‘Again, no clue!’ Magnús said, shrugging like it didn’t matter.
‘I have an idea,’ Alex said, her finger raised. ‘And a little ready money too. I’d already decided I was selling the house and the boat, now I know what I’ll be doing with some of the cash. And the shop’s insured, right?’
Jowan nodded.
‘Then I’ll get my investment back. Until then we’ll manage. Maybe Minty could put us up in her ballroom until we work something else out.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Jowan said.
‘So, will you let us stay and help?’ Alex could barely contain the hope within her.
Jowan watched the pair of them, thinking how like his younger self and his Isolde she and Magnús were. Idealistic, tough and tenacious, risk-taking. ‘OK,’ he said.
Magnús and Alex were in each other’s arms already while Jude clapped excitedly.
‘Please stay,’ Jowan said, his eyes watery. ‘Stay and save Borrow-A-Bookshop. But I don’t want it all shinin’ white and plastic in here.’
‘Neither do we,’ Alex assured him.
‘I remember the day Isolde made those signs,’ said Jowan, looking about him again. ‘The care she took choosing everything. I remember how we first painted the door sky-blue, her choice of colour, of course. We’d scour the house sales for stock, no matter how far away they were. The shelves were filled to burstin’ on opening day. I swear there’s books we acquired that first year still on these shelves somewhere.’
‘Yeah, that’s not a great business model. You should really have shifted those by now,’ Magnús said.
Jowan’s laughter was so unexpected and so badly needed. It dislodged something in his heart that had been a sore sticking point for so long. ‘You’ll keep Isolde’s signs?’
‘Nothing leaves the shop without your say so,’ Alex told him.
‘Takes a brave person to move on with their life and try again when they lost it all once before,’ said Jowan, getting a little lost in his train of thought.
The three of them withdrew a little, letting Jowan ruminate.
Jowan knew he couldn’t hold on to the past any longer. Only, change was so unsettling. It required so much courage. It meant risking losing it all and getting hurt all over again and yet, if things didn’t take a great leap forward now, how would they ever get any better?
Jowan’s back straightened like a lightning bolt had struck at his feet. ‘I have to go,’ he announced. ‘I have to talk to Minty.’
‘Maybe get changed first,’ Jude said, as gently as she could.
Jowan looked down his body at Izaak’s oversized outfit. ‘Oh, right enough!’ he said, before his face fell into a determined straight-browed eagerness.
He walked right out the shop and Down-along, barely seeing all the detritus from the storm, dodging the diggers and council pick-ups parked along the slope, saying ‘mornin’ to members of the clean-up crew giving up Christmas with their families to help with the disaster effort.
He strode past the ice-cream parlour where Mrs C. was being let inside by an official in a hard hat, all of her family around her. She was pale and afraid, but she followed the man inside. Jowan caught the sounds of her crying and her daughter comforting her, before pacing on. So many people would be facing the toughest morning of their lives.
He knew his own cottage would have borne the brunt of the waters, being at the end of the slope and at its turning point. The water would have welled there before being forced in a sweep to the right and down into the harbour.
Whatever was waiting for him he’d just have to accept it; smashed windows, filthy carpets, the kitchen all spoiled. It didn’t matter. He’d accept it.
He’d have to move with the times, fill a skip and buy a replacement everything. It was just stuff, he knew now.
All of that could be faced later. Right now, what mattered most was making himself presentable for Minty and getting back up to the Big House to tell her that he really,reallywanted to ruin their friendship.
As he drew closer to his old B&B, head down, thinking only of how quickly he could get changed and how on earth he was going to wash, he didn’t notice that the front door of his home had been forced open by the water and was now gaping. He didn’t notice the armchairs lifted into the corner of the living room and deposited in a sludgy pile along with Isolde’s cushions and rugs and all the accoutrements of his old life. He didn’t notice the tidemark around the walls five foot high, or the way the wallpaper was washed clean away in parts and peeling and blistered in others.
Jowan saw only Hunter wellies, then sensible slacks, a green bodywarmer and a silk scarf tied in a smart knot across a slender throat and blonde hair framing a bold, beautiful face.
‘Mint?’
She stood bolt upright in the spot where, until yesterday, the cottage’s low hedge and metal fence posts had been.
