Her restless mind settled upon the drive from Southampton the day before. What had she felt about the countryside? How she'd missed it. The fresh air. The space. A walk. A walk in the countryside was what she needed. Some country air would give her the inspiration she sought. After a moment’s thought she had her telephone in her hand and was phoning Geoffrey to see if he wanted to accompany her. Happily, he agreed to abandon whatever other plans he had for the day and pick her up.
Twenty minutes later, his Land Rover crunched to a halt outside the cottage.
He hummed as he drove, apparently content just to be beside Julia, without expecting much in the way of conversation. It was his suggestion to head for the long curved ridge above the island of Hunsey, which offered sweeping views of the green countryside and out over the sea.
"So, how are book sales?" he asked, when they were nearly there.
Julia was shaken from her thoughts.
"Oh, you know," she said.
"No. I don't. Hence my asking," he replied. He glanced across at her, smiling through his beard.
"Well, actually I don't really know," Julia told him, coming to concentrate on what he was saying. Her frustration at her failure to write, and her lingering concern over what had happened with Becky were slowly fading. She remembered what Marion had told her, about needing to go onto Facebook.
"I don't think it's quite selling as well as everyone had hoped."
Geoffrey made a disappointed noise, and then focused on the road. It was narrow and he had to wait while a tractor came past. Bolted to the front was a vicious-looking iron contraption that looked capable of spearing the car like a marshmallow. The driver raised a hand in thanks.
"Well..." Geoffrey returned to the conversation. "You mustn't worry. With the amount of publicity it's received, you probably have to accept that the only way is down. For a little while at least."
Julia shrugged lightly. "I suppose so." She didn't sound convinced.
"How's London treating you? We haven't heard much from you here."
Julia didn't answer. With anyone else she wouldn't have hesitated to put the most positive spin on it.
"It's okay. A bit hard if I'm honest. All those people, but everyone in such a hurry."
"Are you getting any work done?"
She laughed. They pulled into the little car park, an area of rough ground where a small quarry had once been cut into the rock of the hill. Geoffrey always parked here.
"No. I can't seem to come up with any ideas that stick."
Geoffrey jerked on the handbrake.
"Well, you will," he said. They walked to the back, pulled open the double doors and sat down to pull on their walking boots.
"Second album problem. That's what it is. You've become a big star, so it puts the pressure on. Maybe you should try writing down here?"
He asked the question innocently, but Julia could hear the hope in his voice.
"Hmmmm, maybe," she said, keeping her voice non-committal.
Geoffrey laughed, as if he had expected nothing less. "Well, we could certainly do with you back at the Creative Circle. It's really gone downhill since you left."
"Is Kevin still refusing to contribute to the biscuit fund?"
"Worse. It's turned into open warfare between him and Marjorie. He turned up last week wearing combat trousers and a camouflage jacket. I think he was trying to scare her. But you know Marjorie, he’ll need to do better than that."
Julia smiled. Geoffrey struggled into the straps of his knapsack. She knew what would be in it. A flask of hot coffee, bananas and chocolate.
"You know I did a book signing the other night, at The Three Bells?"
"No? How did it go? Did many people turn up?"
"Three. One for every bell." He smiled at her. "So don't feel too worried if you're only selling a few thousand copies a week." He pushed the door closed and locked it.
"Shall we go?"
They set out, first skirting the edge of a field of wheat, then rising sharply until they were on top of the ridge. At the foot of the hill below them stood the channel which separated Hunsey Island from the mainland. The tide was half in, half out. In the near distance, on the tip of the island, stood the tower. Julia’s tower.
They left the wheat behind them now, instead walking through pasture land, where a few sheep stood dotted around in the thick green grass. The ridge rose higher and it was hard going at first, but the air was fresh and the views spectacular. The land was clothed in colours of deep green, and the ocean glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. There was no wind, but a swell was running, so that lines were creeping into the bay, and breaking onto the rock ledges that jutted out into the ocean. They were too far away to see in detail, but tiny figures could be seen in the water, dots upon surfboards.
It felt good to be there with Geoffrey. It felt natural, and Julia began to relax. As she did so, she felt a curious desire to unburden herself. To tell him everything that had happened. The proverb came into her mind, as they hiked up the path. A problem shared is a problem halved. She pondered whether she should. Whether she could. But she knew there was nothing he could do. There was no magical solution to the problem – beyond what she had already done. And so she kept quiet.
They came to a stone bench that had been cut into the hill, and sat there, looking out over the silvery ocean below them. They took turns drinking from the single cup on Geoffrey's flask, and bit into thick chunks of chocolate. If she was going to tell him, now was the time. She gathered her composure, in readiness for the right moment.
