Jude took Jowan’s arm as they shuffled further inside. The rugs bubbled and squelched when stood on.
‘Ah,’ Jowan exhaled hard, before pinching his lips tight to stop them trembling. His eyes streamed with silent tears.
Everything at ground level had drunk deeply of the flood waters. Every book on the lowest shelves was spoiled. The feet of every piece of furniture were discoloured and blown with the wetness. The smell of damp and cold had already set in to the shop and would, Jowan knew, grow far worse as the December days passed. With no light from the fire and the bulbs dead in their sockets, what had been cosy reading nooks and a browser’s paradise was a dark palette of greys.
Nobody spoke as they took it all in. Jude picked up her grandfather’s cookbooks from the counter and held them to her in a bundle.
Alex stepped slowly through the morass to lift a blanket from the armchair. She folded and smoothed it in her hands, looking despairingly at the spot by her feet where the logs and ashes from the fire had washed out onto the carpet and mixed with the slime.
‘OK, don’t panic,’ Magnús said, spreading his hands out as if he could soothe everyone’s fractured emotions. ‘You heard Minty this morning. Her planning committee are putting in orders for shovels and skips. They’ll be here soon. We’ll get all this gunk out of here in days.’
Even Magnús didn’t believe that. It would be weeks of work. Weeks he didn’t have left in England to assist.
‘Yeah,’ Alex said, her eyes on Magnús, wanting to shore up Jowan with her confidence that things would be all right eventually. ‘And that guy from the council said there were dehumidifiers and fans and portable heaters on their way. As soon as the electric’s restored they’ll get to work drying the place.’
‘Those’ll take days to arrive at this time of year,’ Jowan replied sadly, still looking all around him in disbelief. ‘While we’re waitin’, all this sopping wet filth will spread itself into every fibre in the building, even the bed upstairs will absorb the damp. The window frames’ll warp and stick, the curtains’ll mildew, all this plaster is going to blow apart and the ceilings’ll weaken. This isn’t going to be a clean-up. It needs gutting and startin’ all over again.’
Too wearied to stand, Jowan perched on the display table by the door, shoving aside the home décor books the last guests had left. He shook his head slowly. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’
‘Will Borrow-A-Bookshop shut down?’ Jude asked in a small voice.
Jowan looked all around him as if to say that was more than likely.
‘I couldn’t bear that,’ Jude cried. ‘And just have no bookshop in Clove Lore? No bookshop holidays?’
‘Think of the work this place’ll need to get it cleaned up,’ he said sadly. ‘I have my own cottage to dry out and fix.’ He’d put off going home, wanting to see the bookshop first.
‘You can’t just put it up for sale,’ Jude said. ‘It belongs to the community.’
‘It belongs to me,’ Jowan retorted. ‘As does all the responsibility for its upkeep.’
‘But the charity, the holiday lets. There’s a three-year waiting list. We can’t cancel their breaks, not all of them.’ Jude looked around, knowing full well she was being unrealistic. ‘Can’t we just postpone them? Until the shop’s fixed up?’
‘Jude, even Magnús can’t finish his holiday.’
Alex squeezed Magnús’s hand. ‘That’s true. What are you going to do?’ she asked.
Magnús said he didn’t have a clue, but he knew he didn’t want to leave. ‘I’m staying. I can do a lot in a week.’
Jowan laughed bitterly. ‘I like your gusto, but it’s hopeless.’
Jude wasn’t having any of it. ‘No it’s not. I’ll be here, and Elliot! We can get the place up and running.’
Jowan cut her off. ‘It’s hard enough being a bookseller these days. Do you know how many bookshops are closing down all over the country each week?’
‘How many?’ Jude was close to tears now.
‘I dunno; a lot. See it every time I open a trade paper. It’s the rents doing it, and the landlords, and the whole world being skint, ’cept a handful of millionaires.’
‘Not the booksellers themselves?’ Magnús shifted his feet, tipping his head in interest.
‘How could it be their fault?’ Jowan wanted to know, his eyes narrowing.
‘Not being good enough? Having the wrong stock? Bad service?’ Magnús could have gone on, listing all the things he’d blamed himself for when Ash and the Crash folded.
Jowan gave a crumpled smile, making his beard bristle beneath his lips, and the sides of his eyes crinkle. ‘No, and it’s not the readers, neither. Folks want books more than ever. Think how desperate everyone was to hold a book when we couldn’t get outside or do much else? Even with all this demand, it’s a hard game, bookselling. Do you hear me, Magnús?’
The way Jowan pinned him with his eyes set off a shift in Magnús’s chest and he knew he was in danger of crying.
