How to Find Love in a Book Shop (5 page)

Julius wasn’t sure why he was trying to protect Thomas Quinn, but it was mostly because he didn’t want Rebecca upset. He was feeling more and more protective of her, especially now the baby was showing. And so he suggested they get married. After a certain amount of laborious paperwork, they left the registry office one sunny spring afternoon.

‘You know what we should do? We should open our own book shop,’ Rebecca said as they walked home, hand in hand.

Julius stopped in the middle of the pavement. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the best idea I’ve heard for a long time.’

‘Nightingale Books,’ said Rebecca. ‘We could call it Nightingale Books.’

Julius felt a burst of joy. He could see it now, the two of them with their own little shop.

In the meantime, he got a managerial position at the book shop, which gave him a slightly higher wage, and found them a house of their own to rent: the tiniest two-bedroomed terrace in Jericho. The second bedroom was only a box room, but at least they had their own space. He spent all his spare time painting it out, until it was bandbox fresh. He put up shelves and hooks so they had plenty of storage. He took Rebecca to Habitat to choose them a sofa.

‘Can we afford it?’ she asked.

‘We’ll use it every day, for the next ten years at least, so it’s worth spending money on it.’

He didn’t tell her Debra had given him five hundred pounds to make their lives more comfortable. He didn’t want to get into comparing parents. He didn’t consider taking her money to be sponging, either: Debra had offered it happily. Debra was infuriating in her own way, but she had a generous streak, and she hadn’t said ‘I told you so’. Just knowing she was there made him feel secure, so he understood that Rebecca must find it difficult, being semi-estranged. He wondered how her parents would react once the baby was born. He suspected they were just playing a waiting game, hoping she would crack. Hoping, no doubt, that perhaps he would abandon her when the going got tough.

Which it did.

By her third trimester, Rebecca changed in front of his eyes. She swelled up. Not just her tummy, but everything: her fingers, her ankles, her face. She was miserable. Fretful. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get comfortable. She stopped working at the shop and lay in bed all day.

‘You have to keep active,’ Julius told her, worried sick. She no longer seemed enchanted by the idea of a baby, as she had been at first. She was frightened, and fearful.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t feel like I’m me any more. I guess I’ll be better when the baby gets here,’ she told him one night, and he rubbed her back until she fell asleep.

She woke one night, three weeks before the baby was due, writhing in pain. The bed sheets were soaked.

‘My waters broke,’ she sobbed.

Julius phoned for an ambulance, telling himself that women went into labour early all the time and that it would be fine. Giving birth was the most natural thing in the world. The staff at the hospital reassured him of the same thing. Rebecca was put in a delivery room and examined.

‘You’ve got an impatient baby there,’ said the midwife, smiling, not looking in the least perturbed. ‘It’ll be a little preemie, but don’t worry. We have a great track record.’

‘Preemie?’

‘Premature.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘You’re in safe hands.’

For eighteen agonising hours, Rebecca rode the waves of her pain. Julius was privately horrified that anyone should have to go through this, but if the noises coming from adjoining suites were anything to go by, it was the norm. None of the staff seemed disconcerted by Rebecca’s howls as the contractions peaked. Julius did his best to keep her distress at bay.

‘Does she really have to go through this?’ he asked the midwife at one point, who looked at him, slightly pitying, as if he knew nothing. Which was true – until now, he had never been in close contact with anyone pregnant, let alone watched them give birth.

Then suddenly, as if it couldn’t get any worse, the complacency of the staff turned to urgency. Julius felt cold panic as the nurses compared notes and a consultant was ushered in. It was almost as if he and Rebecca didn’t exist as the three of them conferred, and a decision was made.

‘The baby’s distressed. We’re taking her into theatre,’ the midwife told him, with a look that said ‘don’t ask any more’.

The system swooped in. Within minutes, Rebecca was wheeled out of the delivery room and off down the corridor. Julius ran to keep up with the orderlies as they reached the double doors of the theatre.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

‘There’s no time to gown you up,’ someone replied, and suddenly there he was, alone in the corridor.

‘Please don’t let the baby die; please don’t let the baby die,’ Julius repeated, over and over, unable to imagine what was going on inside. He imagined carnage: blood and knives. At least, he thought, Rebecca’s screams had stopped.

