Georgette purrs at his feet and he scoops her up, grateful for the warmth of her body as he picks the letter up again and reads it.
Dear Business Owner,
We are writing to inform you that your recent request for a business loan has been denied. If there’s anything further we can do to assist, please get in touch.
Warmest wishes,
Cressida Tompkins
Manager
Hardings Bank, Camden
He folds the letter and slips it into a drawer beneath the desk, a drawer containing several similar letters that he has received over the past few months.
The thing that frustrates him the most is that it’s not as though the shop is dead. Today was a busy day, tourists stopping in on their way to Primrose Hill and London Zoo, and regulars stocking up on books for their holidays. But that doesn’t mean the shop isn’t dying.
Running a bookshop has never been easy but this year it has felt as though Alfie is swimming against a current that keeps getting stronger. However hard he works, he is being pushed back by a force he can’t outswim. And it’s getting harder and harder to keep on trying.
‘What are we going to do, Georgie?’ he says, lifting the cat and searching her grey eyes.
Her expression is incredibly knowing – but if she does have the answers, she’s not sharing them.
He touches the photo frame that sits on his desk next to the large leather-bound book in the corner. If anyone were to look through the bookshop window now, they would spot him at the back, shoulders rounded, eyes misted, talking softly to someone that nobody else could see.
‘I’m so sorry, Dad.’
Being a tourist is exhausting. Even Tilly’s specific brand of tourism – which involves avoiding all the regular landmarks in favour of bookshops, libraries and cafés – has blisters forming on her feet and her clothes clinging to her skin in the heavy heat. By early evening she heads to Book Club in the East Village. She finds a seat at the long bar at the front, people browsing in the bookshop at the back and sat reading on leather armchairs.
‘What can I get you?’ asks the bartender as Tilly consults the list of literary-themed cocktails.
‘I’ll go for a Murder on the Orient Espresso Martini, please.’
‘Great choice.’
As he prepares the drink Tilly’s phone buzzes with a new message from Alfie.
So, how was The Ripped Bodice?
She can chart her travels around the city through the photos she has sent to Alfie. The flowers in the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, where she sheltered from the heat beneath the trees, reading the messages on the memorial benches and thinking of Joe. The Morgan Library, which was just as beautiful as the New York Public Library. And then The Ripped Bodice, a pink-fronted shop in a quiet neighbourhood in Brooklyn made up of brownstone buildings. A bookshop that sells only romance novels.
It was amazing. There was this really calm atmosphere in there. Like you’d just stepped into another world where things just … work out.
*
That sounds amazing. I’d love to visit one day.
The bartender places her martini down on the bar with a smile. Tilly takes a photo of her drink and her bookish surroundings, pinging it to Alfie.
Wow. Perhaps I should diversify in the shop and start selling wine,he replies.Although, I’m not sure I have space for a bar, or not without getting rid of the books …
*
You don’t need to diversify, the shop is the perfect bookshop exactly as it is. Cheers!
She takes a selfie holding her drink, and a few seconds later he replies with a photo of him propped up in bed wearing a navy sweatshirt, tousle-haired and holding a mug of what looks like mint tea, a book splayed on his lap.
Cheers back!
