Far along the path ahead, the lights of Clove Lore glowed through the low cloud. A flag flew on the turret of the Big House, and the chimneys smoked thickly from the higgledy-piggledy collection of slate roofs dotting down the sloping spine of the village. Had Mr Sabine been thinking clearly, like he had until recently, he’d have thought how like heaven it all looked.
The robins kept singing, concerned only with their courtship and answering the impulse of the turning wheel of the year. William Sabine tried to whistle in imitation of their song as he walked slowly towards the village, the hazy memory of an armchair, a warm fire and floor-to-ceiling books somewhere down there in amongst the tumbledown cottages calling him on.
Chapter Nine
The Wanderer Returns
There was no getting away from it: Harri was nervous that Tuesday morning. He made up for it by keeping busy. He’d baked a batch of glacé cherry buns, icing them and letting Annie put the half cherry on top for decoration. Then he’d swept and mopped the floors, all while Annie dealt with the scattered arrivals throughout the morning. Nobody could be induced into buying anything, no matter how chatty Annie was.
By twelve, the drizzle had chased away most of the visitors and Harri had fallen to entertaining Annie by reading aloud from one of the Valentine’s display books.
‘The Roman festival of Lupercalia fell in February and is closely linked to our modern Valentine rituals. Lupercalia, a festival of fertility, saw the pairing up of the unbetrothed by means of a lottery system which varied across regions.’
‘Pfft, no one tell Mrs Crocombe she could be running a love lottery as well as a betting book!’ Annie cut in.
The mention of the old matchmaker quietened Harri and he returned the book to the display.
‘How um, do I go about it then?’
‘Hmm?’ said Annie absently sorting the postcards in the rack by the till.
‘Uh, dating again?’
This drew Annie to a stop. ‘You’ve been on dates,’ she shrugged.
‘Not for a decade. I mean, me and Paisley would go out and stuff, but it’s different when it’s your girlfriend.’
‘Are you asking me for first date tips?’
‘You’ve been on more dates than I have, not that that’d be hard.’
‘I haven’t been on as many as you think, honestly. Look, where did you take Paisley on your first proper date?’
‘She took me to her debating society meeting,’ he said, a slow smile forming.
‘Geez, what was the topic?’
Harri pretended for a moment like he couldn’t quite remember but it was in fact burned in his brain.
‘Romantic attachment is a capitalist construct designed to dupe women into forfeiting their economic and bodily freedoms and submit to the patriarchy,’ he said. ‘Or something like that. Paisley was leading the debate.’
‘For or against?’
‘For.’
‘Ach, you guys were pretty romantic, I seem to recall.’
She wasn’t wrong. In the beginning they’d been magnificent. Harri had been completely overwhelmed by his date that night, watching Paisley on the stand, stating her case, point after point. She was nineteen and fearless. He was nineteen and smitten. She’d been so full of fire and energy.
He’d curtailed her ambitions, surely? Living with him had dampened her spark. The realisation hit him like rockfall.
‘Hey?’ Annie was before him now, her head tipped, assessing his face. ‘You were gone again. Listen,’ she sighed. ‘If you insist, I can teach you, okay? Just don’t go getting all sad again. Here.’ She crossed the room so she could pull on her coat. ‘I’ll be Anjali the eligible vet from the very nice British family.’
Harri watched her, bemused. ‘We’re acting?’
‘Role playing. Okay?’ She fixed two chairs in front of a tiny bookshop table with its vase of dried flowers. ‘You introduce yourself.’
Annie transformed into an adorably unsure person, pretending to scan the room looking for her date.
