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Jeremy nearly doesn't notice the two pieces of paper at all, both tucked at the back of his sheaf of contract negotiation documents. He's sat down at the kitchen table with the papers one last time before he heads out for today's (probably futile) meeting about the future of Top Gear, and it's only as he turns over to the last page that he realizes there's something else behind it in the stack, something he doesn't remember seeing when they'd gone through all of the BBC's offers and demands yesterday.
The thought of yet more paperwork is enough to make him pull off his reading glasses and scrub his hands over his face. Today will be their third meeting, and he's honestly not sure if they've accomplished anything at all, so far, except giving various people reason to shout at them for hours on end. Some of which they've earned, he can't deny that. Sometimes they can't help fucking it up. But most of the shouting they really haven't earned, as far as he can make out. Most of it just seems to be people looking for an excuse to shout.
Maybe they should just give up now, let this be the last series. It isn't exactly the legacy he'd hoped to leave – worse, he knows that none of the rest of them, cast or crew, want it to end like this, either. They're all hoping against hope that the show can find a way to carry on. For himself... he's tired. He's so bloody tired.
But the press of thumbs to temples must loosen something in his brain, because a memory floats upward – the meeting yesterday, the moment when everyone had stood to gather their coats, too exhausted and angry even to continue arguing. Jeremy had been stood by the door, had turned away from Richard's hopeful face and discovered that James was still sitting at the table, doing something with the papers there. Lining up all the edges, Jeremy had thought, as if he can set us all to rights just as easily. James hadn't said much that day, had sat back and let Jeremy and Richard and Andy make all the arguments they'd talked out ahead of time, but Jeremy hadn't had any doubt that he felt the weight of the discussion as much as any of them.
James had straightened up then, looking decidedly shifty, and Jeremy had just opened his mouth to ask him what he was up to when Andy clapped him on the back and told him to sleep on it.
And Jeremy had forgotten all about James in his struggle not to say something sharp about his ability to sleep these days. He was glad to have managed it, in the end, because god knows he doesn't need to alienate Andy on top of all the other people in the world, but now he wonders if he'd missed something important in that moment.
He tugs his glasses back on impatiently, and turns the page over.
The first piece of paper is a legal document, labeled 'Transfer of whole of registered title(s)' and then marked 'TR1' in the top right corner. Jeremy skims his gaze over the page, but since he knows he won't understand any of the strange legal language he doesn't bother actually reading it and skips to the second page instead.
This one is a printout of a web page. At the top is a picture of the outside of a pub, one of the old kind: worn, dark timbers and faded paint and a sign that reads 'The King's Head'. It looks a nice enough place – not too fancy – though Jeremy really has no idea why James would want to give him a picture of a pub, let alone one they haven't even been to. Below the picture is a brief description of the pub's menu, as well as a couple of notes that indicate it has a garden and that dogs are welcome.
At the very bottom of the printout, there is something scrawled in James' slightly too-rigid handwriting.
"If you decide you want to chuck it in, now or whenever, this is waiting."
And then, beneath that, "We can even rename it The Dog and Pony, if you insist."
That's when the penny drops. Jeremy shuffles back to the other sheet, actually focuses on the words until he finds the important bit. 'Transferee for entry in the register: James Daniel May.'
It's their pub, or going to be: the one they'd joked about opening up together. It had started as a throwaway comment of Jeremy's, that if James hadn't been so bloody-minded about car journalism he might have ended up as a barman. Which had turned into the realization that actually, that sounded rather nice, as a profession. There would be plenty of things to eat and drink. It would be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Sometimes it would be quiet, and other times full of that particular hum that comes from of a room full of voices, almost like a comfortable sort of quiet of its own.
James had been the first to suggest that they should do it together. There had been a laugh in his voice as he said it, one night when they'd been stuck in an airport for god knows how long and had progressed from irritation to apathy to talking bollocks. But Jeremy had latched onto the idea immediately, enchanted by the thought of the two of them serving up pints and warm, pre-made pies for a host of regular customers.
They'd kept it going over the years, the kind of joke that lay fallow for sometimes months at a time and then popped up again at opportune moments. They'd talked about it a lot in the arctic, mainly to keep from murdering each other. It had even become a little game afterwards, every time they visited a new pub, of picking out the things they liked and disliked about it, negotiating the compromises (how many varieties of beer, how nice their grub should be).
It drives Richard a little bit crazy, which is reason enough for Jeremy to keep mentioning the idea, but more than that, he loves to see the faint smile that comes to James' face when he's thinking about it, the sparkle in his eye whenever Jeremy comes up with a ridiculous name suggestion.
(The Dog and Pony was his latest, given half-satirically after Andy had commented that yes, Top Gear was a sodding dog and pony show, and the BBC hadn't better forget it.)
Jeremy spreads both pages out on the table in front of him and examines the picture of the pub more closely. It looks like it could use a bit of work, which ought to make James happy. And it looks worn, comfortable – the sort of place into which Jeremy could fit his worn, comfortable things and worn, mostly comfortable bones.
He finds himself touching the picture with his fingertips, as if he could somehow reach through the page and feel wood, sun-warmed and smooth. As if he could step through and find himself there on a lazy summer's afternoon, leave winter and meetings and blame behind entirely.
He hasn't even been there, and already it feels like more of a home than anywhere else he's got, just at the moment.
He sits there for a long moment, just staring at the picture. Then he wipes his eyes and folds the two pages away – in quarters, tucked away in the compartment of his wallet, just behind the pictures of his children. He shoves back his chair. Puts on his shoes and his coat.
Because he doesn't want to quit, not really. But knowing that he can – knowing that James will back him if he does, knowing there's a place for him somewhere, even if it isn't on Top Gear or on television at all – it's a hell of a relief.
And maybe... maybe knowing all of that will make it easier to find a way to carry on.