Because those are books and this is real life. You don’t learn from reading, you learn from making mistakes. Some mistakes are at least a lot of fun while you’re making them and you’ll find you make them ten times over, but you’ll learn in time, when you grow surer of yourself. Tell me you at least enjoyed being with him?
I did. I was happy.
Well then, could that be enough?
I just stare at the words wondering if what I shared with Elliot really could be enough to live off with no regrets. Could I put it all behind me and move on and not be sorry – it was, after all, kind of beautiful. Gran must get fed up waiting for me to reply because another message pops up.
Do you want it to be more?
‘Not possible,’ I say to myself, but I won’t write that. Gran might worry, so I message her back and tell her I’m feeling better already and wish her luck at her New Start Village Secret Poker Society game tonight. Her reply is characteristically upbeat.
Don’t care much for poker but lots of us ladies and some of the chaps are hoping to get on a table with Avi. He only moved in on Tuesday. He’s rather good-looking, even if he overdoes the Brylcreem a bit. I’m trying to tempt him into joining me for a private crochet lesson and cocktails in my room one afternoon!
I’m not sure how to reply to this other than wishing her luck and sending her some kisses, and I stand up, drain my tea cup and tell myself I have to get a grip on my bookshop holiday before it’s over. I’ve a week left; I need to throw myself into Clove Lore life, even though something deep inside my chest is aching today and my hands are unsteady. I put it down to the lack of sleep. See? I can lie to myself just as easily as men are able to lie to me.
One thing’s going right at least. There’s a cheque in my pocket for sixty pounds and a commission to turn into reality. I stand at the café counter and scribble the ingredients I’ll need for Minty’s custom order onto a napkin.
Brown sugar, ground ginger, more icing sugar – lots of it, nutmeg, big tins of treacle. Better get more butter. What else?
I’m almost fully absorbed in the task when Elliot stirs on the shop floor. I hear him grunt himself awake, then the rustle of bedding, followed by the hurried dragging of the mattress up the stairs, and all the time he’s muttering under his breath.
When he presents himself to me in the café, he looks worn and sunken-eyed, and ethereally pale beneath his long black hair. His morning stubble makes him look wild and rough.
I take a deep breath and face him. ‘Are you going to talk to me about what’s going on?’
This is generous of me, I think. He can come clean, apologise and we can move on. I can’t guarantee I won’t throw a bag of flour over him, but still, I’m being the mature one here.
He looks at the floor. ‘I’m sorry, Jude. I told you, I can’t.’
I’m winded by how much those words feel like a punch in the gut. ‘Well then,’ I say, my voice wobbling. ‘I can’t talk to you anymore. I can’t even look at you.’ I make my way past him towards the shop. There are tears stinging my eyes but he’s not getting to see them.
Elliot just nods, forlorn but accepting. ‘I’ll get the cash box, start the shop till for you,’ he says.
‘No don’t. I can sort it myself,’ I call over my shoulder. I made myself vulnerable before, telling him about my messy relationship with figures, but my stubborn pride won’t stand for his heroics anymore. I’ve got a head on my shoulders and I’m going to use it. I retrieve the cash box from under my bed and text Jowan with my shopping list for Minty’s commission, and so another day in my bookshop begins.
It’s beautifully sunny outside, completely at odds with the storms inside me. I prop the door open to let in the sea air and I try to smile as I dust shelves and tidy the stock. I make myself a cup of tea in the little kitchen, and then another one, and try to ignore the sound of Elliot serving customers in the café.
This is fine. I’ve always been so good at this, carrying on, regardless of my feelings. I can smile my way through anything, like all those times Mack slighted me and I refused to acknowledge it, and all the times as a teenager and in my twenties when invitations had come for parties and nights out and I’d had to refuse them. I’d smiled through mopping the bakery floor and wiping the fine flour dust off the windows and scrubbing the ovens out every single day. I’ve done it for years. I can keep this up for as long as is necessary.
I decide to tackle the display of spy thrillers on the table nearest the door which the last occupants left for me. It’s looking a bit thin now since a few of them have sold. I’m gathering fresh stories of espionage from the shelves to replenish it and trying to come up with an idea for what I’ll leave on the table on my last day. No point consulting Elliot. I’ve very much reverted to the ‘my shop, my rules’ way of thinking.
What kind of display could I do? What do I want to leave as my legacy? Definitely not love stories.Ugh!Maybe a display of self-help books? I browse the shelves for suitable titles.Men are From Mars: Women are from Venus;Emotionally Manipulative Males and the Women Who Love Them: Breaking the Cycle;Help, My Man’s a Shady Scumbag.
OK, I made that last one up. On second thoughts, I don’t think I’m in the best frame of mind for thinking about the display, or indeed about my departure from Clove Lore.
There’s a steady stream of tourist customers all morning to keep me from thinking too hard about the predicament I’m in. I’m extra attentive to them and wishing I’d put my mind to bookselling like this last week too. I’m finding I’m actually good at it, even though I have to check and double check every price I type into the till and I recount every penny I hand over in change.
At around twelve I hear the sound of a woman laughing gaily outside mixed with the hearty chuckle of a baby properly belly-laughing. It’s a lovely, distracting noise and I walk to the door to see its source and there’s a woman and a man making their way across the square with their kids. They look like a family in a catalogue for the kind of seasidey, Breton-stripy clothing I can’t afford. She’s blonde and tanned and carrying the laughing baby in a carrier on her front, and he’s striding along in pink shorts and shiny hair with a toddler up on his shoulders.
‘Hello!’ the woman calls out and I realise they’re coming into the shop. The mum hugs me – which surprises me – and I get an inadvertent whiff of the baby’s blonde curly head and it does something really unexpected in my ovaries which leaves me a bit numb and struggling to smile. What the hell’s all that about?
‘We’re the Burntislands,’ she says. ‘I’m Monica and this is ’bastian.’ She indicates the smiling baby in the carrier.
‘Good to meet you, I’m Fabian,’ the daddy says next.
‘And that’s Barney,’ both of the parents chime at exactly the same time. There follows a lot of them laughing and saying ‘Jinx’, and I introduce myself, feeling besieged and bewildered and not really sure why because this family seem lovely.
‘We’ve brought you a little something. Hope you like pasties?’ Monica says, handing over two paper bags. ‘Is your partner here today?’
