Chapter Fifteen

‘I have the manuscript because I'm Este Cox,' Joe said again, chin lifted high and proud. ‘That's why it's in the cottage. It has nothing to do with Sophie.'

The very large, open garden suddenly became very small and very closed in, and I couldn't seem to fill my lungs with enough air to keep me upright. Joe held out a steadying hand, eyeing me with concern.

‘Are you all right?' he asked.

‘No,' I replied. ‘What are you doing?'

‘You're Este Cox?' Charlotte asked before he could reply, big brown eyes bulging out of her head.

Joe pulled back his shoulders to emphasise his majestic stance. ‘That's right. And I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. As you know, I have chosen to remain anonymous for a reason.'

‘This isn't happening,' I muttered, looking for somewhere to put down my wine glass and also myself. My legs weren't going to hold me up much longer.

‘You wrote Butterflies?' Mum asked as she gently pulled the messy manuscript out of Charlotte's frozen fingers. I held my breath as she scanned the pages. Surely she would recognise my notes in the margins? Surely she would hear my voice on the page?

‘Yes?' Joe looked over at me again, sounding slightly less sure of himself this time.

‘And this is the sequel?

‘That's right.'

She shuffled the pile back into a neat stack and handed it to him. ‘Then this is yours.'

‘But Mum—' Charlotte protested.

‘But nothing,' she replied sharply. ‘You shouldn't have been going through Joe's things. Or should I say Este's.'

My heart sank. There was no reason for her to recognise my barely legible notes when I could hardly make sense of them myself and why would she hear my voice when she wasn't listening for a different tune?

‘There's no way you wrote that book,' CJ said, poking his nose at the manuscript until Joe snatched it away. ‘You're a man.'

‘Which disqualifies me how?'

‘Because it was obviously written by a woman,' my ex spluttered. ‘It's for women. It's about women.'

‘It almost sounds as though you're saying you don't believe a man could write a convincing female experience,' Joe replied, clutching the stack of papers under his arm. ‘Ironic, considering.'

In the five years we were together, Colin often got annoyed or frustrated but he didn't get angry, not really. CJ, it seemed, did. It wasn't a good look on him. His lips curled back until he was all tooth and gum, his features soured and a blotchy red rash coloured his throat.

‘It's mindless shit is what it is,' he announced, squaring up to Joe in a not at all flattering stand-off.

‘It's not shit!' Charlotte all but screamed as she forced her way in between them. ‘How many times do I have to tell people? It's a feminist masterpiece. It's—'

‘A book about the frustrations women have to put up with every day and how they deserve to have their needs met,' Joe said, parroting back exactly what I'd told him as CJ backed away.

‘It's porn,' Aunt Carole said, clutching at her padded gilet in horror. ‘Filth. Plain and simple. No one is reading something like that for the story, they're reading it to, well, I don't think I need to say any more.'

‘So what if they are?' Charlotte answered. ‘Show me a society in the history of humankind that hasn't had porn? Just because you all had to hide your grotty magazines under the mattress, don't come for my books. Butterflies is healthier than Big Butts Monthly.'

‘Is that a real magazine?' Bryan asked, too enthusiastically.

Before that moment, my worst recurring nightmare always involved having to resit my A Level history exam completely naked but this was so much worse. Standing in my parents' garden while my family argued about my book and the societal impact of porn would haunt me for the rest of my life.

‘You could make the argument,' my mother inserted, commandeering the conversation with her calm, quiet voice. ‘That reading erotica, or romance if that's what we're calling it, is a feminist act.'

‘You could?' My head sprang up like a jack-in-a-box. ‘You specifically?'

‘If you subscribe to the theory that feminism is about choice,' she replied. ‘Women, everyone, should have the choice to read, write and be whatever they want. In that sense, these books could, I suppose, be considered a radical act.'

‘And not frivolous, predictable, badly written, misogynistic nonsense?'

She blinked a couple of times, her huge eyes owlish behind her glasses, but wasn't fazed by my reminder of her own earlier review.

‘As you know, I haven't read it. But from what I can gather, the overall message of this book in particular doesn't seem to be harmful in any way.'

‘It's not harmful, it's empowering,' Charlotte said, now fully wrapped around Joe's arm. ‘Writing misery in this century should be illegal, things are shit enough. Do we really need another Deckled Edges?'

