PROLOGUE
DRIFTWICK BAY – JURASSIC COAST – DORSET
Two weeks ago
Howard switched on the classic bronze table lamp at his desk. Darkness surrounded the cottage in Driftwick Bay, and silence – apart from the low hum of the laptop when he pressed the power button – cloaked the room.
Five minutes to go.
As the laptop warmed itself up, Howard went into the kitchen to fetch his mug of tea, and clutching it between both hands, he managed to get it back to the rear room of the cottage without spilling a drop.
He found the link for tonight’s book club session in his emails and clicked, as usual almost taken by surprise by his face on camera. Sometimes he genuinely forgot that he was in his seventies, with grey hair and lines on his face that showed a life well lived, because when he disappeared into books he felt like a different person. With books he got to inhabit a whole range of worlds, meet a cast of different characters, some likeable, others not so much. He loved nothing more than absorbing himself in a story and becoming a part of it. And it wasn’t only the books on his shelves at home that gave him pleasure, it was the many hundreds lining the shelves of Driftwick Bay Books, the bookshop he’d taken over soon after they moved down this way. He’d saved Driftwick Bay Books from being bought by a developer and turned into more holiday accommodation and it had not only warmed his heart to do so, it had also earned him kudos in the town with locals, who still thanked him to this day that they’d got to keep their beloved bookshop.
Howard’s love of reading had been his companion ever since he was a little boy. He had always found bookshops and libraries magical and enticing. But owning a bookshop wasn’t something he’d ever put on his wish list until he came here and heard on the local grapevine that the bookshop was about to be bought up and subsequently got rid of. He’d told the other members of the book club about the locals’ plight, and he’d found himself saying out loud that he wanted to save it. He wanted to learn the ropes. He’d retired but he’d missed having a focus and this shop could make him and Bonnie a real part of this town where they wanted to spend the rest of their days. And so, with the encouragement of the members of the book club, he’d made a counter-offer to the bookshop’s owner and while it wasn’t as high as the money offered by the developer they agreed to sell it to him at the last minute. He’d signed on the dotted line and taken it on. And now, he couldn’t imagine it any other way.
He caught sight of his copy ofThe Railway Childrenby E. Nesbit slotted in at the end of one of the shelves behind his desk. When it had been his turn to choose a title for book club he’d wanted the others to experience this one because it was a particular favourite. A couple of attendees had turned their noses up at the choice, as was their right – they’d get their own back soon he was sure. But his favourite people at the book club, Faye and Margot, had both been excited. Faye, in her late twenties, had never read it! Margot had but not for years and couldn’t wait to leap into the story again. He imagined they’d found a more up-to-date version of the book than his rather battered paperback he’d had since his dad gave it to him in the late 1960s. His copy had yellowing well-thumbed pages, but diving into it again had been special. Set in the early 1900s, the story was a joy to read, full of charm with its English countryside and characters who were brave and kind.
As he’d reread it he’d gone back to his childhood. He’d been the boy on the steam train with his grandad during one of England’s humid summers, the boy who loved the playground and making friends and being brave at the smallest of things. But mostly it had been an escape for him to lose himself in the story, which reminded him that he’d had a good life. He’d had seventy-one years and more experiences than many and he was grateful, but he needed to keep being brave just like those characters inThe Railway Childrenwere and stand his ground because he was being pressured by the developer who had wanted the bookshop originally and was still after it.
The screen in front of him changed as Faye, the young woman who ran the book club, came into view. When he’d joined up a year ago the book club had gone by its original name, The Seaside Book Club, and had been run by its founder, Clare. Clare was an insomniac who had sought solace in reading, but after she passed away Faye, her niece, took over her legacy. She was doing a fine job with it too. And soon after Howard joined, given the time of the book club was always at the midnight hour, he’d suggested they change its name to The Midnight Book Club. He’d been joking, he’d thought Faye would want to keep the original name, but Faye decided they could try it out. He’d felt bad, suggested The Midnight Seaside Book Club instead, to incorporate the original name, but she’d dismissed his worry and announced to everyone that from now on they would go by the name of The Midnight Book Club. The fact that plenty of members lived by the seaside or had strong ties to the coast made it a seaside book club anyway, she’d assured him with a smile.
Next to appear was Margot. The three of them were different generations but that didn’t matter. They were the regulars, the ones who were always there, the constants while other members dipped in and out. Howard didn’t mind in the slightest though because they seemed to have an easy rapport and usually had a bit of a natter before anyone else joined.
And as the town of Driftwick Bay settled down in their beds, Howard felt some of his weariness fall away when the carriage clock on the bookshelf ticked so that its hands met on the hour.
It was time. Time for the Midnight Book Club.
1
MARGOT
Fifteen minutes before midnight, Margot leaned across the bed to check that her husband was asleep. She didn’t really need to. Perry had always been a heavy sleeper, a snorer, and once he was out for the count nothing would wake him. It had been the same throughout their entire marriage and she doubted it would ever change.
She slipped out of bed and crept downstairs, along the hallway, and down another flight of stairs into the basement of their country house near Ascot, Berkshire. The house was old and a bit creaky but they’d modernised a lot of the interior, and down here there was a gym to one side and on the other a walk-in cellar that could hold one thousand bottles of wine. It was a showpiece Perry liked to impress all their visitors with. She’d already been down here twice tonight – once with a business client of Perry’s following a dinner she’d hosted, to give them the ‘grand tour’ of the house. And the second time was when Perry was cleaning his teeth. She’d smuggled her laptop down here so she’d be ready to go. Thanks to Perry and his job in technology, not to mention his drive to have the very best of everything, the Wi-Fi in the basement was excellent and it meant that every Wednesday she could be a part of the Midnight Book Club, a lifeline Margot hadn’t quite realised she’d needed until she got involved almost a year ago.
