Nell: The Opportunity to Say Something Sensible

Ollie was waiting on the garden wall when I got home. He had obtained a packet of crisps from the neighbour, which reduced my concern about his survival.

“Did you run?” he asked.

“Only the uphill bits, because I enjoy suffering.”

“You look weird.”

“Thank you. Your crisis interrupted an important meeting.”

“With Kit?”

“Yes.”

“So you look weird because of Kit.”

I unlocked the back door and let him in. He immediately went to the fridge, suggesting that being locked out for thirty-five minutes had affected the nation's yoghurt supply.

I called Kit that evening from my bedroom. For the first minute we talked about the fork. Then we talked about Ollie. Then we talked about the guide, which had apparently become the conversational equivalent of a large piece of furniture we could hide behind.

Eventually I said, “I didn't want to leave.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Your expression when you saw who was calling.”

“Oh. Uncharitable.”

“A little.”

I sat on the floor with my back against the bed. “I'd like to do something that doesn't involve testing a route.”

“With me?”

“No, with an expert in umbrellas. Yes, with you.”

There was a pause, but not a frightening one.

“I'd like that.”

We arranged Saturday evening. Kit was visiting Manchester on Friday, and I had a meeting at the library on Friday morning. Saturday became a bright square in my head, so conspicuous that everything else had to move around it.

On Monday, the Beacon offered me an interview.

I read the email in the kitchen while Dad was trying to fix a cupboard hinge with a screwdriver that kept disappearing under yesterday's post. He worked dispatch at the regional distribution depot, mostly late shifts, and had developed an ability to be cheerful at hours when other people were legally asleep.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You've gone the colour of the good plates.”

I handed him my phone.

He read the email twice. Then he opened the drawer where we kept takeaway menus, batteries and things too important to lose in any organised way. He took out a packet of chocolate biscuits.

“Interview biscuits,” he said.

“Those have been there since Christmas.”

“Experienced interview biscuits.”

I laughed. He set two on a plate and kept reading.

“You'll do well.”

“You don't know that.”

“No. But I know you'll turn up with enough research to make them nervous.”

That was the thing about Dad. He didn't need my ambitions to be sensible in order to take them seriously. When I was nine and wanted to interview the mayor about why the playground climbing frame had vanished, he'd helped me write an email. The mayor hadn't replied. A woman in the office had sent a leaflet about planned improvements. I'd been furious about the lack of follow-up questions. Dad had kept the leaflet.

“What should I wear?” I asked.

“Something in which you can sit down.”

“Remarkably broad brief.”

He found the screwdriver under an electricity bill. “They've read your application. They want to meet you, not an imaginary person in a jacket.”

I tried to remember that on Friday, sitting opposite Celia at the library in a jacket I had borrowed from Mum.

Celia had brought a large sample sheet from the printer. Seeing our pages at actual size was unexpectedly moving. Kit's photograph of a thermos against the harbour wall looked better on paper than on my screen. My paragraph about the museum occupied a neat block beneath it. Our names were both on the contents page.

“This is good,” I said, and heard how surprised I sounded.

“It is,” Jo said.

Celia smiled. “Now we need to make sure it gets seen.”

She explained that Bright Marden wanted a launch event with local businesses, photographs for the festival programme and a short feature in its newsletter. The Beacon might pick up the story. There was also a youth creativity showcase at the arts centre, though nobody had promised us a place.

“Who's writing the feature?” I asked.

“We'd like you to. Six hundred words. Your experience of discovering the town afresh.”

“Both of us?”

“Your voice, principally. Kit's pictures, naturally.”

I glanced at Jo. She was reading a note on the print sheet.

“Kit's also designed the routes and the layout,” I said.

“Of course. We can put that in the credit.”

The answer wasn't wrong. That was what made it easy to keep listening.

Celia wanted a clear narrative: young person notices problem, makes a constructive complaint, finds a way to change things. I could see the opening paragraph before she'd finished speaking. It had a clean shape. It would sound good in an application folder. It would make sense to someone who did not care about the enormous number of conversations behind a twelve-outing guide.

“Bring a draft next week,” she said. “We can work on it together.”

“I'll discuss it with Kit.”

Jo looked up. “Please do. And keep the guide's editorial decisions separate from the publicity. We still have work to finish.”

“I know.”

I meant it when I said it.

After the meeting, I took the proof sheet to the window and photographed it for Kit. She was on the train back from Manchester by then, due home that afternoon.

Nell: We are real paper people.

Kit: Do I look expensive?

Nell: Excellent value for money.

Kit: Romantic.

I read that word three times before answering.

Nell: Saving the good material for Saturday.

Her reply was a photograph of the view from the train: warehouses, a pale strip of sky, her own reflection faintly visible in the glass.

Kit: Looking forward to it.

I put the phone away. On the sample sheet, a tiny typo sat beneath my best paragraph. I circled it with a pencil and felt, for a moment, that everything difficult could be corrected that simply.