‘Deckled Edges is a satire,' CJ blustered. ‘It's a dark comedy.'

Charlotte wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘So dark I couldn't see the laughs.'

‘What exactly is going on here?' My dad elbowed his way to the front of the group, looking from guest to guest for an answer. ‘I go inside to use the loo and five minutes later all hell's broken loose?'

‘Dad, it's the most amazing thing ever. Joe is Este Cox!' Charlotte said, welded to his side so tightly it would've taken a crowbar to get her off him.

‘Este, is it?' Dad looked Joe up and down and nodded. ‘Perfectly fine with me, son, happy to call you whatever you like but I don't know if you'll have such an easy go of it with Gregory.'

‘Hugh, darling, no,' Mum pressed two fingers to her forehead, right between her eyebrows, and closed her eyes as she took a breath in. ‘He isn't changing his name to Este. It appears that Joseph here has been writing under a nom de plume. He's the author of your daughter's latest literary obsession, Butterflies.'

‘Is that right?'

I couldn't believe it. Dad looked thrilled. England winning the World Cup, bacon being declared a health food, Gillian Anderson asking him out for tea thrilled. ‘Then congratulations are in order, Joseph. You must tell us everything.'

‘No, really, it's your birthday,' Joe said as he desperately tried to wrangle his arm away from my limpet-like sister. ‘Like I said, I used a pseudonym for a reason. No one knows I'm the author and no one can know I'm the author so please, I really need you to keep it under your hats.'

‘They will,' Charlotte promised, skewering everyone with a threatening look. ‘On one condition. You do a signing at my bookshop.'

‘I'd love to but I don't see how it could work with me staying anonymous?' he replied as I managed to gather my senses just enough to tip back half my glass of wine in one gulp.

Charlotte beamed up at Joe, still hanging on his arm like a nineteenth-century heroine caught mid-swoon, and he smiled awkwardly back, manuscript held securely to his chest. Then she pulled out her phone from her pocket and snapped a photo of him, stack of papers in hand.

‘You can't expect to stay anonymous forever,' she reasoned, releasing him from her vice-like grip as she reviewed the incriminating image. ‘Either you do an in-person live event at my bookshop or I post this to TikTok tomorrow night. It's totally up to you.'

Joe's eyes opened so wide it was a wonder they stayed in his head. ‘Call me cynical but that sounds a lot like blackmail.'

She turned her phone around to show him the photo. It wasn't his best. Deer in the headlights fear didn't look good on anyone.

‘It does, doesn't it? You have twenty-four hours to decide.'

‘I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're not entirely pleased with me.'

‘Whatever gives you that idea?' I asked Joe when he found me alone at the back door of the cottage after the fuss died down and the gathering dispersed.

‘Couldn't really say. Just a hunch.'

I smiled pleasantly as I continued to hurl his belongings, one by one, off the little porch over the wall and into the field behind the cottage.

‘I was trying to help,' he said. ‘But given the fact you've just chucked my pants into a pile of cow shit, I'm going to guess that wasn't obvious?'

‘Help?' I paused, his overnight bag in one hand, a very nice pale blue cashmere sweater in the other. ‘You were trying to help?'

It was finally dark outside, but the moon was full, casting a milky luminance across Joe's face, highlighting the high planes of his cheekbones and the downward curve of his mouth.

‘You didn't want your family to know you're Este Cox,' he replied, nervously eyeing the sweater as I pulled back my arm.

‘And you couldn't think of a better reason why you might have the manuscript?'

‘Such as?'

‘Such as you're the creative director at Este Cox's publishing house and you have the manuscript because you're working on the cover?'

He barely flinched when I balled up the lovely sweater and threw it as far as I could.

‘Fuck,' he muttered. ‘That would've made more sense.'

‘Yes,' I said, the sweater sailing through the air before catching on the willow tree behind the cottage and waving back and forth like a fancy flag of surrender. ‘It would.'

‘Sophie, I'm sorry, I really am, but you looked so freaked out, I had to do something.' Joe took a speculative step forward and I retaliated by pulling a black leather sunglasses case out of the bag. He retreated at once. ‘Telling them I'm Este was the first thought that came into my head and please don't throw those, they were very expensive.'

‘Obviously there were very few obstacles blocking its way,' I said through gritted teeth as I chucked the glasses case. ‘Do you have any idea what you've done?'

‘Aside from save your arse?'