And then a nurse emerged, with something tiny in her arms, and handed it to him.

‘A little girl,’ she said.

He looked down at the baby’s head, her shrimp of a mouth. She fitted into the crook of his arm perfectly: a warm bundle.

He knew her. He knew her already. And he laughed with relief. For a while there he had really thought she was in danger.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Hello, little one.’

And then he looked up and the surgeon was standing in the doorway with a solemn expression and he realised that he had been praying for the wrong person all along.

They kept the baby in the special care baby unit, because she was early and because of what happened.

They left the hospital two weeks later, the smallest family in the world. The baby was in a white velour Babygro, warm and soft and pliant. Julius picked up a pale yellow cellular blanket and wrapped her in it. The nurses looked on and clucked over them, as they always did when sending a new little family out into the world.

There was still a plastic bracelet on her wrist. Baby Nightingale, it said.

He really hoped that this was as complicated as his life was ever going to get as he stepped out of the hospital doors and into the world outside.

The baby snuffled and burrowed into his chest. She’d been fed before they left the ward, but maybe she was hungry again. Should he try another bottle before getting in the taxi? Or would that overfeed her? All this and so many questions was his future now.

He put the tip of his finger to her mouth. Her tiny lips puckered round it experimentally. It seemed to placate her.

She still hadn’t got a name. She needed a name more than she needed milk. He had two favourites: Emily and Amelia. He couldn’t decide between the two. And so he decided to amalgamate them.

Emilia.

Emilia Rebecca.

Emilia Rebecca Nightingale.

‘Hello, Emilia,’ he said, and at the sound of his voice her little head turned and her eyes widened in surprise as she looked for whoever had spoken.

‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Dad. Daddy. I’m up here, little one. Come on, let’s take you home.’

‘Where’s the missis, then?’ the taxi driver asked him. ‘Still a bit poorly? Aren’t they letting her out?’

‘It’s just me, actually,’ said Julius. He couldn’t face telling him the whole story. He didn’t want to upset the driver. He didn’t want his sympathy.

‘What – she’s left you holding the baby?’

The driver looked over at him in surprise. Julius would have preferred him to keep his eyes on the road.

‘Yes.’ In a way, she had.

‘Bloody hell. I’ve never heard of that. Picked up plenty of new mums whose blokes have done a runner. But never the other way round.’

‘Oh,’ said Julius. ‘Well, I suppose it is unusual. But I’m sure I’ll manage.’

‘You’re not very old yourself, are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Bloody hell,’ repeated the driver.

Julius sat in the back as the taxi made its way through the outskirts of Oxford and wondered why on earth he didn’t feel more scared. But he didn’t. He just didn’t.

He had met Thomas Quinn very briefly a few days’ after Rebecca’s death. The Quinns were flying her body home, and Julius didn’t argue with their wishes. She had been their daughter and he felt it was right for her to be buried in her homeland.

Their meeting was bleak and stiff, both men shocked by the situation. Julius was surprised that Thomas didn’t blame him for his daughter’s death. There was some humanity in him that made him realise anger and resentment and blame would be pointless.

Instead, he gave Julius a cheque.

‘You might want to throw this back in my face, but it’s for the baby. I handled everything wrongly. I should have given you both my support. Please put it to good use.’

Julius put it in his pocket. Protest and refusal would be as pointless as blame.

‘Should I keep you informed of her progress …? A photo on her birthday?’

Thomas Quinn shook his head. ‘There’s no need. Rebecca’s mother would find it too distressing. We really just need to move on.’

Julius didn’t protest. Though he was surprised anyone could turn their back on their own flesh and blood, it would be easier for him, too. To have no interference.

‘If you change your mind, just get in touch.’

Thomas Quinn gave a half nod, half shake of his head that indicated they probably wouldn’t, but that he was grateful for the offer.

Julius walked away knowing that he had made the final transition from boy to man.

He got back to the house. It was mid-afternoon. It felt like the quietest time of day. He made himself a cup of tea, then made up a fresh bottle of baby milk and left it to cool. He put Nina Simone on the record player.

Then he lay on his bed with his knees crooked up and put Emilia on his lap so her back was resting against his thighs. He held her in place carefully and smiled. He picked up his camera and took a photo.

His baby girl, only two weeks old.

He put the camera down.

