The Bookshop on the Corner (22 page)

Surinder laughed and shook her head. “Your fantasy life is out of control, man.”

Nina felt herself going pink. “I know.”

“I mean, it's not real, is it?”

Nina thought back to his soft lips on hers, the surprise on his face.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes it is. And I just want some romance in my life. Is that so wrong?”

Surinder shrugged. “There's plenty of romance around here. Boys outnumber girls five to one. There's a million guys to choose from. Only you could get yourself hopelessly hooked on one who passes through at midnight and can't stop. It's not about Marek. It's about you.”

Nina felt her face make a defiant expression.

“Ha,” said Surinder. “You like to appear a pushover, but inside you're as tough as old boots.”

“Everyone's different from how they look on the outside,” said Nina.

“Not me,” said Surinder, and Nina was forced to concede that she might well be right.

“Listen,” said Surinder. The tone of her voice made Nina lift her head. She knew almost before Surinder said it. “Look. I have to go. They're really going to fire me this time.”

They were meandering back from the pub, heading for the van. Nina suddenly felt overcome with exhaustion. She stopped suddenly in the road.

“No!” she said. “Do you have to?”

“Uh, all I've done since I've been here is eat toast and give you a hard time,” pointed out Surinder, not inaccurately. “I have to get back to work. Plus, watching how hard you work makes me feel guilty.”

“It's been great having you here. What about the Gus?”

Surinder let a smile play about her lips.

“Well,” she said. “It's nice to know he's here. But also that
I can do it, you know? It's just nice to attract men I actually like.”

As they crested the hill in the van, the farm came into sight below them, its old stone walls golden in the light.

“I'm really going to miss this place,” said Surinder. “You're so lucky, you know.”

“Do you think?”

“I do think,” said Surinder. “I think you've found what you should be doing, where you should be doing it. And most people don't get that. They don't get anything like that.”

“But I'm lonely,” said Nina.

“You're making friends every day,” said Surinder. “Don't rely on fantasy guys, okay? Meet real ones. There's no shortage.”

They watched Lennox striding across the fields not far from where they were passing.

“You could even try getting it on with your hot landlord,” said Surinder.

“He's not hot!” said Nina.

“Let me see. Six foot two, curly hair, long, lean body of the kind I totally know you like, muscles, blue eyes, jaw like an Action Man . . .” Surinder was counting off on her fingers. “Saves baby animals, strides about in a manly fashion, has a posh barn. No, absolutely nothing hot about that at all.”

“He's not hot because he's a dick,” said Nina.

“Well, so's that boy you fancied at school,” Surinder reminded her.

“One, that was school, and two, he's in prison.”

“Proves my point.”

Back at the house, Nina watched Surinder packing.

“Are you . . . is Marek giving you a lift down?” she couldn't help asking eventually.

“Take your nap! And no, because I, for one, know when to leave well enough alone. I'm flying out of Inverness.”

“Invernish,” corrected Nina absentmindedly. A clutch of islanders had been passing through and had bought all her commercial fiction, and she'd picked up their pronunciation. “Do you need a lift?”

There was a honk in the farmyard. It was the Gus. Surinder ran outside and jumped up onto him, wrapping herself around his waist as he kissed her deeply. Nina sighed; she couldn't help it. That was what she wanted. Just some lovely romance. Someone happy to see her. Why couldn't it be Marek?

“Don't go!” the Gus was saying.

“Come down to Birmingham,” Surinder said, throwing her bag in the back of his SUV.

“Oh, I'm not sure. I don't do well in cities,” said the Gus. “They won't let me bring my dog.”

“Entire cities?” said Surinder.

“Entire cities. And I can't walk there. Too many people in the way.”

They kissed again as Nina went over to say good-bye.

“Get her to come back,” said the Gus, his freckles more comically visible than ever after all the sunshine. “Soon! Forever!”

“I can't get her to do anything,” said Nina, smiling.

“Uh, excuse me, right back at you,” said Surinder, leaning out of the window. She touched Nina on the arm. “This is the place for you. Genuinely. I think you belong here.”

“So I'm never to darken your door again?” said Nina, grinning.

“Oh God, yes, you have to do that. We're still not quite finished with ALL THOSE BLOODY BOOKS!”

S
ummer vacation time meant masses of children's books, and big fat summer novels; romances, but also a lot of serious fiction, as people carved out time for themselves to read books they'd been putting off for years. Nina found herself getting through a load of classics.

As she toured the little towns, everyone came to tell her where they were going on vacation, and what they were thinking of reading, and she passed on her recommendations and tips. She was asked so often if she was going to the midsummer festival that she almost considered it. She had also called social services about Ainslee and Ben—feeling quite horribly guilty as she did so—and they had sighed and said they would add them to the list but they were quite backed up so it wouldn't be straight away. Nina had tried to ask Ainslee about her exams in a roundabout way, and that sullen teenage mask had come clanging down and she hadn't been back to the van for four days. Nina hated the idea of her losing that too, so she didn't say anything else, just snuck her as much money as she could spare.