I'd crossed a line with the sunglasses. He crossed the porch in two long strides and grabbed one handle of his overnight bag.

‘It was a stupid thing to say, I see that now, but I can fix it. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll explain it was all a joke and, like you said, I only have the manuscript because I'm working on the book. They'll believe me.'

‘Why wouldn't they?' I agreed, refusing to let go of the bag. ‘People will believe anything that comes out your mouth.'

We stood face to face, each holding onto one handle of his open and half-empty bag until Joe yanked it out of my grasp. He let it fall to the floor, the rest of his belongings spilling out onto the ground.

‘Everyone except for you.'

I wasn't prepared for his voice to be so soft.

‘I'm sorry,' he said again as I rubbed a sore spot on my palm where I'd been holding on to his bag too tightly. ‘I am genuinely sorry. I should've known better. Every time I try to help someone, it only makes things more complicated.'

My head swam as I held my breath to protect myself from the warm scent of Joe's skin and when placed his hand in my open palm, my fingers automatically curled around his.

‘Why is it that every time I'm with you, I'm apologising?' Joe asked. His huge hand swallowed up mine, strong and warm.

‘Because you know when you're beaten?' I suggested, tiptoeing precariously close to the edge. This was it. This was our moment.

‘Can I ask you something?'

‘Yes,' I tried to say. The air that left my lungs passed over my lips too softly to make a sound.

‘Are you more upset that I said I wrote the book or that your family were so impressed by it?'

The moment passed.

With a feeble shove, I pushed him out of my way and stormed back inside. ‘You might want to get your stuff back before the foxes run off with it,' I said, leaving him out on the porch. ‘Some of it looked expensive. Tacky but expensive.'

‘Are you going to help me?' he asked.

‘No,' I replied, grabbing my phone and the cottage keys from the bedside table, just in case he had the bright idea to lock me out. ‘I'm going to clear up your mess. Don't wait up.'

The door closed behind me with a satisfying slam.

Most of the house lights were out and all the curtains were drawn, only my sister's room, the landing and the kitchen still showed signs of life when I found myself standing at the back door. I had no more idea of what I wanted to say than I had when Charlotte marched out of the cottage brandishing my manuscript but I knew I had to say something. It didn't have to be difficult. All I needed to do was stick to the facts.

Joe isn't Este Cox, I am.

He didn't write Butterflies, I did.

Then I would remind them it's a feminist masterpiece with absolutely no pegging and all of this nonsense would be behind me forever.

With my hand on the doorknob, I took a moment to visualise a happy outcome with proud parents and an adoring sister rather than an angry mob waving pitchforks, then I stopped. Two blurred figures walked into the kitchen, their features obscured by the pebbled glass, both speaking softly but still loud enough to carry out the latched open window.

‘It's very interesting, I can't think of another example,' Mum said in between the opening and closing of cupboard doors. ‘I've only flicked through it but, I have to say, men rarely write so sensitively about female desire.'

‘Men rarely do anything sensitively when it comes to female desire,' a second voice said. Jericka, mum's friend, the overly intense critic. ‘That's why these books do so well in the first place.'

‘And the things he writes about,' added a third voice. ‘I've never read anything like it. Not that I usually read those sorts of things, you understand.'

‘Yes, Carole, we know,' Mum replied. ‘You only read it on behalf of your church group.'

‘Know thy enemy,' she confirmed.

‘I don't remember that line from the Bible,' Jericka said. ‘Which book is that exactly?'

I pulled my hand away from the door and pressed myself up against the wall beside instead. Explaining the truth to my mother was one thing, confessing in front of Jericka and Auntie Carole was another.

‘It does demand a re-evaluation of the text,' Mum said, the dishwasher creaking open as she spoke. ‘Joseph has obviously connected to something in a lot of women.'

‘Sometimes it takes an outsider to see us more clearly,' Jericka offered. ‘One might even say there's something almost satirical about it. Not only has he believably aped the genre, he's excelled in it.'

‘Goes to show most of these books aren't worth the paper they're written on when a first-time male author can wipe the floor with the lot of them,' my mother agreed. ‘Shame he doesn't want to come forward, he's a good-looking boy. The PR team would have a field day with him.'

The dishwasher slammed shut, smothering murmurings of agreement.

‘Didn't Sophie used to talk about writing a book?' Carole said as I crouched down underneath the window to hear them more clearly.

