summer?’
Jonah lays the guide down. ‘God, I’d forgotten you did that,’ he says. ‘And with your bare hands too. You’re an everyday miracle worker, Lyds.’ He laughs as he tilts the neck of his beer towards me in salute.
‘I’ll take that,’ I say, gracious.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘It’s true.’
‘So …’ I sit up straighter, cross-legged on the sofa facing him. ‘What’s really brought you home, Jonah?’
He picks at the corner of the label on his beer bottle. ‘I just needed to clear my head.’
I take an educated guess. ‘Script woes again?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighs. I know he’s sometimes found it difficult to walk the line between staying true to his story and accepting the studio’s vision for the script, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about this lately.
‘I thought you’d ironed all that out?’
He twists his head until his neck cricks, a giveaway of his anxiety to me because I know him so well.
‘We did,’ he says. ‘We had. Or at least I thought we had.’
I reach for my wine glass without interrupting.
‘But then we broke for Christmas and they must have all watched too much of the Hallmark Channel or something, because they’ve decided the ending needs to change. Again.’
Ah. ‘And you don’t agree?’
He casts his eyes to the ceiling as if the answer to his problems might be hidden somewhere up there. ‘No.’
‘So you’ve come home to …?’ I leave it open-ended for him to finish, but he just stares at me in silence.
‘Hide?’ I suggest.
He huffs softly. ‘Something like that.’
‘But you will go back again, right?’ I say, because I couldn’t bear to see him lose this now he’s come so far.
He drains his beer. ‘Yeah, I’ll go back. Of course I will, but I’ve no idea what I’m going to say to them because the end matters, Lyds. It makes all the difference.’
‘I know,’ I say, even though I don’t really know much about stories. ‘Is there any chance they might have a point?’
‘More hopeful. That’s what they said. It needs to be more hopeful.’
I swirl my wine. ‘People need hope, Jonah,’ I say softly. ‘Surely we know that better than anyone?’
He looks away. ‘We also know that not every story has a happy ending,’ he says.
‘Maybe not,’ I say. ‘Not in real life anyway, but I don’t go to the movies to be depressed. I go to be inspired and to feel like everything’s going to be okay even when it isn’t, to think the good guy always wins in the end. I mean, who’d watch James Bond if the bloke with the metal teeth won?’
‘Jaws,’ Jonah mutters.
‘Exactly.’ I point at Jonah. ‘That shark got what was coming to him.’
‘No, Jaws as in … it doesn’t matter.’
‘Would it help if I read it?’
He looks at me, quiet. ‘I don’t know.’
He hasn’t told me what happens in his script. Obviously I know it’s inspired and informed by his friendship with Freddie, but he’s been reluctant to share too much and I haven’t pushed him because I’m nervous about it too. I know it’s going to stir up a million memories and I don’t want it to damage the friendship Jonah and I have worked so hard to rebuild over the last couple of years. But I look at him now, in trouble, and I know I’m the only person in the world who might be able to help. The studio execs might know their business, but they didn’t know Freddie Hunter.
‘Let me read it,’ I say, resolute. ‘I’d really like to.’
Hope flickers in his eyes. ‘You would?’
He looks so down-in-the-mouth, I just want to see his smile again. ‘I’ll do you a deal,’ I say. ‘I’ll read it if you watch the midwives shite with me.’
He looks at his empty beer bottle. ‘I think I might need another beer for that.’
‘You know where they are.’
He comes back from the kitchen with a fresh beer and the wine bottle in his hand, topping me up before he sits down again. It’s such a simple, second-nature gesture, yet it hits me right in the gut because I’ve grown so accustomed to doing everything myself. I refill my own glass, I eat alone, I watch TV on my own.
‘I’m really glad you’re home,’ I say.
Jonah looks my way, surprised. ‘I wasn’t sure it’d feel much like home any more,’ he says. ‘But it does.’
I know exactly what he means.
Friday 3 January
It’s three in the morning. I’ve tried all my usual tricks to get to sleep, but it won’t come to me even