Back when I’d tentatively applied to study English at university, with the faint, flimsy hope that maybe one day someone would pay me to write something, I would have been horrified at the thought of mocking and criticising people’s livelihoods for a cheap laugh.
But in the three years since graduating I’d had seventeen rejections for the novel I’d submitted to agents and publishers. All attempts at getting a different job with a less tenuous link to writing had failed. I was broke, bored out of my brains and beyond tired of getting up at 5.30 to cook a dozen breakfasts before going to work.
And, more to the point, I was still sleeping in a room so tiny that even with bunkbeds, only one of us could move about in there at a time.
Something needed to change.
I tried to keep things kind, and fair, but the worse the reviews were, the more people loved them. Once a week I found somewhere different – maybe a backwater pub, or a flashy, up-itself brasserie. If the food was okay, I would say that, and then maybe throw in something amusing about a poor member of staff, or the décor. Perhaps how the menu struggled to cater for allergies. I would rope in someone else from the newspaper, or occasionally drag one of the Tufted Duck staff along on some made up pretext. Every few months, Charlie rocked into town and we’d blitz several places in one weekend. Often, I went alone, which led to me more than once being able to write about a slimy waiter’s attempts to hit on me. In the two years I wrote for theChronicle, I wrote overwhelmingly positive reviews. I worked hard to find fantastic places to feature as a counterweight to the few necessarily dreadful ones. The first great article was for a restaurant specifically set up to provide training and jobs to those with learning difficulties. The food there was outstanding. Following my review, they were able to open a second restaurant in Kendal. Another was a couple who had a buy-one-share-one scheme, providing a meal for a homeless person for every meal paid for, along with cookery and gardening classes for clients of local foodbanks. One bakery was just so delightful I couldn’t find a single bad thing to say about it. A café run by a Somalian couple who’d arrived as asylum seekers a decade earlier was similar. I also gave a fabulous review for the breakfast at the Tufted Duck. Over the months, their popularity grew. Restaurant owners knew that a positive review would see an immediate increase in custom, and the token ‘although I was somewhat disappointed by…’ mention became like a local in-joke, whereby readers knew if the worst I could come up with was a dodgy ceiling tile in the toilets or a rude fellow diner, then the place was excellent. The power was overwhelmingly terrifying and addictive at the same time.
And then a national newspaper called.
Three weeks later I was living with Charlie in Crystal Palace. I had a blog, Twitter account and Instagram set up and an actual company credit card. They also insisted on a name, rather than ‘The Phantom Food Lover’ as I’d been in Windermere. Nora Sharp was born, and she hit the ground running.
Within a year or so, Nora had branched out into events. I started getting invited to book launches and award ceremonies, slipping about undetected in my uninspiring outfits with my boring hair and make-up, pretending to be someone’s assistant if anyone bothered to talk to me. My followers grew from the hundreds to the thousands, and within a couple of years had reached the tens of thousands. Despite increasing pressure from my editor to focus on the negatives, as again that received by far the most interest, I tried to maintain my balanced approach, keeping the ‘although I was somewhat disappointed…’ section short and as sweet as I could get away with. I even started a blog, as Eleanor Sharpley, writing unfailingly glowing reviews to counteract every negative one the paper printed. Yet despite my efforts, even going so far as to have Nora endorse it, no one was interested in reading it (apart from my parents and grandma, who thought this was my real job). In the meantime, Nora continued to thrive in direct correlation to how heavily my articles were edited to maximise the criticism and downplay the praise. My new editor asked me to launch the YouTube channel, right about the same time that Lucy contacted me asking to be my intern.
And that was when things really started getting crazy.
* * *
Having charged my phone overnight using the one yellowing socket in the room and a charger borrowed from Daniel, I quickly scrolled through the Nora Sharp social media accounts. Lucy had added a fairly innocuous tweet and Instagram post about Nora looking forward to a restaurant opening later that week. I checked my emails, but nothing urgent had come in since I’d last checked on Thursday evening.
I called Lucy. I wasn’t about to let her go over the phone if I could help it, but I could at least schedule in a video chat for later on (once I’d changed into a decent top and fortified myself with some breakfast).
The call went straight to voicemail. I left a brief message telling her I’d gone away for a few days and asking her to call me as soon as possible, following up with a WhatsApp for good measure.
I also needed to speak to my editor, Miles Greenbank. I definitely needed some caffeine before that conversation, however, and my first attempt at getting out of bed made it clear that I needed painkillers before I could go and get a coffee.
It took me a long, drawn-out, agonising eternity, peppered with yelps of pain and more than a few tears before I was out of the tiny bed and on my trembling feet. Having made it this far, I thought it best to press on, shuffling the short distance to the door and across the hallway to the bathroom. Eyes scrunched to slits, I did what I needed to do while avoiding looking at the rust, the mould or the cobwebs, and hobbled back to bed. I was still figuring out how to climb back into the bed, when there was a soft tap on the door.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ I croaked back.
‘Am I all right to come in?’
Considering the events of the past couple of days, this was not a time to start worrying about pride. Or appearances. Or how badly my breath stank, given that I’d not had the energy to bother brushing my teeth. Daniel came in carrying a tray bearing a mug of tea, a sandwich and another dose of pain medication. He paused, frowning at me slumped against the bed on one elbow, ratty hair falling over my face like a witless old crone, before dispensing with the tray and backing out of the room again.
Great. I made one more half-hearted attempt to hoist a knee up on top of the stupidly high bedframe, instead collapsing face-first onto the mattress. Perhaps I could stay here until I recovered enough to slither the rest of myself up to join my top half. Maybe just a short snooze…?
‘Here.’
Oh! I twisted my face around to see Daniel placing a wooden stool about a foot high beside me on the faded rug. He busied himself faffing about and doing nothing with the tray so I could clamber into bed with a modicum of privacy.
‘Thanks.’
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, handing me a glass of water and two pills.
‘Can I answer that once these have had a chance to kick in?’
‘Is there anything else you need?’ He glanced at the ceiling, the floor, the pile of bags against the dresser. This was a box room. The heavy, dark green curtains blocked most of the daylight from entering, and it suddenly felt like an exceedingly small space for two people who had only just met, one of whom was wearing the other’s sister’s pyjamas.
‘I’m fine, thanks. I need to make a couple of work calls, and hopefully by then I’ll feel strong enough to get out of your way.’
Daniel sighed, shaking his head slightly. ‘I’m taking Hope to Mum’s for a couple of hours, after she missed seeing her yesterday. There’s some as yet unidentifiable meat in a sauce defrosting for dinner. Hopefully by then you’ll feel strong enough to come downstairs and watch whatever crap we can find on TV. If not, that’s fine. Here.’ He pulled a piece of paper out of his jeans pocket. ‘My number. In case you need anything, or get stuck halfway down the stairs or something.’
I nodded, this simple token of kindness causing my throat to seize up with fresh unshed tears. My body wasn’t the only thing about me that had arrived at Damson Farm feeling bashed up and broken. Having lost so much in the past few days, and about to sever ties with my last thread of security, knowing I could stay here for a while and do nothing, have no pressure or expectations put upon me – not even coming down the stairs – was the best possible medicine. I drank almost all of my tea, managed three bites of sandwich and then scrolled through photos of Charlie on my phone until I sobbed myself back to sleep.
Calling Lucy, speaking to Miles, would have to wait.
