How to Find Love in a Book Shop (15 page)

Dogs were a good icebreaker.

‘Hi.’ She walked over in a friendly but unobtrusive manner, holding a book in one hand so she looked as if she was on her way to put it somewhere rather than accosting him. ‘Look at you. You’re a lovely boy, aren’t you?’

‘Thanks,’ joked the man, and Emilia laughed, bending down to rough up the dog’s ears.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Wolfie.’

‘Hey, Wolfie.’ She looked up at the bloke. ‘Were you looking for something in particular, or are you just browsing?’

He grinned at her and gave a little shrug of his shoulders. She could tell he was on unfamiliar territory. People unused to book shops had an awkwardness about them. An apologetic awkwardness.

‘It’s a bit …’ He trailed off as she searched for the word. ‘Embarrassing.’

‘Oh.’ She tried to sound reassuring. ‘I’m sure it’s not. I’ll help if I can.’

She watched him move his weight from one foot to the other. He was cute, she thought. Faded jeans and a white T-shirt with a soft red plaid shirt undone over the top. His hair was dark and scruffy and he had a six o’clock shadow, but both of these things were by design rather than neglect: she could smell baby shampoo and something else more manly.

‘Don’t tell me – your girlfriend’s sent you in for
Fifty Shades of Grey
,’ she grinned. On impulse, because her mind had suddenly gone that way.

He looked startled. ‘God, no.’

‘Sorry. Only you wouldn’t believe how many women send their boyfriends in for it. Or how many men think they might spice things up a bit.’

‘No. It’s even more embarrassing than that.’ He scratched his head and raised his eyebrows, looking sheepish. ‘The thing is, my little boy asked me the other day what my favourite book was. It was for his homework. And I realised – I’ve never read one. I’ve never read a book.’

He looked at the floor. It was as if he was waiting for a punishment.

‘Never?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Books and me just don’t get on. The few times I’ve opened one I just glaze over.’

He made a glazed-over face and Emilia laughed. Then stopped.

‘Sorry. I’m not laughing
at
you.’

‘No, I know. It’s OK. Anyway, I’ve decided. I’m a really bad example to him. I want my son to get on and do really well. And I don’t want to die, never having read a book. So I want to start reading with him. So I can encourage him. But I don’t know where to start. There’re bloody millions of them. How do you start to choose?’

He looked round at all the shelves, baffled.

‘Well. I can sort you out with something, I’m sure,’ said Emilia. ‘How old is he, for a start? And what sort of thing do you think he might like?’

‘He’s five, nearly six. And I don’t really know what he’d like. Something short, preferably.’ He laughed, self-conscious. ‘And easy. I mean, I can read, obviously. I’m not that thick.’

‘Not reading doesn’t make you thick.’

‘No. But his mum’s going on at me for not getting involved with his homework.’ He looked sheepish. ‘She likes any chance to have a go. I’m not with her any more.’

‘Oh,’ said Emilia. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It’s a good thing. Mostly.’ He ruffled his hair, looking awkward. ‘But I just want to show her I’m not as rubbish as she seems to think I am.’

‘Well, let me see what I can come up with. Give me a couple of minutes.’

Emilia walked slowly up and down the children’s bookshelves, turning over possibilities in her mind. Every now and then she would stop, pluck out a book, study it, then put it back. She wasn’t sure she had ever met anyone who had never read a book before. Which made the choice even more difficult. She was determined not to put him and his son off for life. She had to hook them in. And she didn’t want to patronise him. He might not be a reader, but he clearly had a lively mind. She mustn’t judge.

‘What’s his name? Your son?’

‘Finn.’ The bloke smiled proudly.

‘Ah,’ said Emilia. ‘That makes the task a whole lot easier.’

She picked out a book, and walked back over to her new customer, who looked at her with an eager curiosity.

She laid it on the counter in front of him.

‘This is one of my absolute favourites of all time.
Finn Family Moomintroll
.’

‘Yeah?’ He picked the book up and eyed it warily.

