Chapter Two
‘The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together’
(All’s Well That Ends Well)
‘Long-distance relationships have their perks,’ said Mirren, with an air of authority, holding her phone in one hand, scarlet lipstick in the other, reapplying it in a confident sweep as she only half-looked in the mirror of the ladies’ room down in the basement of theEdinburgh Broadsheetnewspaper offices.
‘But you’ve never been in a long-distance relationship, have you, Mirr?’ Kelsey said, rummaging in her satchel for a lip balm and failing to find one, her other hand clasping the phone to her ear as she walked purposefully into Stratford town centre, still smiling over that morning’s call with Jonathan.
Mirren searched her memory, making exaggerated contemplativeumming sounds. ‘Well, no… But you could say I’m having one with you. When are you nipping back home for the weekend? I’m missing you, Kelse. You haven’t been home since you packed your bags back in June.’
Giving up the search, Kelsey’s hand fell upon the keys to her studio as she reached its steps, unlocked the outer door and punched in the security code. Fifteen sixty-four, the year Shakespeare was born. Familiar digits to Kelsey after her summer spinning yarns about the Bard for tourists around the town’s heritage spots.
‘I’ve got a million things to do here, Mirr, otherwise I’d be up those train tracks like a shot.’
Kelsey climbed up past the accountancy office and the landscape artist’s design place to the second floor landing and her own studio door.And I’ve got a million things to do and supplies I need to buy if I’m ever going to get this place up and running properly,she thought, but the weight of those worries didn’t dampen the thrill of pride and excitement that she felt every time she turned the key and stepped inside her new business premises. It had been five weeks since Norma had handed over the keys and the novelty most definitely wasn’t wearing off.
‘I do have a favour to ask though, Mirr. Will you pop in and see how my mum’s doing? You could tell her I’ve asked you to dig out some photography stuff from under my bed, or something like that?’
‘It’s OK, I don’t need a reason,’ Mirren replied. ‘I’ll call in. I’ll take some muffins or something. It’ll be nice to see her. I take it you’re missing her?’
‘Am a bit.’There’s an understatement. ‘Just give her a hug from me. Do you mind picking up a bag of Edinburgh rock for Grandad? You know it’s his favourite and he must miss the bags I’d bring him on Fridays.’
‘Consider it done. You know, if you’re lonely I can come visit one weekend? Help out with the studio, maybe? If I can clear my backlog at work, that is. There’s always so much admin to do and I always seem to be the one lumbered with it.’
‘Thanks, Mirr. I’m fine, honestly, and you’re so busy. I’ll see you when things settle down here, OK?’Or if I ever earn enough money to afford the rail fare to Scotland.‘I’ve got so much to do here, I’ve barely had time to think about being lonely. It is a bit strange without Jonathan, though. I keep seeing him around town, and I have to do a double-take before I realise it’s just some other brown-haired tall drink of water.’ Kelsey curtailed a sigh with a shrug, her renewed positivity kicking in. ‘I suppose this is what happens when you meet the love of your life in June and spend all summer faffing around him onlyfinallygetting together at the end of August, a few days before he has to leave town for six months.’
‘Excepting Christmas,’ said Mirren.
‘Yes, excepting Christmas. And maybe Valentine’s weekend.’
‘There you go, that’s not so bad, is it? He’ll be back soon, just hang on in there, Kelse. Listen, I’d better get back to work. I’m in a long-distance relationship with my own desk at the moment. The only women’s loos in this building are down three flights of stairs in the bowels of the earth. Ridiculous! I’ll call you soon, OK? Cheerio.’
Kelsey blew a kiss, hung up her phone, and placed it on the desk. Once belonging to Norma Arden, her old boss, the desk had until recently been cluttered with staff tour-guiding rotas and payslips and a huge diary from which Norma ruled her heritage industry empire.
Kelsey could still feel her here in the room and not just because she was grinning down at her from the framed shot of her wedding day with the entire Norma Arden Tours gang giving her a group hug. She was just an unforgettable kind of woman: tenacious, oh so very loud, an odd combination of posh and brassy, and with a huge, welcoming heart and a penchant for bringing together the town’s artistic waifs and strays, as well as dabbling in a bit of matchmaking among them. She may well have left the country to spend her retirement in newly wedded bliss on the Amalfi coast with Gianfranco, but she’d left a feeling of emptiness in the town, a great void that could only be filled with her whirlwind energy and ten to the dozen speech. Kelsey missed her every day and often thought about the great debt of gratitude she owed her.
Norma must have had some kind of sixth sense in order to pick Kelsey out.
How had she foreseen that the insecure Scottish homebody, who she hadn’t known from Eve, would become a great tour guide and a valued member of the agency team? Had Norma recognised the fact that a working holiday in her favourite place on the planet was just what Kelsey needed to bring some sunshine back into her overcast life? And just in the nick of time too: Norma had read her – slightly desperate – job application in the spring when Kelsey was losing faith in her dour, hardworking boyfriend Fran and unexpectedly unemployed from what was supposed to be a stop-gap job at a dusty old camera shop back home. Norma’s job offer had changed her life.
Kelsey often wondered how much Norma had been responsible for engineering her meetings with Jonathan too. It was Norma, after all, who put together the rotas that had thrown them together in the planning of the theatrical gala evening back in August, forcing them into closer acquaintance, giving them time to get to know each other better. And when had Norma realised Kelsey was the ideal candidate to take over the let on her office?
Norma signed it over at a tiny peppercorn of a rent, set for six months, ‘until you get your business off the ground,’ she’d said, while flashing her lipstick-stained teeth beneath her signature purple specs and shocking, severe red bob.
‘What business?’ Kelsey had asked.
Kelsey smiled at the memory of that moment, only a few weeks ago, when she had been so green.
‘Your photography studio, of course,’ Norma had replied, and within minutes the rental agreement was signed and Kelsey, always a little unsure of herself and what she would do with her life, suddenly had a career mapped out for her.
Looking back, Kelsey reflected, Norma had probably never once seen her without a camera around her neck, and even though she had loved working for Norma at the agency, it was plain to see that Kelsey wasn’t dreaming of a life of tour-guiding, instead she had her heart set on a life she didn’t dare waste any daydreams on. Deep down, Kelsey was only reallytrulyhappy behind the lens of her dad’s lovely old camera. Norma had known instantly this fact that Kelsey was only dimly becoming aware of.
Taking the feather duster from the cupboard under her desk, the autumn light spilling in through the bare studio windows, Kelsey ran it around the sparse room, carefully going over her camera on its new tripod facing the blank whiteness of the smoothly plastered wall where she planned to shoot passport and ID photographs. She hadn’t had the opportunity to do an actual, proper portrait shoot yet either, which wasn’t great when, technically, she’d been in business for almost two weeks.
The place had needed a full makeover and it had taken time to source and set up the (new to Kelsey) second-hand reflectors and modern studio backdrops she’d found she needed. She’d had a sign installed over the studio door – ‘Kelsey Anderson Photography’ in delicate purple calligraphy – and she’d had to master the new photo-editing software on her tablet. Yet, she had managed all of that, working methodically and efficiently, trying to avoid the temptation to splurge on pretty soft furnishings and extras she didn’t need. Now the studio was complete, and it was her pride and joy.
She knew there was nothing left to do but prepare to open her studio properly to paying customers, if she could find any.
