Rob and Becky looked at each other. It looked like he was about to get up and walk out.
"I had this idea for a bursary," Julia said quickly.
The couple frowned.
"A bursary?" Becky asked.
"That's right. A way of helping out. We talked about it – I don't know if you remember or not – but we talked about the fact that I received a rather generous advance for my book?" Julia directed the question to Rob.
"Two million, wasn't it?” he replied. “I remember."
I knew you did. I just knew it, Julia thought to herself.
"Actually, it's a little less than that, once you factor in taxes, agent's fees – and there's all sorts of fees you have to pay, you'd be amazed." Julia gave a little laugh. "But yes, it's a substantial sum. The idea occurred to me that I could use some of that money to create a modest” she held up a hand “but nevertheless meaningful bursary to help a couple of local students through their studies." Julia realised that by now she was talking almost exclusively to Rob. It scared her, but she found she was enjoying the opportunity to stare into those handsome dark eyes.
"What exactly are you saying?" he asked.
Julia swallowed. This conversation, she realised, was like crossing a lake on thin ice. This part right here was the most dangerous, where the water was deepest, the ice its most fragile.
"I went to university, many years ago now." She smiled, as if she were exaggerating for effect and it wasn't that long ago. "But I was very lucky. I had all my fees paid and I even got a grant. From the government. It just seems so unfair that that's all changed."
Neither Rob nor Becky interrupted her.
"So the way I see it working is very simple. The money would be used to pay the students' fees. For the whole time they're in college. Just to make sure they don't need to leave with a huge, unfair debt. It would apply for as long as they study. So for example, if they – if you," Julia lowered her eyes, not able to keep them on Rob's face, "had already racked up debt, it would pay that off as well." She fell silent, then glanced at Becky. She was frowning in deep concentration.
"Us? Me and Becks? So it's a bribe?" Rob said, rather too loudly Julia thought – although with a glance around she was able to confirm the café was empty apart from the three of them and the girl serving, who was well out of earshot.
"You want to pay us to keep quiet?"
"No. Not at all. It's a bursary. That's what it would be legally, and… morally. But yes, I am proposing that you and Becky would be the first beneficiaries. It seems only fair. Appropriate. After you there would be others. I'm talking about putting a sum of money into a trust. Investing it so that it keeps paying out year after year. I told you, I wanted to find something good that could come out of something so horrific. And since there's no family, no one who actually misses the poor lady... Well, why shouldn't I help you both?"
Rob sat back in his chair and studied the table top. After a while he looked up at Becky, who had been waiting for his response. "I told you. Didn't I? I told you she was shitting herself we'd go to the police."
"It's not like that..." Julia began, but he interrupted her at once.
"I'm going to be fifty thousand pounds in debt when I finish this summer. Fifty. Are you offering to pay all that back?"
Julia drew a short breath. That was considerably more than she’d thought. "Yes," she said.
"And Becks as well? She's got money from her..." Rob stopped himself."She'd need fifty thousand too. Are you going to cover that as well?"
Julia swallowed again. "Absolutely."
Now Becky, who hadn't spoken in a while, joined in.
"Julia, this is really kind of you, but we don't need this. We weren't expecting this. That isn't why we..."
"I know." Julia leapt in and stopped her. "I never thought for a moment it was. This is just – like I said – a way to create something positive out of this horrible situation. I can't help that poor lady, but I can help you. And others."
Julia blinked and forced herself to look down at the table as Rob had, as if she were racked with guilt at that very moment. She was pleased with what she had said. She felt confident her theme of helping others would do the trick.
But Rob was beginning to shake his head. "I don't know. This doesn't feel right. I don't know that I want to be…linked to you."
Becky interrupted him, speaking earnestly. "That's not a problem if it's a bursary. I've got a friend who's on one. She doesn't have to say where the money comes from. Or why."
"It's not how it looks, Becks." Rob spoke to her quietly, as if somehow that meant Julia wouldn't be able to hear, even though she was sitting opposite. "It's how it feels. I feel bad enough already."
Julia turned to Becky.
"Did you see my book upstairs, Becky? The Glass Tower. It took me fifteen years to write that book. I can promise you I wouldn't have been able to do so if I'd come out of college with a huge debt hanging over my head. Who knows what the two of you might go on to achieve? Becky, you could write the next novel that changes the world. Rob could...” Julia hesitated, momentarily lost for what value engineers might bring to the world."Build a great… bridge." She glanced at him and quickly moved on. "Becky, we can't change what happened. All we can affect is what happens next." She waited, then finished.
"Please? Please will you let me help you?"
Becky’s face looked drained. She turned to Rob.
"Rob? Think about it. You wouldn't have any debt. You know what a difference that would make. You could get that camera?"
Becky turned to Julia. “Rob isn’t just an engineer. He wants to be a film-maker, you know, like nature documentaries.”
Julia smiled but hardly cared at all, and Becky turned back to stare pleadingly at Rob’s face.
"Rob, I think we should do it."