‘I think you’ll both like it. It’s a bit mad, but it’s cool.’ She paused. ‘It’s a bit quirky. It’s about this family of Moomintrolls who live in a valley, and all their crazy friends.’

‘Moomintrolls?’

‘They’re kind of big, white creatures who hibernate in the winter.’

He turned the book over to read the back, not saying anything.

‘Honestly, it’s really cute. I’ll give you your money back if you don’t like it.’

‘Really?’

‘As long as you don’t spill your tea on it.’

‘I promise.’

She slid the book into a blue paper bag with Nightingale Books emblazoned on it. He gave her a tenner and she gave him his change.

‘I’ll let you know how I get on.’ He lifted the bag with a smile. ‘Cheers.’

Emilia watched him go. She wondered if she would ever see him again. She thought she’d probably flirted with him a little bit. It was wrong, really, to flirt with customers, but she didn’t care. She’d had a tough time lately. At least this proved she was still alive. And it took away the sting of Delphine’s hostility the evening before, and her proprietorial attitude towards Marlowe – as if Emilia had been a threat. Which she absolutely wasn’t.

As the door shut behind her newest customer, she felt a tiny thrill, and hoped he’d read the book and fall in love with reading. That was the whole point about Nightingale Books. It cast a spell over its customers by introducing them to the magic. And how wonderful, for her to open up a whole new world—

She realised she was being utterly ridiculous. She was romanticising. This wasn’t some Hollywood movie where she unwittingly changed someone’s life. Get real, Emilia, she told herself. He’s had a bit of a row with his ex and he’s trying to prove himself. He probably won’t even open the bloody book. And he definitely won’t come back.

Jackson walked along the road with the book tucked under his arm. That had been easier than he thought. He was a good actor. At school, acting was about the only thing he’d been good at, but because he’d been so naughty they hadn’t let him have the lead roles in the annual play. The plum parts always went to the swots. Which was one of the reasons Jackson had hated school so much. It wasn’t fair, how it was run. You couldn’t be good at everything. And why were you punished for not being clever?

Actually, going into the book shop hadn’t been as daunting as he thought. Emilia had been really helpful, and hadn’t laughed at his desire to read to his son, or his admission that he’d never read a book. She’d been really sweet and hadn’t made him feel like an idiot at all. In fact, he was positively looking forward to reading it. Moomintrolls.

He didn’t want to think about the real reason for going in there. The fact that he was supposed to be charming the pants off Emilia Nightingale in order to get her to sell up. Although he thought it was going to be easy. She’d definitely flirted with him. It was impossible not to flirt with Jackson, unless you’d been officially pronounced dead. Even men flirted with him. Straight men. It never got him anywhere, though.

But he had to keep Ian Mendip happy. For the time being anyway. Else he’d be out of a job.

He knocked on the door. Finn answered and barrelled into him.

‘Dad! It’s not your day, is it?’

Jackson usually had Finn on a Sunday, but he didn’t see why he couldn’t see him every day if he wanted to.

Finn knelt down and started hugging Wolfie.

Mia appeared, looking wary.

He held up the book.

‘I thought I’d come and read to Finn.’

‘Read?’ She looked very dubious.

‘Yeah. It’s important. Reading to your kids.’

‘It is. Yes. You don’t have to tell me that.’

She watched him as he came in. He flopped down on the sofa. He remembered them going to choose it, from the big out-of-town retail park. Five years’ interest-free credit. That was another thing he was still paying off. So he might as well get some use out of it.

‘Come here, buddy.’ Finn was still small enough to sit on his lap. ‘I got this crazy book.
Finn Family Moomintroll
.’

Wolfie muscled his way in too. Jackson trapped him between his legs so he didn’t jump up on the sofa. He suspected Mia wouldn’t approve.

He cracked open the spine and began to read.

He was astonished to find that both he and Finn were soon under the spell of the Moomins and their funny little world. He read two chapters. Three.

‘Shall we stop there? Carry on tomorrow?’

‘No,’ said Finn. ‘I want to know what happens.’

Mia was standing in the doorway, watching them. She almost had a smile on her face. Almost. To Jackson’s surprise, she came over and sat on the sofa next to him. She reached out for the book and had a look at the cover.

