‘When Dad died,’ he says. ‘I’d just finished university and was taking a year out to travel before deciding what to do next. But a couple of weeks into the trip I got a call from Mum. Dad had had a heart attack.’
He looks down at his lap as he says it. Tilly draws in a breath.
‘Oh, Alfie.’ Her heart tightens and she reaches across, placing a hand on his arm. He looks down, his eyes fixing on her fingers. ‘Did you make it back in time?’
He shakes his head, still not looking up from her hand on his forearm.
‘I left on the first flight I could, but it was too late. By the time I got back he was gone. There was no one else to take over the shop – Mum was a mess, and Tash was pregnant. And I couldn’t let it close, not after all the work he’d put into making his dream come true. I just couldn’t. So, I cut off my trip and took over.’
‘That must have been so hard, losing him like you did, andthen taking on such a big responsibility when you were grieving and still so young. I can’t even imagine.’
‘Itwashard. But I was grateful for the shop too. It gave me something to focus on. Especially as Dad had these very specific ways of doing things. There was so much to learn, and it helped keep me going.’
‘I get that,’ says Tilly with a nod. ‘I was the same with work after Joe died. It was something that felt normal when everything else was in chaos.’
‘Exactly,’ Alfie replies with meaning. ‘I don’t think my mum and sister totally approved of how hard I was working, but I think if I hadn’t kept busy I would have …’
He doesn’t finish the sentence but he doesn’t have to. The thought of this big, kind man – who knows everything there is to know about romance novels – falling apart is almost too much to bear. He coughs slightly, and when he looks up at her his eyelashes are damp.
‘I bet it felt like a way of staying close to him too,’ Tilly suggests softly.
Alfie nods. When he replies his voice is rough with emotion.
‘It always has.’
Tilly sees the shop as if through new eyes. No wonder she often spots Alfie working late, stooped over the desk at the back, when she’s passing on an evening run to the convenience store. This place isn’t just a tiny but well-stocked London bookshop. It holds Alfie’s memories of helping his father on the weekends as a child. It represents one man’s dream and another’s thread connecting him to the father he lost too soon.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offload all of that on you,’ Alfie says, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper and leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees.
‘You don’t have to apologize. I’ve offloaded on you plenty and you’ve always listened.’
‘I just don’t get to talk about him that much. Mum has remarried, my sister has her family, and life just … goes on, you know?’
‘I do.’
Tilly still can’t believe that spring has turned to summer and that Joe isn’t here to see it. Or that she only has six more books to collect from him and then life will just … carry on. To distract herself from the emotion rising in her chest she picks up the wine bottle from the floor and pours the last of it into their cups, giving more to Alfie.
‘What was he like, your dad? Can you tell me more about him?’
Alfie raises his head, sitting back up and taking a sip of his wine, his full lips lightly stained a reddish purple.
‘His name was David, but never Dave.’
Tilly listens as Alfie tells her about a man who loved cooking but didn’t like following recipes, who liked dancing and cats and was quick to anger but even quicker to apologize after an outburst. She learns about the big things, like the fact he and Alfie’s mother met when they were at university and were technically dating other people, and the small things like how he never went anywhere without a paperback and a penknife in his pocket. She picks up little things that Alfie must have learnt from his father: his work ethic when he talks about the long days his father would always put in. And his kindness as he explains that his father was the one person who would always be able to get Alfie to open up as a kid, probing him very gently and allowing space for Alfie to talk at his own pace.
‘He sounds like a great dad,’ Tilly says when there’s a natural pause in the conversation. She looks across at Alfie, his face slightly flushed from the wine and the memories, the green of his jumper bringing out the amber flashes in his eyes. ‘Can I say something?’
‘Of course,’ he replies, taking a bite of a chocolate florentine from the tray of fancy biscuits that he pulled out of a cupboard earlier, admitting they were a gift from an author but deemed too good for book club (in a way that had made Tilly smile into her cup of warm wine).
‘The outfit your dad was wearing in the photo … I swear I’ve seen it before. On you.’
‘Ah. Got me,’ Alfie says, stretching out his arms, pointing at his chest. ‘This jumper … this shirt …’ He lifts the jumper slightly to show the shirt underneath, but he must have grabbed two layers at once because Tilly gets a flash of pale, firm stomach, a dark line of hair pointing down into his jeans. He doesn’t seem to notice, instead readjusts his jumper and continues pointing out items in his outfit. ‘Shoes … jeans … they’re all his. Basically, everything I wear is his. That’s probably weird, I know.’
Tilly tries not to think about the way her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his stomach. ‘It’s not weird. But it does make a lot of sense.’
‘What does?’
The hint of a smile tugs at her lips.
