Page 43 of The Typo

‘After all that effort, I can’t skip out on the opening night to attend an audition. My colleagues are relying on me.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Liv. ‘Is there any chance you could reply to the orchestra and ask for another audition time? Explain your situation and offer an alternative date?’

‘No.’ I quickly read the email out to her. ‘They’re very clear, aren’t they? It’s this date, or I’m back on the list for some unspecified audition slot in the summer. I can’t wait that long.’

Thankfully she didn’t press me on why.

‘That administrator bloke sounds a bit snooty, doesn’t he? He doesn’t even say they’re looking forward to hearing your audition.’

‘I’m not reading too much into it. I reckon it’s a standard email they send to everyone, just replace the name, that kind of thing. They can’t be seen to be favouring people.’

‘Sure,’ said Liv, in a voice which made clear that she totally disagreed with me. ‘So, the audition is at 6pm, and what time is the open mic night?’

‘The show itself is going to start at 9pm.’

‘I don’t know what you’re worrying about. You’ve got ages. Do the audition and then head back to the theatre, easy.’

‘The show might start at 9pm, but I’ll be spending the entire time up to that point running around and sorting out last minute glitches. Imagine it’s project report day at your job. It’s going to be that kind of frenetic.’

‘I’m not sure I recognise the analogy, oh sister mine. At my firm I can assure you that the situation never gets to the frenetic stage, ahem.” She dropped the corporate act. “Okay, so I totally get where you’re coming from. But the orchestra audition is an amazing opportunity. Amy, I’m serious, after all you’ve been through, you can’t let it slip through your fingers.’

‘But I can’t let my friends at work down, either. There’s Malcolm’s sick pay situation to consider, and my new mate Leonie is hoping she can get a promotion if it’s a success. There’s a lot resting on it.’

‘I get that. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you with a solution.’

‘You sound very confident about that,’ I said, wanting to believe that she could sort out all my problems for me.

‘I am. There is definitely a way round this, and I will let you know what it is as soon as I’ve come up with it.’

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 14 Feb, 18:06

Subject: The return journey

Hi Amy,

As you can probably tell from the subject line of this email, while we’re currently still pootling around the peaceful bays of this little corner of Antarctica, it won’t be long before we turn towards the Drake Passage and start making our way back to Ushuaia. I’m going to miss this place. Normally when I go abroad somewhere and get sad about leaving, I can comfort myself with the prospect of returning there again one day, but with Antarctica there are no guarantees. The guest prices are prohibitively expensive, and whether I’ll get another job on board, who knows. Just to clarify that’s not because I’ve been a pain in the arse to work with and they won’t invite me back. I really hope I’ve been the opposite of that. But the company I work for only runs a limited number of trips out here, and I’m not sure they’ll need my specialism on future ones. So, I’ll comfort myself with the memories of everything that these two voyages have given me, and I’ll look ahead with eager anticipation to the next adventure, whatever that might be.

Thanks for your last email by the way. As always, it was so lovely to see your email address popping up in my inbox. Alas, beyond the email address and the subject line ‘Toilets’ that is all that downloaded. I tried restarting the computer (a painful process which takes over an hour) and then the engineer agreed to take a look at the satellite system, but even he couldn’t work out why the email was scrambled and wouldn’t load up. The subject line did make me laugh, although it was rather hard to explain to the engineer when I didn’t actually know the reason for it myself. I suspect it’s because I’ve subjected you to rather too many tales of Antarctic facilities, for which I can only apologise. I very much hope that it wasn’t actually a missive to say you’re horribly ill and having to spend a disproportionate amount of time by the porcelain… Get well soon if it was.

So that was my long-winded way of saying I don’t know what you wrote about in your last email, so I will ramble on it my own way and fill you in on the latest news from the southern hemisphere. We’ve had another mini crisis on board with one of the chefs admitting he never actually graduated from culinary school. The captain has agreed to let this one slide as the guy has proven himself a dozen times over in the galley, but it’s all been rather awkward as formal processes had to be gone through to decide the chef’s fate. Yep, boat bureaucracy strikes again. Anyway, he’s a good bloke, but I’m really hoping it’s the final bit of drama we face on this trip. I could do without the stress of it.

Aside from that, I’m working my way through a collection of ‘lasts’. The last trip ashore to take photographs of the penguins, the last kayaking expedition. To be honest, kayaking is the one thing I probably won’t miss that much. Don’t get me wrong, this is not because I had a traumatic experience while paddling around, but having to think about balancing the kayak while also taking photos was not my favourite, and then one of the guests asked if a whale has ever surfaced beneath a kayak, and once that idea was in my head, I couldn’t get it out. Oh, and the last formal dinner with the guests, although I won’t be sorry to wave goodbye to the dreaded black tie. Thankfully tonight’s meal is a more relaxed affair, despite the date. (Happy Valentine’s Day, by the way.)

What I am hoping will not happen is one last bout of seasickness as we make our way slowly back to the tip of South America. Once I get back ashore there, I was wondering if…

I tried to scroll down further, my pulse reacting to his Valentine’s wishes, but there was nothing more to be seen. I grabbed my laptop and tried checking the email there, but I was still confronted with a blank page. Either Cameron had hit send before he’d finished writing the message, or the weird downloading issue had struck again. It was so frustrating. What had he been wondering? Had he been about to ask me a question? And had his mention of Valentine’s Day meant what I wanted it to? I had no way of knowing. But his casual mention of the chef who’d embellished his CV had once again got me thinking about all the times I had played loose with the truth in my emails. I wanted to keep in touch with Cameron, to meet him in person if he was up for it. But how could I ask that of him if he didn’t know the truth about me? And the longer I held it back, the more difficult it would be to justify.

ChapterTwenty-Three

The big day dawned bright and crisp with frost. I sternly told myself to stop thinking of it like that. The opening of the Cellar Bar was just another day at work. And as for the audition, well, that was merely a chance to play my violin to a group of fellow enthusiasts with a view to joining an orchestra full of lovely people who would welcome me with open arms. If I could busk on the streets of Edinburgh, then doing this audition would be a doddle. That was the theory, anyway.

I took extra care getting ready for the day ahead, tying my hair off my face with a silk scarf decorated with a star pattern which Liv had ordered for me as a good luck token. When I opened the package and saw the present, it instantly brought back memories of her teaching me my first ever tune on the violin, but when I sent her a slightly emotional voice note of thanks, the reply I received was typically no nonsense and bolstering.

‘I got it off Etsy from a seller in Glasgow. That way I’m supporting a Scottish business, plus I don’t have to worry about import taxes,’ she’d explained in her message, her voice raised over the cacophony of car horns and traffic in the background. ‘I can’t be bothered with all that faff. Chin up and remember you’ve got this.’

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