‘Mmm,’ he swallows, surprised at my sudden efforts. ‘Once, when I was a kid.’
‘With your parents?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do they do? Are you from a family of vets?’
‘Uh, well…’ I watch him take a few more stabs at his pasta before he answers. ‘Mum’s a local councillor and Dad’s… in agriculture. So… yeah, no vets.’ He shrugs and sets about eating again, except he’s less enthusiastic this time. ‘Tell me about you,’ he says.
‘What?’ I’m not used to anyone taking an interest. It throws me.
‘You know, where you’re from? What you like doing? Interesting hobbies?’
‘Interesting scars?’ I blurt out, indicating with the end of my fork the silvered line that interrupts one of his beautiful dark eyebrows. It’s out before I realise what I’ve said. ‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry. Obviously, that’s none of my business.’
He’s glowering at his plate, his brows pinching, and his mouth setting sternly.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.
‘It’s nothing, just a stupid scratch,’ he mutters.
‘At work?’
‘Yeah, sure. At work.’
‘Declawing a tiger, were you?’ Why can’t I stop? For Christ’s sake, Jude! He smiles, but not with his eyes, and I drop the subject. ‘So, my hobbies?’ I say, determined to save this and get to the bill-paying and leaving part of the evening as quickly as possible.
I tell him about my love of books, my only real hobby, and after a while he stops eating and just listens, watching me get more and more enthusiastic.
‘So yeah,’ I ramble. ‘I ended up bringing a big bag of books from home, which I don’t think isthatweird. Is it weird?’
Elliot just smiles.
‘I don’t even own that many books,’ I confess. ‘Most of my favourite reads I found at the local library, and if Ireallyloved something I’d renew my loan over and over again for months, reading it umpteen times. Nobody seemed to mind. I don’t think the residents of Marygreen were queueing up for a copy of any of my favourites, if I’m honest. It’s not a big reading town.’
The waitress comes back and Elliot quietly orders us more drinks while I give him the lowdown of my top books. I’m in full sail now and enjoying myself.Tess of the D’Urbervilles(poor woman dies because of an undelivered letter and a bad man);Jamaica Inn(poor woman discovers her bad uncle likes wrecking ships and slitting throats);Frenchman’s Creek(rich, bored woman goes on an adventure with a hot French pirate). ‘Ah, I adore them,’ I enthuse. ‘I could recite whole passages verbatim if that was ever required. It hasn’t come in handy yet, but you never know.’
As I speak, something surprising happens. I watch Elliot’s expression burst into a grin, a proper bright-eyed, whole-hearted type of grin, and it knocks me breathless for a fraction of a second.
I try to recover. ‘You love books too? I mean you must, wanting to stay at a bookshop and everything?’ I say, and I suddenly feel bad about hogging the shop all day, confining him to the café. I wonder if he can tell that’s what I’m thinking.
‘Books were my life as a kid – books and my pets,’ he begins. ‘My family were always very busy; parties here and there, events and dinners, always working, even in the evenings. I read a lot for company and, when I was nine, they bought me two puppies of my own. I used to read to them in the library.’ He’s smiling at the memory. It looks as though he’s forgotten I’m here.
‘You were allowed to take two puppies into your local library? Try that in Marygreen and you’d be out on your ear!’
‘No,’ he snaps out of the daydream. ‘It was,uh, our library at home.’
‘Oh!’
‘Every nerdy kid’s dream, right? A library of their own.’
‘Literally my biggest dream,’ I say.
‘Except most of the books were locked behind glass, too precious to touch. I read what I could though. There was a Conan Doyle collection I was allowed to read. Smashed my way through those. Then I discovered Gerald Durrell, you know,My Family and Other Animals? I used to dream about having a menagerie of animals like he did. One year my parents gave me a whole shelf full of Observers books. You know the ones I mean? The little volumes on every topic under the sun? Geology, dogs, trees, wildflowers? The birds and their eggs ones were my favourites, I carried them about with me all the time.’
‘You love booksandnature,’ I say, and my voice does something husky and wobbly that I didn’t intend.
‘That’s me in a nutshell.’
