Even now, someone at another table had spotted him and was looking happy and poking her dining companions to mention it.

Blair threw his hands in the air. “It’s all bullshit . . . darling,” he said, looking like he was about to remember her name, then not doing that. “You know that.”

“I do not know that,” said Carmen, who had £39 in her bank account and had only ever met one other famous person, a very old sexist comedian who had come to open the ill-fated new computer department (nobody knew how they worked and they kept getting nicked) and had been drunk out of his mind at 11:00 A.M. and kept pinching people’s bums. Idra had reckoned she got more attention out of showing the bruise to people than she would have done from suing him.

“It’s all fake,” said Blair.

“Is the money fake?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Are the books fake? They do read like it’s just some . . .” Carmen stopped herself and figured there was a reason it wasn’t generally recommended to drink at lunchtime.

“Some what?” said Blair, looking dismayed.

“Nothing. Some words?” tried Carmen.

“I mean, people really believe in these books,” said Blair. “They really help people.”

“Of course they do,” said Carmen quickly.

“Not you, though? Don’t you need help?”

“I do need help, actually,” said Carmen, about to tell him a bit about her life, but he was carrying on.

“. . . I mean, I just feel I do what I do and it really works for people, so I just should be happy for that, right?”

“Uh, sure?”

“But I hate it. All the traveling. All the people. All the fake glad-handing. It’s not real. None of it’s real. You’re real . . .”

“Carmen,” said Carmen helpfully.

He was giving her the look again. “I mean, so many towns. So many fans. And then people like you who say my books are just some . . . What were you going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Carmen stoically.

“Well, I like your honesty,” he said. “You’re refreshing.”

He leaned forward awkwardly.

“Do you . . . do you think I’m a fraud?”

Carmen took another sip of the delicious Champagne and decided she might as well be honest, as she was hardly going to be invited out for lunch with an author again. “I think everyone’s a fraud,” she said.

Blair blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone’s just faking it. Look at the prime minister. Faking it. Look at people who are in charge of things. Faking it, faking it, faking it. Of course you’re faking it. I’m faking it. I don’t know how to run a bookshop. Not the faintest clue. Mr. McCredie doesn’t either. ‘Faking it’ is just another term for being a grown-up. So . . .”

“So,” said Blair sadly. “I’m nothing special.”