‘Looks to me like the Moomins have BMI issues,’ she said.

Jackson looked at her. If anyone had BMI issues, it was Mia. She’d lost even more weight. There was nothing of her. But he didn’t mention it.

He pulled Finn closer in to him and carried on reading.

While she was cooking a sage and butternut squash risotto, Bea outlined the afternoon’s events to Bill, omitting the bit about taking back a stolen book, obviously. Just telling him she was going to do some plans for Nightingale Books.

Bill frowned. ‘What’s the point of that?’

‘I owe her a favour.’

‘What favour?’

Bea didn’t have a clue what to tell him. She could hardly tell him the truth. She wished she’d never started the conversation. She concentrated on pouring the stock onto the rice while she thought of a suitable reply.

‘Maud had a meltdown in her shop. She was really kind to her.’

‘That’s not like Maud.’

Bea felt awful, blaming her gorgeous daughter who rarely had tantrums.

‘She was a bit tired and hungry. Emilia gave her a biscuit.’

‘A set of plans in return for a biscuit?’

Bea frowned at him. ‘Look, I want to do it. OK? It’s nice to use my brain.’

She felt unsettled. It wasn’t like Bill to be so ungenerous.

Did he feel left out? She had read somewhere – not in
Hearth
, because in
Hearth
life wasn’t allowed to be anything less than perfect – that men could get jealous of new babies, and resent the attention their partners lavished on the newborns. But if anything, Bill was the one who lavished attention on Maud. He spoiled her far more than Bea did.

Maybe he was just tired.

‘Shall I see if I can get a babysitter for tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘We could try one of the new restaurants in Peasebrook? It would be nice to have a night out.’

Bill poked at something on his iPad. ‘Nah. Let’s stay in. I don’t want a hangover midweek.’

They could never go out for dinner without demolishing a bottle of wine each. For some reason they were never as profligate at home. Bea supposed it was because if they started drinking like that in their own kitchen they would be heading for rehab in a month.

Unless guests came, of course. Then the bottle count was shameless. But they hadn’t had so many people to stay lately.

Maybe Bill was lacking stimulating company. Guests were hard work but it was always fun, and now Maud wasn’t getting up quite so horrifically early, it would be easier.

‘Shall we ask the Morrisons down for the weekend?’ she asked. ‘Or Sue and Tony? We’ve been a bit unsociable lately.’

Bill gave a sigh. ‘It’s non-stop washing up and sheet changing.’

‘Not really. Everyone gives a hand.’ And he never did the laundry. It was Bea who stripped the beds, washed the linen and sprayed it with lavender water before ironing.

He didn’t answer.

Bea frowned.

Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was missing their London life? And the London her? Maybe stay-at-home-in-Peasebrook Bea was too dull for him? She was back into her jeans and was carrying hardly any baby weight, but she knew they didn’t have sex as often as they used. And certainly never those up-against-the-wall sessions they used to have when they first met when the need for each other overcame them. They were both exhibitionists. Both admitted the thrill of possibly being seen or caught turned them on.

But somehow, what seemed OK in a London alley didn’t seem appropriate in conservative Peasebrook. There would be consequences to being caught. A city was anonymous. Here in a small provincial town, wanton behaviour would be frowned upon. She could imagine the gossip already.

Still, Bea was never one to resist a challenge. When they went upstairs to bed, she rummaged in her underwear drawer and took out her best Coco de Mer satin bra and knickers, pulled her Louboutins out of the cupboard, and slipped into the bathroom to get changed. She put on red lipstick, backcombed her hair slightly, and slid into her femme fatale combo.

She sashayed into the bedroom and stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, with a wicked smile.

‘Oi!’ she said. Bill was lying under the covers, eyes closed.

‘Oi!’ she said, louder.

She thought she saw his eyelids flicker. She frowned. She walked over to the bed, picked up his hand and put it between her legs, letting his fingers feel the warmth of the silk.

He rolled over, mumbling, and pulled his hand away.