‘She did. And then she went into teaching.'

Maybe I didn't need to hear more clearly after all.

‘It's a noble profession,' Jericka said, earning her several thousand brownie points with me. ‘Encouraging the next generation, inspiring young minds.'

‘Yes, that's very true and I'm proud of her for it,' Mum replied. I leaned against the cold stone, steeling myself for the inevitable ‘but' that hung in the air.

‘I know it's a terrible thing to say but I expected something more from her. She's such a bright girl, could've gone into any industry really but I always assumed she'd follow us into the publishing world. I'm not ecstatic about Charlotte deferring her education but you can't help but be impressed by her determination. Where's that ambition in Sophie? She's too soft to be a killer agent like William but she would've made a marvellous editor and she did, like you say, always always want to be a writer.'

My thighs were already screaming from the deeply uncomfortable position I found myself in, physically and emotionally, and I very much wanted to leave. But how could I?

‘She's still young, there's time for her yet.' Jericka sounded like she was trying to convince my mother I could still turn back from a life of crime. ‘Toni Morrison didn't publish The Bluest Eye until she was thirty-nine.'

‘But she was already working in publishing then,' Mum reminded her. ‘Not coddling toddlers and wasting her potential.'

‘And don't forget,' Carole added. ‘Those who can do, those who can't teach.'

‘Carole, that's a terrible thing to say,' Mum replied, only waiting a second before adding, ‘but you're not the first to say it.'

‘Could be worse,' Jerick clucked. ‘At least she's not a romance writer.'

Lowering myself to my hands and knees, I crawled away from the house and crawled back down the garden like a dog. As well as being thematically on point, it was the only way to make sure they wouldn't see me and I was not in the mood to make my confession now.

I hid Butterflies from my parents because I couldn't stand the thought of disappointing them. What I hadn't realised until tonight was how disappointed my mother already was. As a lifetime romance reader, I was used to snobbery. Ever since my fated meet-cute with the copy of Bridget Jones's Diary someone left behind on a bus when I was fourteen, and I knew from the very first ‘fuckwit', there was no turning back. Mum dismissed it all as ‘chicklit' back then and I hid my ever-growing collection under my bed, pristine and treasured, while I distracted my parents with the dog-eared copies of Ayn Rand and Hemingway bought from second-hand shops. After a while, chicklit fell out of fashion and people started calling it ‘women's fiction' which I never really understood. The gender label made no sense. There was no ‘men's fiction' section in the bookshop, why were we the ones who had to be othered? In fact, if a man wrote a love story, or any kind of book with a romantic storyline at its heart, it went right in the window and won all the prizes, while my beloved books, the ones that talked about the lives of women, all the things that mattered to us, large and small, were tucked away on a shelf or squeezed together on one very pink table. Now things were different. Romance ruled, and younger and braver women than me shouted their fandom from the TikTok rooftops. There were still plenty of snobs around to judge them, but they didn't care. That was the one thing my mum was right about. They loved what they loved, regardless of what other people thought, and that kind of love is a radical, rebellious act. But it didn't make up for knowing your parents were disappointed in you.

‘She returns,' Joe declared as I opened the door and skulked inside, head hanging low. ‘When you said don't wait up I thought that meant you weren't coming back. And by "thought", I mean, hoped.'

‘I'm really not in the mood for this,' I replied, keeping my chin down and my hair in front of my face. ‘Can I just brush my teeth and go to bed please?'

‘No one's stopping you.'

I moved past him without looking up, one foot in front of the other, the bathroom was so close. Three more steps and I could lock the door, turn on the taps and wash the whole day away. But Joe stepped in front of me, blocking my path, his non-committal sarcasm replaced by concern.

‘What happened? Are you OK?'

‘More than.'

I ducked past him, closing the bathroom door and turning the lock before he could get a good look at my tear-stained face.

My disappointing, unambitious tear-stained face.

‘Sophie?' he called my name doubtfully through the door.

‘I'm perfectly fine,' I replied, hating how weak and shaky my voice sounded.

‘You're sure?'

‘Sure I'm sure.'

He was still outside the door, I could feel him hovering and I stayed stock still until his footsteps petered away. I didn't realise I was shaking until I stopped.