Julia sensed he was nearly there. “All I need is two things." Julia looked ahead and saw the only way forward involved the very thinnest patch of ice. She swallowed, and stepped onto it.
"What?"
"I need your bank details. And I need to see you delete all the photographs you took that night."
The mood changed at once. Rob sat back. He glanced at her, then chuckled.
"Fucking hell," he said. "So this is a bribe?" He looked across at Becky, shaking his head. "All this bullshit about helping people. It's just a straight fucking bribe."
He looked so angry that Julia thought she had misjudged the whole thing. The ice was about to give way, but then Becky made a small noise in Rob's direction. Julia had no idea what it meant – perhaps some signal they'd agreed on privately before the meeting. Whatever it was, it calmed Rob down and got him back on side. The ice held.
"Okay," Rob said. "I think it sucks. But I don't see we have a choice." Abruptly he pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a few moments. Eventually he turned the screen so that Julia could see. It showed thumbnails of images, mostly dark, but you could make out the shape of the woman's body lying on the road. In one of them, Julia saw herself standing with her hand up to shield her eyes. The clearest part of the images was the rear number plate of her car, which had reflected the light of the flash. One by one the images disappeared as he deleted them. All except one.
"That goes when we get the money." Rob sniffed, then put away his phone.
Seventeen
Being a major financial benefactor was not something Julia had any experience in, but the research she had done in advance of the meeting proved useful. Before Rob and Becky left she promised she would confirm everything as soon as possible, then she gathered her things and caught another taxi, this time to the firm of a solicitorss office where she already had an appointment.
She was treated extremely well by the receptionist – given coffee and little pastries – and told that Mr Hedges would be right with her. And less than a minute later, the man himself appeared and ushered Julia through to his office.
"Call me Nigel," he said, as he showed her to a chair. He was
a rather fat man in a creased and worn suit, but he seemed to enjoy his work, and this assignment in particular. He explained in the most jovial of manners how her money would be held in an account managed by the solicitors, and how it would be paid out to the very fortunate students on a term-by-term basis. There was a moment's awkwardness when Julia mentioned that the total amount she expected the scheme to pay to each of the first two recipients was rather more than she had outlined earlier on the telephone. The awkwardness wasn’t felt by Mr Evans – who literally rubbed his hands at the thought – but by Julia when he explained that consequently she would need to load the account with a significantly larger initial sum, and larger than Julia had calculated. But they found a way forward. Rob and Becky would become the scheme’s only recipients, except and unless Julia’s future literary success gave her the means to extend the bursary in the future.
"Excellent," Nigel said, when the details were agreed. "I'll get started on the paperwork this week." He pushed his considerable bulk back into his reclining chair, but then leaned forward again.
"I say," he said. "I happen to know the vice chancellor of the university – we play a little golf. I could call him now if you like, I'm sure he'd like to thank you." Nigel tapped the side of his nose, ruddy from red wine.
Julia thought for a moment, and then agreed. It would be nice to be thanked. She listened in as he made the call. The university VC couldn't have been more effusive in his thanks. Julia almost felt like a genuine benefactor.
She wrote a cheque for £110,000, a little surprised that the fee was so high, but outwardly she smiled while Mr Hedges put a call into the bank to confirm her account had sufficient funds. When he was finished, he turned back to her with a beaming smile.
“All done!”
Julia treated herself to lunch before catching the train back home. When she got there she wrote a detailed explanation of everything she had been told, and sent it to Rob. Two days later he emailed back, saying they had received the money, and that he had destroyed the final photograph.
When Julia read that email, she sat back and let out a huge sigh of relief.
Eighteen
The unfortunate business of the dead cyclist had quite interrupted Julia’s plans to seriously research the London property market, but now it was settled, she could get back to it.
For as long as Julia had lived her rural existence, it had been alongside another life – an imaginary one – carried out in the beating heart of the capital. For financial reasons, this had never been anything but a fantasy – but in her head it was detailed and somewhat considered. In her mind she waltzed from intellectual bookshop to exclusive coffee house in a romanticised version of the great city. Julia’s inner London was a place filled with poets, artists, and most of all writers. People like Marion Brown. People like Deborah Gooding.
But now she had money in the bank – more money than most people would earn in a lifetime. Now she knew that change was possible. A whole new life was possible. A whole new Julia. The Julia she was, perhaps, always meant to have been.
Shortly after concluding her affairs with Rob and Becky, Julia invited Geoffrey around to her cottage for afternoon coffee. The good thing about Geoffrey was that he wasn't actively employed, and was thus always available to come round when Julia needed company. Arguably, that was also the bad thing about Geoffrey, Julia thought as she hung up the telephone, he was always available. On the phone he said he’d be a quarter of an hour. But just ten minutes later she heard his Land Rover pulling up outside the cottage.
He came in and hung his jacket on the peg by the stairs. Julia filled the coffee pot, feeling more anxious than she expected to be. She had left her laptop open on the table, the property website she had been browsing still on the screen, and scattered across the table top were the particulars of several apartments that had taken her interest.