Her mouth dropped open. Never, in all the time she had known him, had Bill turned down an opportunity. She sat down on the bed, looking down at the bright red shoes with the pencil-thin heels and the spaghetti-thin ankle straps, thinking how many times he’d watched her in them, eyes laughing as she walked towards him.

She didn’t know whether to be cross or hurt or puzzled.

Thirteen

June had taken the press release about Mick Gillespie home.

She poured herself a glass of cool Viognier and sat at the kitchen table to look at it.

His thick hair was now white and cropped close to his head. Those infamous slate blue eyes had no doubt been hand-tinted to enhance that hypnotic gaze. His face was carefully airbrushed to emphasise his bone structure, with just a few judicious laughter lines left, because it would be silly to pretend he was wrinkle-free at his age – whatever that was exactly, but older than her, certainly. He’d kept his exact age shrouded in mystery for so long, but now, it seemed, his venerable years were a useful marketing tool rather than something to be hidden. An opportunity to monetise his dotage.

His autobiography had been much heralded in the press. There would be countless television and radio appearances, for despite his advancing years, Mick (or Michael, as everyone now called him) was good airtime. He was guaranteed to make an outrageous remark or drop a piece of juicy gossip. His lawyers were always on standby, but he was clever. Hints and innuendoes hadn’t landed him in court yet, largely because what he claimed was grounded in truth. The lilting accent had long gone, replaced by a RADA/Hollywood hybrid delivered with mellifluous perfection and just the merest hint of Kerry. His voice was famous: from a whisper to a mighty roar, it was instantly recognisable.

His book promised a searing exposé of his entire career, complete with every dalliance and indiscretion he’d ever had. The lawyers had been through it with a fine-tooth comb and it was said there were many women waiting in trepidation for its release. It was destined to fly off the shelves, for not only were its contents shocking but it was remarkably well written. Witty and observant and colourful. The rumour was he hadn’t employed a ghostwriter, but had been responsible for every single word himself.

June didn’t doubt it. He’d always had the gift of the gab. She imagined him in his Hampstead conservatory – the go-to resting ground for luvvies – scrawling out his bon mots while a discreet assistant brought him coffee, then wine, then brandy later in the day.

June reflected that if he wrote as well as he talked, if he painted pictures as pretty and convincing with his written as his spoken words, then he was a gifted writer indeed.

She put a hand to her heart to feel how fast it was beating. After all this time, he was coming to Peasebrook. To Nightingale Books.

Maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it to Emilia. Nightingale Books was the place June felt happiest in the world. She’d had no hesitation about stepping in to help Julius when he started deteriorating, for she worshipped him, too. He had filled a void in her life. Not romantically at all, but intellectually. And socially. They’d often enjoyed a drink out or supper together or gone to concerts. He was her absolute dearest friend at a difficult time. Retirement had been tougher than she thought. She was a hugely successful businesswoman, and to go from schmoozing and wheeling and dealing to doing almost nothing had been a massive shock. And moving to the cottage that had been her weekend retreat had been strange. It took a long time for it to feel like a permanent home. She still sometimes felt as if she should be packing up on a Sunday night ready to drive back to London.

She loved her cottage, though. The wall-to-wall shelves, groaning with the tomes that had seen her through two failed marriages and several dodgy affairs. She read voraciously, and the cottage was perfect for that, whether tucked up in front of a log fire or sitting in the garden with a glass of wine. She scanned the bestseller lists, flagged up reviews in the newspapers, and every week she would pop into Nightingale Books for the latest biography or prize-winning novel.

She’d seen Mick Gillespie’s book previewed in the
Sunday Times
. She simultaneously longed to and dreaded reading it.

She’d tried to forget him. Time had betrayed her. It hadn’t been a great healer at all. It had made no difference. She had tried a million different distractions. Other men. Drink. Drugs, once or twice (it had been the sixties, after all). Charity work. Australia. Then, eventually, a kind of release. Two husbands. And motherhood. That had helped her heal. But her boys were off and gone, though they would be back eventually when they’d found wives and had children. The cottage would come into its own then.