The sight I saw reflected in the mirror was not a pretty one. My eyes and nose were red raw, my hair needed a good brush and what mascara had survived the walk back from the house had stained my under eyes a sickly, patchy grey. I looked disgusting but then I felt disgusting so it all worked out perfectly. Meeting myself in the eye, I gave Mirror Sophie a fierce look. A woman I followed on Instagram, who loved dispensing advice while contorting herself into a variety of advanced yoga poses, said no matter what, you should always be able to find one good thing about your day and I was determined to do it. There was Sarah, as always, but seeing her so happy and fulfilled by her new job only reminded me how confused I was. Her vanilla latte was definitely a highlight but if that was the best I could do, I really was in trouble.

The girl we met on our walk. Butterflies' biggest fan.

That should've been something I could cling to, someone who willingly went to bat for me and my book simply because she loved it. But what good was the adoration of strangers when the people you loved most didn't respect you? Even CJ, who had to be one of the top five most annoying people in the world, had dumped me. I wasn't sad about the end of our relationship and I definitely wasn't still hung up on him, no matter what he wanted to believe, but what did it say about me if even a man like that ditched me at the first opportunity?

After ten minutes on the side of the bath with wads of cold, wet tissue paper pressed against my eyes, I opened the bathroom door. Facing me was a semi-transparent white wall suddenly erected in the middle of the cottage, dividing the room in two. My bed on one side, his sofa on the other. Shoelaces, four of them tied together in one long line, stretched from one end of the room to the other, the fabric that separated us draped over the top.

‘What's going on?' I asked.

‘I like privacy when I retire,' Joe quoted from his side of the partition. ‘I'm very delicate in that respect. Behold the walls of Jericho!'

‘You've seen It Happened One Night?'

His head peeked around the sheet wall and he smiled, his best Clark Gable impression. ‘Only about a thousand times.'

He disappeared back behind the thin white partition, the light of the moon shining through the window and outlining his body against the fabric. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, thick thighs. It was almost as though he was putting on a show.

‘You took down the curtains,' I realised, looking away. ‘But the moon's so bright tonight, how are you going to sleep?'

‘I could sleep on the surface of the sun, don't you worry about me,' he replied. ‘Are you OK?'

‘I'm OK.'

Slowly, I peeled back the covers on the huge bed and slipped underneath. It had been a warm day but the night was cooler and I was grateful not to have to toss aside the comforting weight of the duvet. Almost as grateful as I was for his gesture.

‘Joe?' I said, pulling up the sheets to my chin.

‘Sophie?' he replied.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You are?' His voice was rich with pleasant surprise. ‘What for?'

‘For throwing your things outside. Did you manage to find everything?'

‘Yes. I had to tangle with a very dapper badger to get my boxers back but aside from that there was no harm done.'

In spite of everything, a small smile forced its way onto my face.

‘I suppose you think that's funny.'

‘Not really. I could've got TB, Sophie, badgers are riddled. But then he drove off in a Ford Model T with a toad and a mole, muttering something about weasels. It was all very dramatic.'

The pale moonlight streamed through the undressed windows, illuminating the fabric that separated us like a cinema screen. Joe's silhouette moved slowly but surely, unbuttoning his shirt, starting with the cuffs then moving down his body, one button at a time. It wasn't a silent movie and I held my breath to better hear his sound effects, the unexpected thrill of a zip followed by the schlump of his jeans hitting the floor. He bent down to pick them up and the fabric rippled as his angles changed, now wearing nothing but those silky black boxers. I waited for him to get into bed but he didn't move. Instead he stood right by the sheet, the only thing that separated us, the fluttering, flimsy fabric.

‘Sophie?' he said, the soft sound of my name filling the cottage.

‘Joe?'

‘Nothing.'

He climbed into bed, the sofa creaking happily as his weight tested the new springs and I stared up at the ceiling, wide awake.

‘Get some sleep,' I said, not quite ready to let go of the connection.

‘You too.'

There were more rustling sounds, sheets moving across skin, the mattress yielding to the weight of his body.

‘Sweet dreams,' I added.

‘I hope I have the same dream I had last night,' he replied.

I moistened my dry lips and, even though I knew I'd regret it, cleared my throat to ask the question.

‘What did you dream about last night?'

‘You.'

It hung in the air, a statement, a confession. An invitation.

‘Goodnight, Sophie,' he said, the springs creaking one more time as he settled himself.

‘Goodnight, Joe,' I whispered back, rolling onto my side and closing my eyes with a smile.