Minty fought to regain her poise, straightening her bodywarmer with a firm tug and clearing her throat. ‘Goodness yes, there’s all manner of old baubles and bells down here. And Leonid furnished you with a decent tree, yes?’
Her clipped efficiency never left her for long. This was the old Minty that Jowan knew, fierce and capable. She only ever let her guard slip in front of him, and not all that often either. Only recently it seemed to be happening more and more. Perhaps the invasion of the builders last month had done it.
‘Yep,’ he told her. ‘Fine tree, ready for delivery. Do you want to help me take them down the slope? I’ll treat uz to a bite of whatever young Alex is making at the café.’
Even though Minty was rummaging through a box of threadbare tinsel and who only knew how many spiders, there was a note of girlishness in her voice when she agreed that yes, she’d like that very much.
Chapter Fifteen
A Christmas Gift for the Borrow-A-Bookshop
It didn’t matter if Alex’s first customers of the day were only Minty and Jowan, or that they’d dragged a five-foot fir tree complete with bits of straw, moss and insects into her freshly cleaned café.
The two big bags of decorations – also a gift for the shop, apparently – didn’t look all that promising either, but she’d forgotten all that when she served up their toasties and milkshakes.
Minty wasn’t sure she liked milkshake but Jowan had persuaded her to try one and everyone was relieved when she announced it was ‘excellent’.
‘It’s Mrs C.’s strawberry ice cream that makes it,’ Alex told her.
She’d nipped Down-along earlier that morning to buy a big tub. Mrs Crocombe had been pleased to see Alex still in the village but her ears had really pricked up when she heard Alex was helping Magnús run the café for the day.
‘So youarestaying for Christmas, dear?’ Mrs C. had probed, but Alex hadn’t been able to commit either way, which had caused the old matchmaker no end of frustration.
‘The storm coming in might help make up your mind,’ Mrs C. told her with a knowing chuckle as Alex paid for her ice cream and left.
She’d stopped in the middle of the slope to look seaward at the endless grey rainclouds blanketing the sky and dropping icy drizzle over Clove Lore. Alex had seen skies like that before and they always spelled trouble for people living along the coast, but her only thoughts right then were focused on her café and the day ahead.
After a couple of slices of crispy cake – a step too far for Jowan who didn’t have a very sweet tooth so Minty had to finish both of them – Alex’s first patrons paid in cash and left.
Alex overheard Jowan asking if Minty wanted to pop down to the cottage and walk Aldous with him, and she’d protested weakly about the drizzle before pulling a clear plastic RainMate with white dots from her pocket, covering her hair and saying, ‘Oh, go on then!’ as though it were a terrible bother to her. Jowan had only smiled and offered her his arm which she took with a look that was both comfortable and coy.
Alex let the café’s lace curtain fall when she saw for sure they were turning Down-along together. ‘Good,’ she said to herself, feeling every bit like meddling Mrs Crocombe – a not entirely pleasant realisation.
‘Everything good?’ Magnús enquired from the shop floor.
‘We’ve,uh, been given a gift, from the Big House,’ she called back, and waited for Magnús’s curiosity to bring him through to her a few seconds later.
‘It’s a tree, and we’ve to decorate it with this stuff, apparently.’ Alex pulled one of the bags open.
‘What are we waiting for?’ Magnús asked.
‘Some customers, maybe?’
‘If we get really busy doing something, that might bring customers in.’
‘How would that work?’ Alex asked, but she was already lifting the bags and carrying them past Magnús into the bookshop. ‘Let’s put the tree in here,’ she told him. ‘A bookshop needs a tree at Christmas.’
‘We should have some Christmas music,’ he told her, and when she replied that she hadn’t brought her phone – with a queasy stomach-churning feeling that memories of last night’s messages dredged up – he’d pulled out his own and searched Spotify for Icelandic Christmas music, which soon filled their corner of the shop near the, now glowing, fireplace.
They placed the spruce in its antique stand, Magnús tightening the rusty vice that held the trunk upright. Alex fearlessly picked the living creatures from the branches and let them loose on the big potted palm tree in the square outside.
‘Did you sell any books this morning?’ she asked as they both went through the contents of the bags.
Magnús was glad to tell her he had. ‘Two children’s picture books, to one of the women from the party last night.’ He meant Monica Burntisland, the school’s teaching assistant. ‘Stocking fillers, she said.’
‘Two books isn’t bad. Do you do stockings in Iceland?’
‘Of course! Where else would the yule lads put their presents?’