The memories were still there, vivid. It had started as a dream come true: a silly competition, to become the ‘legs’ of an exciting new brand of tights – a necessity as hemlines grew shorter and shorter. Little June Agnew had won and convinced herself she was going to be propelled into a lucrative modelling career, hurled from oblivion in Twickenham to a giddy life of glamour. Through it she had got an agent, Milton, (who appeared from nowhere, but was extremely kind and helpful) who had changed her name from June to Juno and told her she was going to be a star.

With her white-blonde hair and huge eyes and skinny, endless legs, Juno was the queen of mini skirts and kinky boots and white plastic macs, all sugar-pink lipstick and spidery false lashes. There was money (to her it seemed a fortune, but now she knew that other people had been creaming it off and just giving her the bare minimum), a Chelsea flat-share, parties, cameras, late nights – and then a screen test. Everyone had gone into ecstasies. She was, it seemed, a natural. And she had to admit it came easy to her. She memorised the lines they gave her, and pretended. It seemed that was how easy acting was. She could sense Milton’s excitement and the stakes getting higher. She was told to watch her weight and her behaviour, and had to have her hair done every morning before she left the flat.

Milton told her to be patient. The big jobs would come. But she had to do the small ones first. He got her a job on a sweepingly lush romantic film set on the west coast of Ireland, about a young girl who gets pregnant by the local aristocrat and wreaks her revenge. The script was by an acclaimed playwright and the director was renowned for savagely beautiful productions. Mick Gillespie was the star. Juno was to play the barmaid in the local pub. She had two lines.

Juno had devoured the script and loved it. She dreamed about the actress playing the heroine getting pneumonia, and them casting Juno, because they’d spotted her talent. The actress remained robustly healthy throughout. But Mick Gillespie noticed her. He noticed her all right.

In Ireland, she’d never known rain like it. It was there all the time. Yet it was soft. It was like having your skin kissed endlessly.

‘Does it ever stop?’ she asked him and he laughed.

‘Not in my lifetime.’

And the smell. She loved the smell of the burning peat that sharpened the damp. And the colours, smudgy and muted, everything in soft focus, as if you’d forgotten your glasses.

He lent her his cream Aran sweater. It swamped her, but in it she felt safe and loved and special. She wore it to the pub with jeans, her hair tousled and not a scrap of make-up, and they sat by the fire with glasses of Guinness and she thought she had never been happier. She wanted time to stop.

And then, on the last day, her dream was ripped apart. She had been so sure of
them
that it came as a huge shock. She had assumed they would carry on. There had been no indication this was temporary.

He was standing behind her on the cliff, his arms wrapped around her. She fitted just under his chin. The wind was buffeting at them, but he was strong and sure, so she didn’t fear falling. Everything was grey: the clouds, the sky, the rocks. As grey as Donegal tweed, apart from the white-tipped waves, which were as skittish and playful as overfed horses, chasing each other into shore, kicking up their tails.

‘Well,’ said Mick. ‘It’s been fun, all right.’

‘It has,’ she replied, thinking he meant the shoot.

‘Ah well.’ His voice was tinged with regret; a fifth-glass-of-Guinness melancholy though he hadn’t had his first yet.

‘We can always come back another time.’ She put her hands over his. ‘Mrs Malone would always make us welcome, I’m sure.’

Mrs Malone was the landlady of the guest house they’d been billeted in.

She felt him tense as she leant further into him. Every muscle in his body.

‘Darling,’ he said, and she felt her heart plummet. ‘There won’t be another time. This is it.’

She whirled round to face him.

‘What?’

He had a strange smile on his face. ‘You must understand. You know the rules. Didn’t anyone tell you, when you signed up for the film?’

‘Tell me what?’ She was confused.

‘This is just a …’ He searched for the words. He found one, but he could sense she wouldn’t like it. ‘You know.’

‘A you know?’

He shrugged. ‘Fling?’

She stepped back. He reached out to pull her back. They were very near the cliff edge.

‘Fling.’ She could barely say the word.

‘You knew that!’ His eyes were screwed up in consternation.

