Page 32 of High Season
“Here you go.” Gabby emerges with a glass of water. “I have some stuff to be getting on with round the back, but just give me a shout if you need anything, OK?”
Josie nods. Her hands close around the glass as if confirming its solidity.
“Oh and Josie?”
Gabby is hovering. An uncertainty crosses her face.
“I didn’t believe it,” Gabby says. “What they said about… you know.”
Without meaning to, Josie’s hands tighten around the glass. Gabby looks embarrassed, as if she’s said too much.
“I just wanted you to know. So we get off on the right foot.”
Josie is silent.
“Well,” says Gabby, flustered now. Her hands flutter against a stack of napkins on one of the tables, starting to fold them and then unfold them unnecessarily, an invented task. “You let me know if I can help out with anything.”
The producer is late.
Not unforgivably late. Not even to the point of being rude, really. But late enough for Josie, who was thirty-two minutes early, to become anxious. To begin to glance at her watch every thirty seconds. To think, with concern, about what they will do if the meeting runs over. If Gabby will have to open the café late. If Josie, on her first day here, will be an inconvenience, yet again, to the people around her.
Then, at exactly twelve minutes past eight, a woman dressed in a linen shirt and wide-legged trousers, the kind of effortless chic that always baffles and sparks longing in Josie in equal measure, glides up to the door. She has square-framed glasses, her hair pulled into a tortoiseshell claw. She looks exactly how Josie would imagine a documentary producer to look. Elegant and full of energy. When she sees Josie through the glass she smiles, raises up one hand in a wave.
“Josie Jackson,” she says as soon as she piles through the door. “I really can’t tell you how excited everyone is that you’re here.”
Josie doesn’t answer. She’s not used to people being pleased to see her. She half stands until the producer waves her down.
“No! No, don’t get up for me. I’m late, I know. I’m so sorry. We had a planning meeting last night that ran over and I ended up staying up late to brainstorm some ideas and… well. It’s so good to meet you, I suppose is what I’m trying to say. I’m Katherine.”
She holds out one hand toward Josie. Josie takes it, tentatively.
“I’ll get an espresso, please,” the woman says, before Gabby has a chance to ask for her order. “Double.”
She collapses into the chair opposite Josie.
“Well,” she says. “Look at you, back here! It must be crazy for you!”
Josie nods. Opens her mouth.
“Did you want anything, by the way?” Katherine is already asking. “Coffee? Breakfast? All on us, of course.”
Josie smiles tightly.
“I’m good with water, thanks.”
“So well-behaved of you. I’m a total caffeine addict. You have to be in this line of work. Speaking of which, I amsoexcited to talk to youabout the documentary. The team and I have been here for a week so far, conducting preliminary interviews and so on, and my god! This place! It’s beautiful. And then this undercurrent ofdarkness. Such terrible things that have happened here, over the years, Tamara Drayton’s death included, of course. It’s completely delicious. Perfect for TV.”
Josie can feel her face stiffening. The muscles of her cheeks starting to ache with the rictus smile that she’s somehow managed to maintain throughout this monologue.
“And your story—my god. It’s justdevastating. I can’t imagine how it must have been for you. To have all of those things said about you, everything out in a public forum. I’m so glad we managed to track you down. So glad we’re able to tell your side of the story now.”
Josie manages a nod. Swallows.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “It’s… well. It was pretty terrible.”
“I have to ask you, of course.” Katherine lowers her voice, conspiratorial. “Didyou do it?”
The nerves inside Josie quiver. Stall. Something within her collapses. Katherine is laughing.