She had met Geoffrey years before, after spotting a card in the window of a Dorchester newsagents. Someone was trying to set up a local writers' group. Julia, who at that stage had a few thousand words of The Glass Tower written and harboured dreams of one day being a novelist, went along to its first meeting. The group was a disaster. The woman who set it up, Marjorie, appeared to be a horrible tyrant who simply wanted an entourage to admire her own work. And after the first meeting it looked unlikely that there would ever be a second. But a slightly unkempt older man intervened. After the meeting he had a quiet word with Marjorie and then suggested to all the other attendees that they have a drink in the pub, whereupon he persuaded them to give the group another chance. That man turned out to be Geoffrey, a former insurance investigator who had taken early retirement and was trying to build a new life writing murder mystery books. He was kind, and generous with his time and praise. He became the first person to read The Glass Tower, in its earliest, most incomplete, roughest form, and contrary to what Julia had feared, he was immediately enthusiastic. He went on to help shape the book, and several times encouraged Julia to continue when she felt like giving up.
If anyone could understand what she had done that night – in driving away from the dead woman – it was Geoffrey. He knew the years of work and struggle that had gone into giving birth to the book. He would know that letting it die on that cold, hard night was never an option. Julia opened her mouth to speak.
"Would you like a banana?" Geoffrey beat her to it.
Julia’s mouth hung open for a moment. Then, simultaneously she closed her mouth and her hopes for salvation.
"No thanks."
In the end she decided to stay nearly a week at the cottage, and the time felt like a holiday. She walked every day with Geoffrey, and she attended the Friday night session of the Rural Dorset Creative Circle, finding herself enjoying the camaraderie and catching up with the gossip. Afterwards she went on to the pub with the more sociable members of the group. She even found herself enjoying being cornered by Kevin, who was still at war with Marjorie. Over several pints of lager he explained in great detail why he had joined the group. He was writing an exposé about how Islam was secretly taking over Britain. He seemed suspicious of everyone, and was delighted when Julia mentioned how surprised she had been to see so many mosques around her in London. When Julia pulled out her painkillers to take her nightly dose, he warned her to be careful. One of t
he Muslims’ tactics, he explained, was to infiltrate the NHS, and medicate the populace. He even offered to source her some non-Islamic painkillers if she wanted them, at very reasonable rates. Julia was quite impressed how someone so obviously insane was able to operate, more-or-less normally, in society.
But it couldn't last, and the next day she closed up the cottage and made the long drive back to the capital. She shut herself inside her lofty penthouse flat, feeling lonely but rejuvenated. Newly determined to make things work.
Then she turned on her computer and the horror returned just as if it had never gone away.
Twenty-Seven
The computer hadn’t actually been shut down, so when the screen lit up it did so on the same internet page she had left it on: Becky Lawson’s Facebook profile. But everything about it had changed.
Becky had uploaded a new photograph – a headline image, Julia believed it was called. It was a photograph of her and Rob, kissing in silhouette against a beach sunset. A stream of small red hearts had been dotted around the couple, and her relationship status was back to 'in a relationship'. Below the image was a long trail of messages from her friends, who said as one how happy they were that she and Rob were back together.
Julia couldn't believe what she was seeing.
The implications were hard to grasp. The walks with Geoffrey – the space she had felt in the countryside – had helped to clear her mind, to shift the baggage that had been blocking her creativity. She had returned to London with the glimmer of an idea – a real idea this time. It began as The Glass Tower had begun, all those years before, with little more than a sense. She didn't have the plot, nor even the beginnings of one. But she had a glimmer. With The Glass Tower, it had been a sense of the tower itself. A sense of being there. Of touching the rough walls (at that stage, those walls had been made of creamy plastered brick, not the gleaming glass they would become in her novel). It was even a sense that included the taste of the salt air that flowed up from the sea and swirled around. This time the sense of place was quite different. It revolved around a near-impenetrable and dark forest. There was the smell of the undergrowth. Of wet sawn wood. She didn't know anything yet about the story it would bring with it. But she did feel there was a story there, just waiting to be discovered.
And now this. It was almost too much to take.
Julia forced herself to concentrate, feeling her sense of forest slip away. If Becky and Rob were back together, then what on earth did that mean for her? She had asked Becky to agree that they would lie to the police and say that Rob had been driving. In doing so, it would be Rob that was blamed for knocking down and killing the old woman, and for trying to cover it up. And that worked while Becky and Rob were finished. Over. But now they weren’t over any more.
For a long time, Julia simply stared blankly at her laptop, her mind unable to penetrate the confusion of everything. But in the end she did the only thing she could do. She found Becky's number on her phone, and she called it.
Becky answered on the third ring.
"Julia!" she said. She sounded happy to hear from her. "How are you?"
How am I? Julia thought. I'm just about losing my mind.
"I'm wonderful, thank you. How are you?" Julia replied.
"Well, you know. I guess you've heard?"
"Mmmmm."
"Rob and me got back together!" Becky spoke as if this was what they had discussed the previous week. Julia resisted the temptation to sigh.
Rob and I, she thought.
"So, what happened?" she asked instead.
"Well," Becky began, as if this was quite the story. "You know how Rob said that he'd never really looked at the porn, and it was only there because he’d lent his laptop to Dave because Dave’s laptop was broken, and Rob had to use the computers in uni anyway because he has to use the specialist software for engineering? Well, it turns out that Dave wasn’t writing his essay like he said he was, but instead was looking at all this horrible stuff online. And I borrowed it next, not knowing that Dave had used it before me. And then when I got all upset about it he didn’t know what to do because he didn’t want to say anything to get Dave in trouble with Sally – that’s Dave’s girlfriend – because they’ve only just got together and everything.”