She shook her head.

‘What did you think this was?’

She could hardly breathe. She took in gulps of air to quell her panic. She clutched her middle. It felt as if a surgeon had gone in with a knife and was cutting out her vital organs. No anaesthetic. The pain burned in her gullet.

‘Darlin’, darlin’, darlin’ …’ He put a concerned hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on, now.’

She flung his hand away. ‘Get off.’

‘There’s no need for this. We’ve one last night. Let’s make the most of it.’

She ran. She ran and ran and ran, through the rain, down the cliff, down to the road. They had one more scene to shoot but she didn’t care. The whole film could go to hell.

She stumbled along the road. The mist was closing in, filling her lungs with its viscosity.

She pulled at his sweater as she ran, tugging it over her head, hurling it into the fuchsia bushes, until she was just in the long-sleeved vest she’d worn to stop it scratching. She’d left everything behind. Her purse. Nearly all her clothes.

She stopped at the crossroads, a crooked signpost giving her a choice.

A car drew up. It was the make-up girl.

‘Get in, sweetheart.’ Juno just hugged herself tighter. ‘Come on! You’re miles from anywhere and you’ll catch your death. I’ll take you back to my place.’

The girl made her retrieve the sweater from the bushes, then went to fetch Juno’s things from her digs. She put Juno to sleep on her sofa with a spare blanket. Juno didn’t sleep, but got up early to catch a bus to the airport where she got the first flight back to London so she didn’t have to travel with the rest of them. She hid in her flat for days, until Milton came to dig her out. He’d got the whole sorry story from someone else on the shoot. She was mortified, humiliated and swore she would never leave the flat again.

She was gaunt and had lost her sparkle. She couldn’t get the chill out of her bones from getting soaked when she ran away and she feared she would never feel warm again. Her fingers had chilblains, but the pain of them was nothing compared to the empty gnawing inside her.

She’d been living off the money from
The Silver Moon
. She’d been frugal but now there was nothing left. For a moment, panic overruled pain. But actually, she decided, she didn’t care. She would starve to death in her flat. At least then the horrible feeling would go.

‘Do you want my advice?’ asked Milton. ‘Go and do a secretarial course. Everyone needs a good typist. Even me. Actually, especially me. Go and learn typing and shorthand and I’ll give you a job.’

She stared at him. She supposed he was being kind, but did he know what he was suggesting? One moment she was on a trajectory to stardom and had found love. Now she had come crashing down and her agent wanted her to be his typist?

She had no fight left in her to tell him what she thought. She should be screaming at him to get her back in the loop, to get her some auditions. But she could see her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Gone was the luminous bombshell with the glowing skin and the eyes filled with promise. In her place was a bag of bones, with lacklustre hair and a blank gaze. Who would employ her looking like this?

‘And for heaven’s sake,’ added Milton. ‘Eat something. In fact, come for lunch with me.’

He took her to a tiny Italian on the corner and filled her up with pasta and bread and creamy pudding.

She felt a little stronger when she finished. Starving was a miserable business. So miserable that she did as Milton suggested and signed up for a secretarial course. She was guaranteed employment at the end of six weeks, as long as she attended every lesson and practised every night. And she went back to being plain June Agnew.

She’d done all right for herself. She had gone back to work for Milton. She’d become his right-hand girl, and then realised that there were many Miltons who needed a right hand in the office to organise their lives, so she left him to set up her own agency, providing top-notch administrative staff and the agency had grown and grown. She’d retired three years ago, handing the reins over to two of her sons. She had plenty of money, plenty of friends, and was as happy as anyone had the right to be.

She had unfinished business though.

She looked back down at the press release and it hadn’t changed. She could remember those eyes burning into her as if it were yesterday. She hadn’t really entertained the thought that she might ever see him again. Of course, she might have passed him on a street in London, or spied him across a crowded restaurant one day. But he’d fallen right into her lap. She wouldn’t sleep between then and now.

For heaven’s sake, she told herself. You’re not a skinny little wannabe actress any more, and he’s an old man. Get over yourself.