Leaning back against the cushions, she closed her eyes. The tears pooled behind her lids. ‘The play meant everything to me,’ she said quietly. ‘It was meant to be my memorial to Mum. It was supposed to show everybody how wonderful she was, how much we missed her.’
‘There will be more plays. You have a talent.’
‘It doesn’t matter whether I have a talent or not,’ Cesca replied. ‘I haven’t been able to write a single word since.’
Hugh winced. ‘You have a gift, Cesca. That isn’t something to be squandered.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ she said, remembering all those days spent in front of her computer, a blank screen sneering back at her as her thoughts turned to dust. It wasn’t so much a writer’s block as a writer’s mountain. ‘Every time I try to type, nothing comes out. It killed me.’
‘You know, Winston Churchill said that success is jumping from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Well, something like that. Where’s your enthusiasm?’ Hugh demanded.
Cesca sighed. ‘I managed the failures all right. It’s the success that’s elusive.’
‘You’re not going to bloody find it in a cat café, are you?’ He shuddered. ‘All that hair, and people drinking coffee. Disgusting.’
She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to the cats or the coffee. In Hugh’s opinion both were unseemly, but coffee usually got the biggest rant.
‘I haven’t found it anywhere, Uncle Hugh. I’ve looked and looked and it’s gone. In the end there’s only one conclusion to make: I was a one-hit wonder. And that hit wasn’t even any good.’
‘That’s a load of poppycock and you know it. My God, Cesca, you won a national competition at the age of eighteen, with a play the judges described as brilliant. You don’t get those sort of accolades unless you’re hugely talented, you know that.’
She didn’t want to think of those days. For a few brief months she’d been riding a wave of excitement, only to have it come tumbling down around her. Cesca had been in her final year at school when she’d entered the competition, absolutely certain that her play would end up at the bottom of the pile. To have it win Novice Play of the Year and then get picked up for production had been a dream come true.
‘Talent means nothing.’
‘So you’re just going to give up?’
‘I have to accept that I’m not meant for writing. So I’ll keep trying these jobs until something sticks.’
‘Nothing’s going to stick.’ Hugh stood up, striding over to the fireplace. He lifted a photograph, holding the silver frame between his fingers. Cesca recognised the portrait of her mother, standing on stage, holding bunches of roses after a spectacular first night. ‘Look at your mother. The theatre is in your blood, it flowed from her to you. And you can pretend it isn’t there all you like, because it won’t go away. Your mother was born to act, and she did it wonderfully. You were born to write, and when you wrote your first play it was amazing. Prize-winning. Don’t let the actions of an immature pretty-boy stop you from fulfilling your potential.’
There was a truth in his words that brought the tears back to Cesca’s eyes. Of all the sisters, it was Cesca who had loved the theatre from the moment she was born. Cesca who had begged as a toddler to sit in the wings and watch her mother as she acted on the stage. She’d been hooked from the moment she’d smelled the greasepaint and musty old costumes.
‘I can’t do it. I promise I’ve tried. But every time I do, I hear these voices telling me I’m useless, that I’m lying to myself. That Sam Carlton leaving for Hollywood was a blessing, because I’m not meant to be a writer.’
Hugh sat down beside her, his knees clicking as they bent. ‘We both know that’s not true. You just need to give yourself a bit of time and space. Somewhere to think, to breathe, to let the words flow.’
She laughed. ‘Not really possible in London.’ At least not the part of London she lived in, surrounded by Susie and her
married boyfriends. It was hard enough to breathe, let alone process her thoughts.
‘Maybe you should get away.’
Cesca smiled at him fondly. ‘Where to? I can’t afford to pay next week’s rent, there’s no way I can find the money for a holiday.’
‘I’d give you the money.’
There it was again. She instantly tensed. ‘No. No thank you. I know you want the best for me, but I’ll pay my own way.’
‘What if there was another way?’ Hugh asked, looking suddenly crafty. ‘What if there was something cheap you could do? I could lend you the cash and you could pay me back.’
‘Unless it was exceedingly cheap, I’d never be able to pay you back. And as my namesake said, “never a borrower nor a lender be”.’
Hugh smiled at her Shakespearean reference. ‘Then we’ll make it exceedingly cheap. Plus with the lovely writing you’ll be able to do, you can pay me back in no time.’ He leaned back and rubbed his chin for a moment, deep in thought. Then he sat straight up, clicking his fingers. ‘I’ve got it!’
‘What?’
He ignored her question. ‘Stay there, I just need to make a phone call.’ He stood, putting his cup on the table beside him.