complex where Nanna Beth lives now. It gives me a pang when I walk past the street where her old house stands – there’s a new family living there, all Grandpa’s roses pulled up out of the front garden and a car parking spot tarmacked in their place. But my heart lifts when I see the brightly painted sign for Boscombe View. There’s a couple of people in the garden, bickering happily over some wooden planters, holding a trowel each. It felt like the right place for Nanna as soon as we set eyes on it. I look across the car park, and she’s standing at the window of her little apartment, waving through the glass.
‘Darling,’ Nanna Beth is at the door. She beckons me inside. Since I was there last, they’ve hung all her old pictures on the walls, and she’s somehow managed to make the little sitting room feel completely like home. The green velvet sofa is up against the back wall, with the imitation painting of Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ framed above it. The mantelpiece is crowded with photographs of me, Mum, Grandpa and Nanna Beth herself, and various great-aunts and second cousins I met as a child but don’t really remember, but who are oddly familiar after years of their photos surrounding me.
‘Sit down. You must be tired out after that journey,’ Nanna Beth says.
I do as I’m told, and listen as she gently potters around in the little kitchen at the end of the hall. I can hear the kettle going on and the sounds of her warming the teapot. The familiar clunk of the biscuit tin she’s owned forever opening up, and the rustle of aluminium foil being taken off a plate of ham sandwiches she’ll have made up earlier.
‘Here we are,’ she says as she returns with a tray.
We settle down with food and tea. It feels warm and safe, the way it always has. I look up at a photo of Grandpa in his gardening cardigan, a spade in his hand.
‘He’d be proud of you, you know that.’ Nanna follows my gaze. ‘It takes a lot of courage to follow your dream, you know. So how’s it going?’
I think for a moment. I’ve been in the job for over two months now, and I still feel like I’m finding my feet. ‘Okay. Ish.’
‘Bit of a change to working for Neil, I expect,’ she says, with a chuckle. We’d met at work and sort of fallen together. There were definite pluses and minuses to working for your partner. I can’t really think what the pluses were. The minuses were that when I found out he was sleeping with Claire from accounts, it was pretty hard to maintain a civil working environment. God, it doesn’t matter how hard this new job is or how much of a learning curve I’m on (and right now it feels like I’m never going to get the hang of it) anything had to be better than working in that environment.
‘It’s so … fast.’ I try and explain what it’s like, but it’s hard. ‘And then so slow. It’s like trying to herd cats, getting a book from start to finish.’
‘Still enjoying it though? I bet you’ve got them all under control,’ she says, and I think of Jav, who I’d left on Friday evening working on the final proofs of a book that was already a month late. It had to be finished quickly, because it was nominated for romance of the year in one of the glossy magazines, and the books editor had been on the phone asking hopefully if there were finished copies available. Jav had managed to stall her, and she’d messaged me at midnight to say she’d finally got things sorted out. Publishing is a lot like being a swan. You look very sleek and posh from the outside, but there’s an awful lot of furious paddling going on underneath. And a lot of mud.
‘I’m getting there,’ I say, after a pause. She raises an eyebrow and looks at me over the top of her teacup.
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day. You’ve found a new house, and you’re settling into a new life. Any other interesting news you want to share?’
‘Becky’s had a promotion. And Gen’s up for a role in the new Cameron Mackintosh show at the Apollo. If she gets that, she’s really going places.’
‘Gen’s going places, no matter what.’ Nanna smiles fondly. She’s always had a soft spot for Gen. I