Blowing It Read Free Page B

his
Adam’s apple bobbing.
    “So what do you do?” I asked to change the subject.
    “Building surveyor.”
    “Really?”
    He nodded.
    “What’s that like?”
    “Do you care?”
    “Hey, I’m a writer.” I shrugged expansively. “You
never know when something might come in handy.”
    Magnus laughed at that, the sound curling around me
and settling with a shiver at the base of my spine. “Well, I started onsite as
a joiner. Moved up to foreman after a couple of years, but it didn’t work out.”
    “Why not?”
    “I stayed with the same company. Those guys, some
of them helped train me, and then I was telling them what to do. In hindsight
it wasn’t a good idea.”
    “So you moved?”
    He took another swallow of coffee as he nodded.
“Did a course, got a surveying qualification. That took a couple of years,
part-time. Most of it was easy—knowing when a timber was rotted, working out
which was a supporting wall or beam.… I’d done that stuff every day for years.
The technical side was a bit more difficult.”
    “But you got there?”
    “I did.” He smiled. “Soon as I had that piece of
paper, I started applying all over. Councils, insurance companies—there’s
enough work out there if you’ve got the right experience and paperwork.”
    “You must have started pretty young,” I guessed.
    “Straight out of school. I was sixteen and stupid,
didn’t see the point in qualifications. I could work with my hands, learn a
trade. Most people, they’re helpless. Can’t change a cabinet or plumb a sink,
they always get someone in to do that stuff.”
    I couldn’t help but agree. I wouldn’t know where to
start plumbing a sink.
    “These days I’m strictly a suit and tie man.”
    “Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked.
    “It does and it doesn’t. Working onsite kept me in
shape, at least.” He indicated his belly with a rueful twist of his lips.
    “I think you look great,” I said before I could
stop myself.
    Magnus paused and pierced me with a long look. “You’re
a children’s author who doesn’t like children. How did that happen?”
    I gave an embarrassed laugh. “Honestly? And promise
not to tell anyone?”
    “I swear.”
    “It was a bet.”
    “Pardon?”
    I laughed. “Seriously. My best friend’s a primary
school teacher. I might have been sneering about kids’ books, and he said
writing for that age was harder than it seemed. He bet me I couldn’t do it.”
    Magnus’s lip twitched for a second before he burst
out laughing. “You wrote your book to prove him wrong?”
    I grinned sheepishly. “Yes.”
    “Well, I think you won that one.” He chuckled,
still shaking his head.
    “Why don’t you like us?” Abigail piped up from the
other side of the table, and I suddenly felt horribly guilty.
    “He does, sweetheart,” Magnus soothed. “We were
just joking.”
    “I like your book,” she declared staunchly.
    “And I’m glad you like it,” I said as solemnly as I
could.
    She gazed at me, blue eyes unblinking, for the
longest time, assessing my worth as a human being. “Okay.” She finally nodded,
accepting my words at face value.
    “So.” Magnus leant forward, resuming our
conversation. “What did you do before making bets with your friend about
writing a book?”
    “I wrote books.” I smiled. “Not very good ones.”
    “I’m not sure I believe that.”
    “What, that I wrote them?”
    “That they weren’t very good.”
    “Well, my agent didn’t think they were,” I said.
“Or any publishers either, for that matter.”
    “That doesn’t mean they weren’t,” he persisted.
“It’s like architecture, or fashion. Some things come and go. It doesn’t mean
the other stuff isn’t any good. It just doesn’t fit the niche, that’s all.”
    I’d never thought of it like that before. “You
might be right,” I admitted reluctantly.
    “I’m always right,” he said with a grin.
    I grinned back. “I get the feeling you are.”
    “So what were they about?