She had other things on her mind, too. More specifically, a little note left in a beautiful carved wooden box on a branch of the old tree that said, simply, “Please come.”

She was torn. She didn't want to miss her regulars, miss her busy selling days.

On the other hand she wanted to visit her old home to see if she felt different or if it had changed at all; and to see Surinder, obviously—everyone in the village had been asking about her; she'd obviously made quite an impression, and the Gus was quite lovesick with sadness and buying lots of books about lonely mavericks who lived lonely lives solving crimes on the road. Also, Griffin had tipped her off about some stock that was going up for auction in Birmingham, and she finally felt brave enough to do the long-haul journey in the van.

But more than anything, she wanted to see Marek again. She wanted to see him so much. He was all she thought about.

So she made herself go for it. She was going to tell Lennox she was leaving for a few days, but she hadn't seen him so reckoned there was absolutely no point, not that he'd give the smallest rat's arse. She did buy Parsley a bone, though, so he'd know she'd miss him.

It was strange being back in the city. Nina realized she'd gotten used to everyone in the village recognizing her and knowing everything about her and her business. The speed with which it had happened had been both surprising and actually very touching; it was lovely being greeted by name at the post office, or in the bank, and being able to help out here and there.

Surinder, after flinging her arms around her, was frowning.

“It's awful,” she said. “It's sticky and too hot and every patch of grass has horrible fat men lolling on their horrible fat arms, looking like they've dressed in toddlers' clothes. Three-quarter-length pants. Sandals! Hairy toes! It's gross. I miss Scotland SO MUCH. At least you can sleep at night.”

“It smells weird here,” said Nina. “Did I really never notice before?”

“No, I noticed it, too,” said Surinder. “When I got back. It's garbage cans and rotting food and unfresh air.”

Soon they were walking down the road. The tarmac was sticky and shimmered in the heat. The air was hot and still. People were sitting aimlessly on their front steps. The pub at the corner of the road was overflowing with outdoor drinkers, shouting and talking noisily. Everywhere was mobbed and hot and full. Nina frowned.

“I've just lost the habit of so many people. There're too many people here.”

“Yeah, all right, all right,” said Surinder. “Could you get them to open a Kirrinfief branch of my business, please? I don't think I can commute that far.”

Nina smiled. “Yes, that's right, all we need up there is a great big city dumped right in the middle of it. You could move to Perth.”

Surinder sighed. “I don't think so,” she said. Her tone of voice changed. “I'm not brave like you, Nina. I couldn't toss my life up like you did. What about my mother?”

“Encouraged by you,” Nina pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn't think you'd actually do it! I thought it was just leverage so I could get my hallway back.”

Griffin hailed them from across the horribly crowded bar, waving furiously. He looked strange without his beard, and was
wearing a ridiculous T-shirt with a picture of a raccoon on it, and a weird beanie hat.

“Griffin?”

He came up with three bottles of cider and hugged them both.

“Oh, thank God. Grown-ups. Thank God.”

“What's up with you?”

Griffin held Nina at arm's length and looked at her.

“What's up with YOU? You've changed.”

“No I haven't,” said Nina. “Apart from being out of direct sunlight.”

Griffin shook his head. “No. It's not that. You look . . . you've got roses in your cheeks.”

“Does that mean fat?”

“No! But you do look . . . sturdier.”

“Fuck off, Griffin!”

“That sounds wrong, but I don't mean it like that. You look . . . stronger. More substantial. Less wispy.”

“I'm not a photograph from
Back to the Future
!”

“I don't know what I'm saying. Ignore me. My head is being done in by my job. Take it from me, you look good. Better than good.” And Nina could see in the way he looked at her that he meant it.

“So do you,” she said, even though he looked a bit daft. He was obviously trying to fit in with his cool young team. He'd even had his ears pierced.

“How's work?”

Griffin made a face and took a huge swallow of his drink.

“Don't start,” he said. “It is so lovely to see you, but if you start going on about how wonderful your life is now and how
you choose your own hours and have a lovely bookshop tootling around the country, I'm going to have to kill myself.”

“Okay,” said Nina. “It's awful.”

“It isn't,” said Griffin. “Surinder told me all about it. She says it's awesome and gorgeous and she's going back up next time she gets some vacation.”

“Or I might just pull a sick day,” added Surinder.

“Why don't you come up, too?” said Nina.

Griffin shook his head. “No. I couldn't bear it if it's nice. I really couldn't. I have to go in every morning at seven and start plowing through all the human resources paperwork, then go to county meetings about development access, then come back and fix all the computers that have broken down because they break down every day, then I have to show ninety-year-olds how to use them because they've shut all the rural banks down so they can't do their banking. It's like an entire generation has been thrown into a world they don't understand and where nothing makes sense, and they've just been told, tough luck, learn how to type or you can just starve to death.”

He took another swig of his cider.

“Do you remember how nice it used to be when the kids came in?”