She turned her laptop on. Most book clubs met at a reasonable hour but not this one. Run by Faye, a young woman who lived in Australia, the online book club was always held at midnight in England which was currently 9a.m. local time in Queensland for Faye – moving to 10a.m. for the host when England’s clocks fell back at the end of British summertime. The original club had apparently been called the Seaside Book Club and had been run by Faye’s Auntie Clare, who by coincidence had lived in Dorset, Margot’s favourite county in the entire country. Clare, who had suffered from terrible insomnia according to Faye, had set up the club for others who might not be able to sleep and would want to chat books at the midnight hour. Margot had never met Clare, who had sadly passed away, but according to Faye her auntie had desperately wanted the club to continue after she’d gone and so she’d taken on her legacy.
The Midnight Book Club, as it was known these days, was something just for Margot, and for her, the time worked out perfectly. She’d joined up saying that she too struggled to sleep but really it was because this was the one thing she could do without Perry questioning it, or interrupting her, because he was rarely awake at midnight. Being a part of the club made her feel like the woman she’d been before she became a wife who had no life outside her marriage, and maybe that woman was still in there somewhere.
Members of the club couldn’t always attend but every week herself, Faye and an older man called Howard, were always there. And each of them was connected to Dorset in some way. Howard had retired to Driftwick Bay on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, Faye was born in Poole and raised in West Lulworth, the town adjacent to Driftwick Bay, and Margot had grown up in Bournemouth. They loved to talk about all things Dorset and one evening, Margot floated back to one of her fondest memories. She usually kept her private life close to her chest. She was so used to not being able to share what went on at home, but over time she’d begun to like and trust these people, these friends. She’d recalled how her mother told her that Driftwick Bay was one of the most beautiful towns in the area. She’d shared how she and her mother had stayed in the bay for a short break, the sun shining down on them the first day as they admired the striking scenery of the coast, the rock formations of Durdle Door and Old Harry Rocks, the landscapes that stretched for miles in their beauty. Wind and rain had come after the first two days, flattening the grass on the undulating hills, adding a ferocity to the sea that made them both feel incredibly alive.
Something Perry had never questioned was Margot going to see her mother. He knew where she was and who she was with when she visited, but her mother had gone now. Margot no longer had that escape. Her mother had, however, in her wisdom, passed down the money from the sale of her house after she died, to her grandsons, Margot’s boys, Sebastian and Alistair. She told Margot when she rewrote her will that she’d done it so that her money couldn’t be something else that Perry could control. Margot’s sons now both had healthy bank accounts with the inheritance that had bypassed Margot, and although she had been in tears when she realised that Perry’s controlling behaviour bothered her mother to such an extent she’d seen a solicitor to alter her will, Margot would be forever grateful that her sons had the freedom she herself lacked and craved.
She clicked on the Zoom link for the online book club. Occasionally she joined the session early so she was ready to go, and a few months previously Howard had, by coincidence, done the same. It was during their chat that first day and a few further conversations when nobody else was there that Margot had begun to open up. She’d not done that with anyone else, but Howard had been there for her, much like a father figure or a parent, neither of which she’d had for a very long time, and she’d felt listened to.
She pulled her hooded cardigan a bit closer around her. It might be July with its warm sunny days but down here in the still of the night it was chilly without the soft furnishings and deep carpeting of the rooms above. Sometimes she was tempted to do this in the lounge given she could clash cymbals right next to Perry’s head and it still wouldn’t rouse him – his body was programmed to wake to his 5a.m. alarm and not much else – but she didn’t want to risk having him find out and take something that she loved away from her. He’d taken enough already.
Was it crazy to wonder whether she felt the chill more now that the boys had left home and the house felt so ridiculously big? Sometimes she longed for the little student flat she’d shared with three others during her first and only year at Middlesex university, with its haphazard layout of non-matching furniture in the lounge, the bathroom with the grotty tiles but at least fully functioning shower, and the small bedroom she’d taken and made into her own space with twinkly lights around her pinboard and a beautiful purple duvet for a pop of colour. That year, embarking on a degree in English and American Studies, she’d felt as if the world was stretching out in front of her ready to grab with both hands. Everything had changed when she met Perry, got pregnant, and the life she’d had planned had been upended.
What on earth had happened to the last thirty years?
Margot had met Perry on a night out in a pub. They’d both been there with friends. His group had just taken part in the yard of ale challenge, which he won by a mile. He’d left the rowdy bunch he was with and headed for the door but with her standing in front of it he’d had to squeeze past and they’d got talking.
‘You didn’t want to try to win a second time?’ she asked as another group lined up to attempt it.
Dressed in a deep-blue button-down shirt and jeans, with a jacket gripped in his hand, ready to face the cold January night, he was red-cheeked from either the alcohol or her attention. ‘Work tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I need to keep my head clear.’ And then he smiled. ‘Clearer thantwoyards of ale anyway.’
She melted beneath his gaze and his smile. ‘You finished way ahead of the others.’
