailand for work and she’d visit when she could. A lot of what she wrote about back then made it into Secret. I think you’ll find clues as to where she planned to go with the sequel.’

  I look up at the crowded bookshelves and notice several Post-it notes sticking out of the tops of some of the books. What pages did she mark? Were they significant?

  Nicole did a couple of interviews around the time Secret was published last October, so I already knew that her father is a French chef called Alain Dupré, and that she wrote under her maiden name. But, as she died just two weeks after her book was released, before the sales had taken off, her readers and I don’t know much more about her – it’s very surreal to be standing here in her office.

  ‘Did she leave notes on her computer, too?’ My mind boggles. Where would I start?

  Charlie hesitates almost imperceptibly before reaching behind the screen and feeling for the on button. The computer fires up with a loud dong.

  ‘I would’ve thought so,’ he says.

  His back is to me, his posture tense. I stare at his frame and out of the blue think of Elliot. It’s been almost six months since we’ve seen each other and, on the whole, I’m coping. But suddenly I miss him intensely.

  April lets out a cry downstairs, making Charlie start. ‘Take a seat and have a look,’ he mumbles, leaving me to it.

  Is he sure he doesn’t mind? Uncertainly, I pull out the chair and sit down. The screen in front of me lights up and then I’m looking at a small photograph of Nicole, under which is a request for her password.

  She’s laughing and her slim, oval face is basked in warmth from the sunshine. She has dark hair that brushes her shoulders and her eyes are sky-blue. Across her head is a familiar yellow bandana headband that doesn’t quite obscure her fringe, and a sprinkling of freckles dusts her nose. She looks happy. I find myself wishing that I had known her. The posed black-and-white publicity shot on the inside cover of her book doesn’t do her justice.

  ‘It’s Thailand.’

  I almost jump out of my skin at the sound of Charlie’s voice from behind me.

  ‘The password is Thailand. Uppercase T.’

  ‘Oh!’ I type i
t in. I press ENTER and Nicole’s desktop swings into view.

  I hear Charlie inhale sharply and know better than to turn around.

  An image of him holding a newborn baby has filled the screen. His hair is shorter and he’s gazing with love at the tiny bundle in his arms.

  ‘I’ve barely been in here since we lost her,’ he says softly.

  ‘We don’t have to do this now,’ I murmur. His wife died just over seven months ago. I’m not at all sure that he’s ready for this. I’m not sure that I am.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he says, leaning in and taking the mouse. I scoot my chair over to the left, watching as the arrow hovers over a blue folder on the dock at the bottom. The name comes up: ‘SECRET’. Charlie moves the mouse to the right and clicks on a folder called ‘CONFESSIONS’.

  ‘Is that the title of the sequel?’ I ask, alight with interest.

  ‘Confessions of Us,’ Charlie tells me. ‘Sara wasn’t sure about it.’

  Sara was Nicole’s agent, too, of course.

  ‘I like it,’ I tell him, peering more closely at the contents of the folder: Characters. . . Confessions. . . Research. . . Synopsis. . . Timeline. . .

  ‘You’ll have to check out her Secrets folder, as well. I’m not sure she moved everything across.’

  ‘Okay.’ I nod.

  ‘If you want the job, that is.’ He lets go of the mouse and straightens up.

  ‘Isn’t that up to you?’ I ask him carefully.

  He stares down at me. ‘I’ve read a couple of your blog entries,’ he replies instead of giving me an answer. ‘Fay was right. Your tone of voice is very similar to Nicki’s.’ Charlie leans against one of the filing cabinets and folds his arms across his chest. ‘But are you sure you have the time to take this on?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I state. ‘This will take precedence over all of my other work,’ I assure him. ‘I can blog in my spare time – I don’t have a deadline and there are no other pressures on me.’ I take a deep breath before announcing, ‘I think I’d do a good job.’

  He eyes me thoughtfully as the seconds tick past, and then he finally nods in what I hope is agreement. ‘I’ll speak to Fay.’