“You hated it when the kids came in!” said Nina, outraged. “They got sticky fingermarks on all your Frank Millers.”

“Yes, I said I hated it,” said Griffin.

“You did! You hated it!”

“Well, it was paradise compared to this. It was lovely. People coming in to share stories or books or things they liked. Now, it's people coming in because they're desperate. They're cut off from the world because they don't have the Internet or their ben
efits have been taken away and they can't make ends meet, and nobody is left out there to care because they cut and they cut and they cut. I'm a librarian, and now I'm an IT support worker with a side order of psychology, addiction counseling, and social work. Plus I generally have a nineteen-year-old member of staff crying in the loo because they're not feeling self-actualized enough.”

Nina fell silent. She wasn't sure what to say.

“You should move there,” said Surinder.

“So should you!” shot back Griffin. “We're not all as cool as Nina.”

Nina wasn't in the least bit cool but didn't feel up to pointing it out. They all moved outside the pub. Over the side wall, a fight was brewing, and a girl with very blond extensions was hovering around it, excited to be in the middle.

A clutch of teenagers was boasting loudly and cheerily in the corner, not listening to one another, looking aggressive and anxious. People were pushing and shoving to get to the bar. Nina realized she was feeling stressed. Her heart rate was raised and she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around her; the smell of exhaust; the noise of honking cars and clinking glasses and noisy squeals and all the general Friday-night sense of a summer city weekend in full swing.

She thought about how the evening would end—girls without shoes, lots of hollering in the street, ambulance sirens wailing—and wondered, rather traitorously, how soon Surinder would want to go home.

In the end, she didn't have to wait that long. Griffin got drunk and maudlin and looked like he was about to cry, and then suddenly a whole clutch of lovely young people, noisy and expectant and giggly, arrived and it turned out one of them worked with Griffin and yelled his name.

He immediately transformed and became bouncy and cheerful and started using phrases like “reverse reem” and “that's so basic,” and Surinder and Nina looked at each other and by mutual agreement sidled away.

They walked home together slowly through the muggy evening, the dark settling around them.

“It's still light up at . . .” Nina realized she had been about to say “home.” “Up north,” she finished quickly.

They passed two cats having a fight on a wall as someone hollered at them from up high to shut the eff up. From the next building came loud banging EDM. Someone was yelling at them to shut up, too. A car with its top down and music blaring out of it came squealing up the road, far too fast. The girls both started. The occupants of the car laughed loudly, then started catcalling a group of women marching in the opposite direction.

Surinder sighed. “So. Desperate to move back?”

Nina shook her head. “I'm going to fill the van once and for all, and then that's it. I think . . . I think I'm done here. I've just bought a whole load of stock at auction.”

Surinder nodded. “I didn't . . . I don't know why. I thought it was just going to be some kind of freezing no-man's-land; I thought I'd kind of come and visit you and laugh at men in skirts and ask what haggis was and sing some Proclaimers songs.”

“The Proclaimers are great!” said Nina.

“Oh my God, you have gone so native,” said Surinder. “It's ridiculous.”

“They ARE great, though.”

It was clear that Surinder hadn't finished.

“But it's not . . . it's not like that at all,” she said slowly, as a police helicopter lit up the night and filled the air with noise. “It's . . . it's special up there. A kind of place of the heart. I mean,
it just gets to you. Those long fields, and the sun that never goes down, and the way people look out for each other.”

“Well, we have to,” pointed out Nina. “There isn't an Accident and Emergency for sixty miles.”

“It just feels like you can breathe up there, like these silly day-to-day problems and worries don't matter so much anymore. That there's actually time to think about your life and what you want to do, instead of just racing from work to bar to dates to the gym to stupid stuff.”

“Also, all the hot men,” smiled Nina.

“That, too,” said Surinder, smiling. “If you like freckles. Which I do.”

“Come back with me. There's plenty of space.”

Surinder shook her head emphatically as they went in the gate of the little row house. Someone had left a bag of poop neatly tied up on top of the low wall. They both looked at it and sighed.

“Speaking of which, have you made a date with your dark-eyed stranger?”

Nina shrugged anxiously. “I've left him a note. Hopefully I'll see him tomorrow night.” She pulled out her phone. “I'm waiting for him to contact me the modern way.”

Surinder grinned. “Ha! Look at you, you can't deal with stuff that's not on parchment!”

“It's not like that,” said Nina, but in actual fact it had been difficult for her to give up their secret message place, the thrill and romance of the tree. “Plus, he hasn't texted me.”

“Maybe he has, and you're too medieval to work your phone anymore.”

Nina stuck out her tongue. “Just come back and live with me.”

“I can't,” said Surinder. “I'm too cowardly. I couldn't leave my job, couldn't leave my mortgage and everything. Plus, what would I do? Being an administrative genius isn't enough, you know!”

“I'm sure you'd find something.”

“But what if I didn't? And I'd be stuck making no money at a job I hated. I hate my job now, but the money's good. What do you make?”