"What's all this, then?" Geoffrey asked, sitting down and making himself at home. He picked up one of the estate agent's particulars and scanned the front cover.
"You researching something for your next book?"
"No," Julia replied, meaningfully. Then she fell silent.
Geoffrey looked more closely at the document he was holding. It was for a two-bedroom flat overlooking the Thames. A deep frown appeared on his face.
"Julia?"
Julia didn't answer, but she watched him.
"You're not thinking of..." Geoffrey looked momentarily baffled. "Of moving?" Now he sounded halfway between incredulous and horrified.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Julia said finally. "I am thinking about it."
"What? Why? Why would you want to leave?"
Julia brought the coffee to the table and sat down. "It's not that I want to leave. It's just... I've sometimes thought it would be nice to be a bit more in the centre of things. Do you know what I mean?"
His perplexed expression – a look he wore regularly – suggested not.
"But here?" He stabbed a finger at the photograph. It showed a beautiful balcony made of glass and steel. Actually, Julia had already reluctantly concluded that this one was out of her price range. By about a million pounds. But still, it was the sort of property she thought might suit her.
"You wouldn't be able to write here. Think of the noise! Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."
"I'm sure I'd cope."
"I'm sure you wouldn't. Believe me, you need peace and quiet to marshal your thoughts, to let the clarity percolate into your writing." He looked momentarily pleased with the expression he had come up with. Julia thought he might ask for a pen.
"You should try writing here," Julia countered. "With Mike buzzing his tractor back and forth outside the window. And that's not to mention the smell. When they've just put down the fertiliser."
"Well if it's clean air you're looking for, then look no further than polluted London," Geoffrey said. He sounded indignant, and Julia drew a deep breath.
"I could go to the British Museum. Use their reading room. That would be conducive to writing. Wouldn't it?" Julia asked.
He paused before answering.
"It's closed," he said. "They're refurbishing it."
Julia looked away. She was regretting asking him around. But somehow it had seemed important to get his – not exactly blessing– but agreement that it was a good idea.
"I'm not necessarily saying I would move completely. In fact, I'm not. I'd keep the cottage. But it would be handy to have a base in London. James says so. So does Marion."
She knew the effect that bringing her agent and publisher into the conversation would have. Geoffrey – in common with all her local 'creative' friends – held Julia's sudden relationship with these people in a kind of awe. The fact that she was now accepted by the very gatekeepers that had locked them out their whole lives.
"Why?"
This stopped Julia for a moment. It wasn't the answer she had expected.
"Well." She touched her hair. "There was talk about going on some radio programmes, you know, to promote The Tower."
Geoffrey stayed silent this time. And Julia knew she had him beaten. She was moving into a world he had no experience of.
"Then there's book launches. Award ceremonies. I suppose I'll have to attend..." She left the thought hanging.
"And it's just not practical. The other night proved that..." She stopped herself in surprised shock. She had been about to use the difficulty she'd had returning home from her own launch party to illustrate the point.
"What night?" Geoffrey asked.
"Nothing."
He turned away from her and studied some of the other properties. She had wondered about doing something to cover up the prices, but it would have been obvious that she had done so, and that would have looked even worse than leaving them on.
"Doris will miss you," he said after a while.
Doris was a watercolour painter with whom Julia had never particularly gelled, but who occasionally attended the Rural Dorse
t Creative Circle. Geoffrey had long pretended that she was Julia's best friend, even though it was obvious to everyone that he was really.
"Doris is busy with her..." Julia hesitated. She had no idea what Doris was busy with. "She's so busy with her art these days."
At that moment Julia’s cat strode into the room and curled affectionately around Geoffrey’s legs. It had always liked him.
"And Edgar Allen. How’s he going to cope with the city?"
Julia sighed. "Oh, come on Geoffrey. I’m pretty sure they sell cat food in London."
“It’s not the food. He’s grown up in the country. He’s a country cat.”
“Well, you have him then.” Julia suddenly found herself exasperated. She softened her voice. “I don’t think he’ll miss me. He likes you more than me anyway.”
Geoffrey nodded thoughtfully and stroked the animal’s back. "I'll miss you," he said suddenly.
Julia paused.
"Oh, Geoffrey," she said. She bit her lip, and a tear came close to escaping."I'll be here just as much as there. And you can visit me. It might even be good for your writing. You can tap into the pulse of the city!" She squeezed his shoulders.
Nineteen
Having absorbed the news Geoffrey became, if not enthusiastic, at least active in his support.
"So where exactly were you thinking of?" he asked, a couple of days later. He'd only dropped by to ask if she wanted anything from the garden centre, given her new-found interest in horticulture. But when Julia had appeared troubled he had postponed his own visit in order to join her in a cup of tea. He dunked a digestive in it now.
"Well, actually I'm struggling a bit with that," Julia confessed. "I thought somewhere central would be nice. But none of it looks quite right."
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