As the piano played out he pretended to make Emilia dance as he sang along.

He’d never really met a baby before, he realised. Not to pick up and hold. How funny, he thought, for the first baby he’d ever met to be his own.

Three

It was a delicate balance, trying to hit the right note between a tribute and a shrine. The last thing she wanted to be was mawkish, yet she couldn’t think of a nicer memorial than filling the book shop window with all of Julius’s favourite books. But at the rate she was going, thought Emilia, every book in the shop would be in here.

Amis (father and son), Bellow, Bulgakov, Christie, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Hardy, Hemingway – she was going to run out of space long before she got to Wodehouse.

She had resisted the temptation for a black backdrop, instead opting for a stately burgundy. Nor had she put up a photo or his name or any kind of pronouncement. It was just something she wanted to do: capture his spirit, his memory.

And it took her mind off the fact that she missed him.

The shop had been busy over the past week, busier than usual, with people dropping by. Every time the bell tinged, she looked up expecting it to be him, walking in with a takeaway coffee and the day’s newspaper. But it never was.

Her eye was caught by a large car drawing up and parking on the double yellow lines outside the shop. She raised her eyebrow: the driver was taking a risk. The traffic warden in Peasebrook was notoriously draconian. No one usually dared flout the rules. When she looked closer, however, she realised this particular driver had no regard for the rules. It was an Aston Martin, with a personal plate.

Ian Mendip. Her stomach curdled slightly as he got out of his car. He was tall, shaven-headed, tanned, in jeans and a leather jacket. She could smell his aftershave already. He stood for a moment looking up at the shop, eyes narrowed against the sunlight. She could imagine him calculating the price per square metre.

It was ironic he had chosen not to use the book shop car park, as that was what he was after. Nightingale Books fronted onto the high street next to the bridge over the brook. Behind it was a large parking area owned by the shop, with room for at least ten cars. And adjacent to the book shop, behind the high street and backing onto the brook, was the old glove factory, disused and rundown, which Ian Mendip had snapped up for his portfolio a few years ago. He wanted to turn it into luxury apartments. If he had the book shop car park, he could increase the number of units: without the extra allocated parking his hands were tied, as the council wouldn’t grant him permission without it. Parking was enough of an issue in the small town without extra stress being put on it.

Emilia knew Ian had approached Julius, who had quietly shown him the door. So she wasn’t surprised to see him, though it was a bit soon, even for someone as hard-bitten as Ian. She knew him of old: he’d been a few years above her at Peasebrook High. He’d never looked at her twice then. He’d been a player, a chancer; there’d been an air of mystique about him that Emilia had never bought into, because she could see how he treated women. Not well. He had a trophy wife, but there were always rumours. He turned her stomach slightly.

She clambered out of the window so as to be ready for him. The bell tinged as he came into the shop.

‘Can I help?’ She smiled her widest smile.

‘Emilia.’ He held out his hand and she really had no choice but to shake it. ‘I’ve come to give you my condolences. I’m really sorry about your dad.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, wary.

‘I know this might seem a bit previous,’ he went on. ‘But I like to strike while the iron’s hot. You probably know your dad and I had conversations. And I thought it was more polite to come and see you in person to discuss it. I like to do business out in the open. I like a face-to-face chat. So I hope you’re not offended.’

He gave what he thought was a charming smile.

‘Mmm,’ said Emilia, non-committal, not giving him an inch.

‘I just want you to know the same offer I gave your dad is open to you. In case you’re wondering what to do.’

‘Not really,’ said Emilia. ‘I’m going to be running the shop from now on. And trust me – no amount of money will change my mind.’

‘It’s the best offer you’ll get. This building’s worth more to me than anyone else.’

Emilia frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you don’t understand: I’m not selling.’

Ian gave a smug shrug, as if to say he knew she would come round in the end.

‘I just want you to know the offer is still on the table. You might change your mind when things have settled down. I think it’s great that you want to carry on, but if you find it’s a bit tougher than you first thought …’ He spread his hands either side of him.

‘Thank you,’ said Emilia. ‘But don’t hold your breath. As they say.’

She was proud to stand her ground. Proud that her father had taught her there was more to life than money. The air felt tainted with the scent of Mendip’s wealth: the expensive aftershave he wore that was cloying and overpowering.

