The Christmas Bookshop(36)

‘So does everybody else.’

‘Ow!’ said Blair. ‘You are being very hurtful.’

‘Don’t you have, like, nine therapists to help you with this?’

‘Are you kidding? Therapists all have my books in their office. Sorry, does that sound conceited?’ He looked up, hollow-eyed. ‘Because … sometimes I’m a bit worried that everything I do … it’s all … I mean, some of it’s a bit contradictory.’

Carmen looked at him, surprised.

‘I mean. Smile at the dawn? What does that even mean? Find your own happiness? Well, what if your happiness is … I don’t know … kicking dogs? Do what you love. Unless you’re a paedophile. I mean, it’s … I think people get unhappy trying to do what makes them happy. Don’t tell my publisher.’

‘I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day’ came on the in-house stereo.

‘Like that,’ he said. ‘Christmas every day would be hell. It would be torture; it would be awful. But maybe that’s what I’m telling people to aim for.’

‘Well, the pay is good … ’ ventured Carmen.

‘Do you know?’ he said. ‘Do you know what they did with my teeth?’

‘Painted them with Dulux?’ said Carmen cheerfully.

He frowned at her as if he wasn’t entirely sure she’d made a joke.

‘Worse,’ he said. ‘They’re veneers.’

‘I know,’ said Carmen. ‘Like Simon Cowell. Big scary shiny gnashers.’

‘Do you know how they make veneers?’

‘Do they stick a horse’s teeth on top of your own teeth then cover them in Tipp-Ex?’

‘Kind of,’ said Blair. ‘But first they have to file down your own teeth.’

Carmen blinked. She hadn’t known this.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They take off your own teeth. File them down to little nubs so they can stick other teeth on over the top.’

‘You’re telling me your teeth are tiny pointed fangs?’

Blair nodded. ‘I did that to myself.’

‘You filed off your own teeth?’ Suddenly Carmen wasn’t hungry. Even looking at the china plates made her feel sick. ‘That’s … that’s barbaric.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Blair. ‘And for what? So I get more TV appearances and more adulation and money?’

‘When you put it like that … ’ said Carmen, but she still wasn’t interested in her food. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were your teeth like before?’

‘Fine,’ said Blair sadly. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but people keep coming up and telling me their terrible problems like I can help and all I can think about are my sore teeth.’

‘Your books have helped loads of people,’ said Carmen. ‘Otherwise people wouldn’t buy them.’

‘People buy things in the hope that it will make them feel better,’ said Blair. ‘It gives you a momentary boost, just buying it, but not for long. It’s just a stupid dopamine hit whereby I tell you things are going to be great and you fantasise that they are and you feel better. Then you go back to your shit normality and it’s all shit again and guess what, you’re not living the life you imagine, you’re living the life that got dumped in your lap when your parent got sick or your partner became a drunk or your children are disappointing. So you think you’ll make yourself better and you buy another book. That’s my entire business plan.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t normally talk like this. Jet lag.’

‘And Champagne.’

‘Oh yeah. And you’re a good listener.’

Carmen didn’t want to say that she hadn’t really been able to get a word in edgeways, so she just smiled.

‘Well, stop doing it then,’ she said.

‘If I stop doing it, Emily loses her job,’ he said, looking at her then – not in his ‘hey, let me grasp your hand and do full eye contact’ way, but quite straightforwardly. ‘So do half the publishing team at my office, who by the way when they’re not publishing any old rubbish by me are publishing really good books that nobody reads.’

He sighed.

‘I can’t do that. I just can’t.’

He glanced at his watch.

‘And soon I have to go to a children’s hospital.’

‘So you’d skip the interviews but not the children’s hospital?’

He rolled his eyes.

‘I’m a cynic, sweetie, not a monster.’

She smiled at him, feeling surprisingly slightly sympathetic.

‘Can’t you write a book about being authentic?’ she said. ‘Then you could be authentic.’

‘I did!’ he said despairingly. ‘It sold millions – you really have never heard of me, have you?’

‘I totally almost have,’ protested Carmen.

‘It was called Live Your Happy Authentic Life for a Better, More Confident You.’

‘But you didn’t try it on yourself.’

‘I’m trying it right now,’ he said. ‘I think I might be a bit of a drag.’

‘You’re all right,’ said Carmen.