He rustles up some flapjacks that seem to sell well. I serve in the shop, cautiously counting and re-counting every penny of change and checking that I’ve typed the prices into the till correctly to the extent that customers are left gawping and smirking at the nervous, shaky-handed bookseller sweating behind the till.
The day passes and Elliot doesn’t come back, even though I jolt my head to the door every time the bell rings and I check my phone for missed messages even when it’s in my pocket and I’d know instantly if he had got in touch. My heart sinks a little more with every passing hour. Wherever he is and whatever he’s up to, this just goes to show I didn’t know him at all.
I don’t find the note until I go to bed. It’s under my pillow. I sit on Elliot’s mattress to read it. He’d neatly tucked in all the bedsheets and smoothed down the covers as though he’d never been here.
Jude, I’m so sorry I have to leave. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back to Clove Lore before our tenancy ends on Saturday, but if I can, even if it’s just for a second, to say goodbye to you properly, I will.
I’m sorry I spoiled things. I should never have come to the bookshop. That was selfish of me. I shouldn’t have got you involved in my mess. It was very hard to resist you and in the end, I couldn’t. I’m sorry.
I hope you can salvage the rest of your holiday and enjoy it.
My mobile number’s on the back if you need anything.
E.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I love the smell of gingerbread biscuits in the morning. Their aroma is wafting around the little café from the overloaded cooling racks on the counter telling me this is definitely a good batch with just enough ground ginger to lend them a fiery warmth.
Grandad’s recipe book told me exactly what to do, but I’ve improvised a little too, adding some cinnamon and all spice, guesstimating the amounts, adding a sprinkle at a time to the fragrant, dark mixture in the bowl – all golden syrup, black treacle and soft brown sugar – and hoping I’d be able to tell when I’d got it just right.
It was surprisingly easy to roll and cut into shapes once it had chilled for a while – thank goodness the special cutters I ordered online arrived in time – now all I have to do is ice these bad boys and I’m done.
I’m not opening the café or the shop this morning. If the locals are to be believed all of Clove Lore and most of the morning’s sightseers will be up at the big house for Minty’s fox and field day. To be honest I’m glad I won’t be alone in the shop on my last full day in the village. I’d hate to get all maudlin and mopey. I’ve done enough of that on this holiday.
There’s been no word from Elliot, though I haven’t tried to contact him either, so I just had to carry on with the baking and bookselling by myself. The whole village seems to be kept busy with the run up to Minty’s event. Maybe she’s roped everyone in to the planning?
I’ve missed Izaak and his cryptic book requests and had hoped I’d finally be able to furnish him with exactly the title he wanted but as Mrs C. said, you can’t win them all.
Even Minty’s stayed away since Tuesday morning and hasn’t been around to make me feel self-conscious and silly. At the very least she’d have been company.
Mrs Crocombe’s left me alone as well. I suppose she’s lost interest in me now she knows I won’t be winning any of the locals any money or churning out babies to fill her daughter’s school.
Even Aldous is hardly ever here now that his near-death experience has transformed him into a regular dog and jolted the villagers out of their tendency to feel sorry for the solemn little mourner and indulge his doggy whims.
I spotted Jowan out walking Aldous on his lead yesterday. Jowan was talking to him the whole time and he was smiling too, and Aldous was actually wagging his tail at the sound of his master’s voice. It was so nice to see. Both of them looked brighter, actually.
I’d gone to the shelves and lifted down Isolda’s John Donne and re-read the lines Jowan shared with me the week before, ‘his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again’. It seems that the scattered leaves that made up what was left of the little holy trinity of Jowan, Isolda and their little dog, have stitched themselves together somehow. The operation was the shock they both needed to remember that life goes on, even when it hurts.
Now that Aldous is busy re-learning how to bask in Jowan’s loving care, I took the opportunity to nip round to the laundry room at the back of the ice-cream cottage last night and wash all of his manky blankets and Isolda’s old jumpers and they’re all nicely folded and waiting for him on his windowsill if he ever comes back to sleep at the shop, which somehow I don’t think he ever will. It’s a sad day when even a housebound, toothless dog doesn’t want to hang out at home with me anymore.
Home. That’s dangerous thinking. Even with all the confusion and turmoil I’ve come to think of this lovely little shop as my own, and the knowledge that I’m leaving tomorrow morning is just… well, I can’t think about it. I’ll cry if I do.
I haven’t settled on my book display idea either. Once that’s done, it reallywillmean I’m leaving. I’m only just getting used to Clove Lore and its quirks and its routines. Knowing I won’t ever be here again hurts my heart.
Last night, at five, after a long quiet Thursday in the shop, I cashed up – thirty-one pounds and twenty-five pence daily profit, counted three times and checked against till records, thank you very much – and I walked down to the harbour.
It had obviously been a beautiful summer’s day but, as usual, confined to the shop and café, I’d missed the hubbub around town with all the day-visitors crowding out the pub and lining the sea walls, eating fish and chips or picnic lunches, dangling a line to catch a crab or just sunning themselves watching the beach scenes and the traffic of the fishing boats; things I wish I’d had more opportunity to do during my holiday.
Anyway, I bought a pasty and a pale ale at the pub and wandered along to the end of the sea wall, quiet now most of the visitors had left, and watched the sun begin to set. I tried to read a little, but in the end the sight of the sky changing colour and the clouds rolling in, low and fluffy, held my gaze and I’d stared out at the scene, trying to convince myself I was simply glad to have met Elliot and shared a little bit of magic with him.
I even smiled thinking of his awkwardness, clomping through the shop, knocking things over, always having to mind his head under every beam and doorframe, and I’d had to bite my lip when my brain reminded me of the contrast between that great clumsy Elliot and the tender, passionate, intense Elliot who I’d come to know in more intimate moments, the Elliot with his deft mind and gentle hands. He was different then, more relaxed, safer, maybe? As though the invisible thing he was afraid of wasn’t chasing him anymore and he could switch his focus only to me.
As the sun was almost melted into the horizon I heard footsteps behind me on the sea wall and turning, my heart in my mouth, I saw Anjali and tried not to show her what I’d been hoping, that she was Elliot coming back to me.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said smilingly.
‘I was just saying my goodbyes to Clove Lore. I’m leaving on Saturday morning,’ I told her, then I offered to nip along to the Siren to buy her a drink.