Becky paused for a moment and Julia thought she had finished, but she was just drawing breath.
“Also Rob didn’t know how bad it was, because he still hadn’t even seen it so he thought I was maybe over-reacting, which I guess I do sometimes, but I wasn’t because it was really horrible stuff. What does that say about what Dave’s into?”
There was a moment when Julia wondered if she were being invited to answer this before Becky continued.
“So anyway, it took a little time before Rob even figured out what was happening, and also that arsehole Neil was wading in trying to stir everything up which didn’t help. And..." Becky stopped and gave a big happy sigh. "Well, you know how these things happen. The point is, we’re back together."
Julia was silent. After a while Becky took this to mean she should go on.
"It was really sweet, actually. He came round with a bunch of flowers and wouldn’t go away until I let him in. Really lovely flowers. He said that Dave had gone round to see him and admitted what he’d done and said he was actually a proper addict and he was going to get counselling, or whatever. Although Rob says he’s probably just saying that so Sally won’t dump him. But actually Sally was okay about it, because, well, you know what Sally’s like – or you don’t – but she’s a bit like that and it turns out she’s an addict too. So anyway, Rob said he was really sorry and I kinda realised I’d been a bit harsh on him. And, you know, he ended up staying the night."
Becky strung out the final word, and then fell silent as if to highlight its importance. Julia let her head fall back against the chair where she was sitting.
"Julia? Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here. Becky I'm... I'm wondering how this leaves... us. After what we both agreed when I came to see you."
"Why?" Becky asked.
"Well…” Julia began. “We made an agreement to ensure that Rob could never... never do anything to put us at risk. And so I'm anxious that – with the situation now changed, again – that the agreement itself doesn't present any risk. Do you follow me?"
Becky was quiet for a moment.
"You're worried I might tell Rob we were going to tell the police that he ran the old lady over?"
"No!" Julia was alarmed. She hadn't thought the girl would be so stupid, but now she wasn't sure."We were never going to go to the police! We were only going to explain it from our perspective in the unlikely event that the police ever became involved. Do you remember?"
"Oh, yes," Becky replied. She spoke as if the details had just slipped her mind, and never been that important anyway. She sighed again. Another big happy sigh.
"Anyway, you don't have to worry about that. I won't tell him anything. Not about that anyway.”
"You're sure Becky? You understand just how important..."
"Yes, yes. I do," Becky interrupted her. Her voice was serious for a moment. "I do, honestly. I understand."
Julia began to relax her grip on the telephone. She was unaware how tightly she had been holding it.
"Anyway, I've got something else to tell you. Something really exciting," Becky went on.
"What?" Julia asked.
"It might not happen, so don’t go telling anyone yet."
Julia wondered who she might possibly tell.
"I won't."
“You know how they’re rebuilding the lighthouse down on Hunsey Island? The one you used for your book?”
Stiffly, Julia allowed that she was aware of it.
“Well, they’re opening it as a kind of artistic retreat. You know, for painters and writers and birdwatchers and whatever. Anyway, they were advertising for people to run it. And they said it would suit a young couple, I guess so they could keep it cheap. But anyway,
me and Rob, Rob and I, I mean, we applied.”
Julia hardly listened. She was still trying to process the implications of them being back together.
“And?”
“And we’ve got an interview! Next week. Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah.”
"You have to promise not to tell anyone."
Julia sighed again. “I promise."
"Alright," Becky said. She giggled on the other end of the line."Actually there’s something else, too." She giggled again.
“What?” Julia asked.
"Well… You know how I’ve always looked up to you?" Becky began.
"Have you?" Julia asked. She wasn't at all sure she knew this. And she was even less sure how to answer now that she did.
"Erm..." she said.
"Oh come on, you know I have. I've idolised you. And you see, the thing is, I've always wanted to write myself, one day. I mean, it's obvious really, it's why I've been studying Creative Writing for the last three years, and why I got so excited when we got the job doing the catering for that party, where we met you."
"Yes?" Julia was beginning to get impatient now.
"Well, I've been... inspired. By you I mean, and everything you've achieved. And I've..." Her voice faded shyly out.
"What?" Julia asked.
When Becky went on it was nearly in a whisper.
"I've written a novel!"
Julia blinked at the telephone. She had begun the conversation thinking there was probably nothing that could be achieved to prevent her world sinking into ruin. But this? She hadn't expected this at all. A strange feeling began to climb into the hollow of her stomach.
"A novel? A whole one?" The feeling became clearer and Julia recognised it as something pleasurable. Something approaching pride.
"Well, actually no. Not quite. It isn’t finished, but it’s not far off. But I wanted to tell you. Because in many ways it’s only happened because of you. I guess… I guess you’ll see that when…” Becky stopped.
"But that's wonderful news!" Julia said at once, fully meaning it now. "What's it about?"
The Glass Tower Page 15
