Jane Green - Bookends

A handful of local authors are here, each in turn being interviewed by the Ham & High , and each saying how thrilled they are that Bookends has opened, and what a great idea, and why hadn’t someone thought of it sooner.

Si seems to be taking his role as chief coffee maker from the TV series Ellen quite literally, and is walking around offering people mugs of French vanilla cappuccino. Lucy tries to stop him, but he shakes her off. ‘How else do you think I’m going to meet gorgeous men?’ he tuts, making a beeline for a very pretty blond man in the corner.

‘Cath?’

I turn around and James is standing there, smiling uncertainly. He’s wearing his navy suit and a tie that is covered with tiny jewel-coloured books.

‘James!’ I give him a big kiss, not feeling the slightest bit self-conscious, as the copious amount of champagne I’ve had has loosened my inhibitions considerably.

‘I love your tie!’ I shriek, over the din.

‘Thanks.’ His lips brush my ear as he leans forward to be heard, and I shiver. ‘I painted it myself. Appropriate, I thought.’

I laugh as I link my arm through his and lead him slightly unsteadily towards Lucy.

‘Lucy! Look! It’s James!’

Lucy’s face lights up and she too plants a large kiss on his cheek, as Si rises up behind her.

‘Hel-Lo,’ he says, in his best Leslie Phillips impression, eyeing James up and down, then raising his eyebrows practically to the ceiling as he notes my arm linked through James’s. I hurriedly unlink it and introduce them.

‘Oh,’ Si says. ‘Now I’ve heard all about you.’

James looks surprised as Lucy starts to drag Si away. ‘What a load of rubbish,’ she shouts over her shoulder to James. ‘He knows nothing about you. Nothing. He’s just drunk.’

‘Sorry.’ I now feel slightly awkward, unsure what there is to talk about, when I remember the paintings. ‘Look!’ I gesture around the room. ‘Don’t they look wonderful? I think they’ve even sold one or two.’

‘Are you serious?’ James’s face lights up. ‘That’s amazing. Will you come with me to see which ones?’

I nod happily as James suddenly seems to look at me again. He stands back and shakes his head slightly. ‘God, Cath,’ he says, the smile disappearing from his face. ‘You look fantastic.’

‘I do? I mean, no, I don’t. But thanks.’ It’s been so long since I last had a compliment I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with it.

‘Come on.’ I take his arm again, if only to stop myself from fainting with happiness – what a compliment! What a man! – and we push our way through the crowd to see his paintings.

I’m having such a good time. I don’t remember the last time I had such a great time. I’m high on champagne and life. My dream of opening a bookshop has come true, and could I be… am I… oh my God! I’m actually flirting with James, and what’s more, I’m enjoying it. Christ, this feels good.

‘Cath, have you seen Josh?’ I turn and look up at the familiar face of Ingrid, towering above me.

‘Nope.’ I wave an arm lazily around the room. ‘But I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.’

‘Hello.’ Ingrid suddenly extends an arm to James. ‘I am Ingrid.’

‘Hello,’ he says, taking in her twelve feet legs, three-inch waist and pneumatic breasts. ‘I’m James.’

‘Nice to meet you, James,’ she breathes, in what I’m convinced is a deliberate take-off of Marilyn Monroe.

‘Umm, yes. Nice to meet you too.’

‘So what are you doing here, James?’ Ingrid says, and I give up. My bubble deflates in a split second, and as I back away from the pair of them neither notices, each completely wrapped up in the other.

How is it that you can go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like shit in less than a minute? If this weren’t our party, weren’t the opening of my dream, I’d leave right now and go to bed. But of course I can’t do that, so I choose the only other option available. Booze.

I drink and I drink and I’m about to drink a bit more, when Lucy comes over and gives me a stern look, subtly removing my champagne glass as she introduces me to yet another potential customer to charm. I give her a grateful look, because tonight, the opening of our shop, is not the time to be disgracing myself, and, although I’m definitely tipsy, Lucy has managed to save me from thoroughly disgracing myself.

At some point I become aware that Si is trying very gently to steer me into the stock room, and then I look over his shoulder and do a double take. Or perhaps that should be a quadruple take, because walking this way is someone who looks very like Portia.

‘Hello, Cath,’ she says coolly, as I practically keel over with shock. ‘Long time no see.’

It’s very strange to see someone again after ten years. Strange to see how that person has changed, whether they have, in fact, changed.

I remember bumping into three girls I went to school with a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen them in twelve years, and they were all mortified because I said they hadn’t changed at all, but it was true. Their faces were older, their hairstyles more sophisticated, but I would have known them anywhere.

Yet although Portia should not have changed, I can see that somehow she has. Her face seems harder, and, even though she is still tremendously beautiful, her look more polished than even I could have imagined, there seems to be something brittle about her. We stand there for a few seconds, both half smiling, both unsure of how to greet one another after all this time.

And though I know my face doesn’t give it away, I’m nervous as hell and I can feel my heart beating wildly, and I just hope that when I speak I’m not completely breathless with nerves.

‘Oh my God!’ Si’s shrieking breaks the reverie, and he flings his arms around her in a bear hug before she can say anything. She laughs and gently disengages herself, then leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

‘But how did you…? What are you…?’ Si is as surprised as I am, and I realize that this isn’t his set-up, his surprise.

‘Don’t ask,’ she smiles. ‘I got your message, but you never left your phone number. I read about this in the local paper and it mentioned your name, so I thought I’d pop in to say hello.’

‘You look amazing,’ I find myself saying, unable to help myself, because she does, she looks as if she has just stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine. Make that an expensive glossy magazine. Her hair is a rich sweeping curtain of mahogany, her eyes bright and clear, and her voice rings with a confidence and authority that has evidently developed tenthousandfold over the years.

Put it like this: if you spotted Portia walking down the street, even if you had no idea who she was, you would assume she was a high-powered media star who always gets exactly what she wants.

‘Thank you,’ she smiles. ‘And it’s a relief to find you look exactly the same. The same old Cath. Still presumably as disinterested in fashion as ever, although,’ and she fingers my jacket and takes a close look, ‘do I detect a hint of Emporio in here?’

Si gasps with pleasure. ‘I told you,’ he nudges me. ‘Told you it was worth the money. I’ve been trying, Portia’ – he looks at her with a shrug – ‘but you know Cath. This is the first decent thing she’s worn in the last ten years.’ It’s odd to hear his tone of voice, friendly, light, familiar. Almost as if it has only been a week since we last saw her.

‘You look good too,’ she says to Si. ‘This is so weird, coming here and finding that you’re all here and still friends and still looking the same.’