‘I’ll join you up there in a bit,’ said Harri.
‘Anyway,’ said Anjali, ‘we just wanted to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day.’
‘And we hope you both get home safe,’ Kit said, already finishing their girlfriend’s sentences.
‘It was great meeting you,’ Annie said, her cheeks hurting from smiling, and they were gone.
Harri fled back to the cafe in an instant.
William hadn’t come up to the shop today, Annie mused. Not that he had to. It’s not like it was his job or anything, but he did seem to like it here, and where else was he going to spend his days? She shuddered at what his absence might signify. Had Jowan told him the news about his new place? Was he sad? Was he sulking? She hoped he hadn’t gone stalking off across the cliff paths like he had when he’d been lost and wandering. The last thing Clove Lore needed was another misplaced senior.
She pictured herself alone and shutting up the shop later today for the last time, when there’d be nothing left to do but pack her things, if she and Harri were going to pull their books for the display table sometime after dinner. She didn’t relish the thought of doing any of that but still, she checked in to her flight using her phone, hoping somehow it would be cancelled due to bad weather, but no such luck. It was showing as departing on time. In fact, the plane that would carry her home was already on its inward journey to England. She rubbed at her stomach to stop the queasiness.
‘Hey, Harri,’ she called. ‘Got any of those hangover buns?’
His answer, however, never met her ears. Instead, a great commotion in the courtyard drew her attention, and Patti, Austen’s girlfriend, appeared. She shoved the door open, her face a picture of delight and urgency.
‘Here,’ she shouted, out of breath, throwing something to Annie behind the counter. She caught the box out of the air, and Patti threw a second. ‘No time to explain. Just be waiting out on the slope in a few minutes. They’re on their way down. I still have half the doors to bang on…’ Leaving a cackling trail of laughter behind her, she was gone.
‘What the heck was that about?’ Harri said from the cafe doorway.
Uncomprehending, Annie looked down at the boxes of confetti in her hands.
The noise came Down-along first, before the sight of children picking their way quickly downhill surefooted on the cobbles like mountain goats. Then came the adults, all in their winter coats, unbuttoned in the mild morning air, scarves flapping, and in the middle of them all, being bumped and jostled on one of the sleds usually reserved for transporting laundry or groceries, sat the happy couple, Mr and Mrs Bovis-Crocombe, if the snatches of shouted gossip passing from open door to window were to be believed.
‘They eloped!’ Austen told Annie as she passed by, making her way a few cottages further down from the bookshop turning, to where the Ice Cream Cottage waited for the newlyweds.
Harri could only gape and shake his head. He glanced at Annie. She was tearing into her box of confetti, a huge grin on her face.
The couple drew nearer, and the crowd progressed alongside them, a great billowing cloud of confetti already in the air above their heads.
Mrs Bovis-Crocombe wore a lilac skirt suit and a boxy hat with a spray of white netting over her eyes. Bovis looked odd in a corduroy suit. They both looked very sheepish.
‘Three cheers for the return of the happy couple!’ someone was shouting, and thehip hip hooraysrang between the cottages.
Harri spotted Bella and Finan making their way up from the pub to meet the din, and between them, William Sabine, each of them supporting his arm. He looked out of breath and fed up with making the journey Up- and Down-along.
As the couple drew nearer, Jowan emerged from the crowd. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the books, eh? Been to bloody Gretna Green, they have!’
‘No way!’ Annie thought it was fabulous.
Harri took a dimmer view. ‘The whole village was out looking for them!’ he said, surprised by how annoyed he was. Maybe it wasn’t entirely the newlyweds to blame for his mood, but it was as good an excuse as any to vent some of the frustration he’d been saddled with for the last couple of days.
‘Apparently, they wanted a quiet ceremony,’ Jowan said, his eyebrows raised.
The younger Mrs Crocombe appeared now, her arms folded across her chest. Laura didn’t seem to be in the same celebratory mood as her mother, who was blushingly responding to the building chant of ‘kiss him, kiss him, kiss him,’ with a slow lean towards her husband on the juddering sled, her eyes twinkling in the low winter sun.
Annie had her confetti poised for their passing and emptied the whole box over them, cheering and hollering as loud as she could. Harri held his confetti firm in his hand, unimpressed.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ he caught Laura shouting to her mother as they drew alongside them.
‘We wanted to keep it private, just us!’ the bride shouted back.
This raised a great roar of approval and laughter from the locals. It almost drowned out her daughter’s observation. ‘That’s rich!’
Annie was pulling at Harri’s t-shirt sleeve, making for him to move down the slope in the wake of the wedding sled. Reluctantly, he walked with her.
When they reached the Ice Cream Cottage, Mr Bovis helped his wife roll off the sled in a slightly ungainly way.