Seemingly unruffled, he held out his card.

‘You know where to find me. Call me any time.’

She watched as he left the shop and climbed back into his car. She rolled her eyes as it glided off down the high street. Dave loped over to her.

‘Was he after the shop?’

‘Yep,’ she replied.

‘I hope you told him where to get off.’

‘I did.’

Dave nodded solemnly. ‘Your dad thought he was a cock.’

With his dyed black hair tied back in a ponytail, his pale skin and his myriad tattoos, Dave wasn’t what you’d expect to find in a book shop. All she really knew about him was he still lived with his mum and had a bearded dragon called Bilbo. But his knowledge of literature was encyclopaedic, and the customers loved him. And Emilia felt a surge of fondness for him too – for his loyalty and his kindness.

‘I just want you to know, Dave, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing with the shop yet. Everything’s a bit upside down. But I don’t want you to worry. You’re really valued here. Dad thought the world of you …’

‘He was a legend,’ said Dave. ‘Don’t worry. I understand. It’s tough for you.’

He put a gentle paw on her shoulder. It was heavy with skull rings.

Emilia gave him a playful punch. ‘Don’t. You’ll make me cry again.’

She walked away to the shelves, to choose another tranche of books. She hoped desperately that things could stay the same. Just as they were. But it was all a muddle of paperwork, probate and red tape. She had gone through her father’s paperwork and bank statements and handed them all over to Andrea with a sinking heart. She wished she’d discussed things with him in greater depth, but when someone was on their deathbed the last thing you wanted to talk about was balance sheets. The problem was it didn’t look as if they were balancing.

It couldn’t be
all
bad, she thought. She had the shop itself, loyal staff, hundreds of books and lovely customers. She’d find a way to keep it all afloat. Perhaps she should have come back earlier, instead of mucking about travelling the world and trying to find herself. She didn’t
need
to find herself. This was her – Nightingale Books. But Julius had insisted. He had as good as kicked her out of the nest, when she’d had a disastrous fling with a man from Oxford whose ex-wife had turned out not to be so very ex after all when he had realised how much the divorce was going to cost him. She’d been in no way responsible for his marriage break-up, and thought she was doing a good job of getting him over it, but it seemed she was not sufficient compensation. Emilia had thought herself heartbroken. Julius had refused to let her mope and had bought her a round-the-world ticket for her birthday.

‘Is it one way?’ she’d joked.

He was right to make her widen her horizons, of course he was, because she’d realised very quickly that her heart wasn’t broken at all, but it had been good to put some distance between herself and her erstwhile lover. And she’d seen amazing things, watched the sun rise and set over a hundred different landmarks. She would never forget feeling as if she was right amongst the clouds, on the eighteenth floor of her Hong Kong apartment block, overlooking the harbour.

Yet despite all her adventures and the friends she had made, she knew she wasn’t a free spirit. Peasebrook was home and always would be.

Once a month, Thomasina Matthews would go into Nightingale Books on a Tuesday afternoon – her one afternoon off a week – and choose a new cookery book. It was her treat to herself. The shelves of her cottage were already laden, but to her mind there was no limit to the number of cookery books you could have. Reading them was her way of relaxing and switching off from the world, curling up in bed at night and leafing through recipes, learning about the food from another culture or devouring the mouth-watering descriptions written by renowned chefs or food lovers.

Until recently, she had spent these afternoons chatting to Julius Nightingale, who had steered her in the direction of a number of writers she might not have chosen otherwise. He was fascinated by food too, and every now and then she would bring him in something she had made: a slab of game terrine with her gooseberry chutney, or a piece of apricot and frangipane tart. He was always appreciative and gave her objective feedback – she liked the fact that he wasn’t afraid to criticise or make a suggestion. She respected his opinion. Without Julius, she would never have discovered Alice Waters or Claudia Roden – or not as quickly, anyway; no doubt she would have got round to them eventually.

‘It’s not about the pictures,’ Julius had told her, quite sternly. ‘It’s about the words. A great cookery writer can make you see the dish, smell it, taste it, with no need for a photograph.’

But Julius wasn’t here any more. She had read about his death in the
Peasebrook Advertiser
in the staffroom. She’d hidden behind the paper as the tears coursed down her cheeks. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying. They all thought she was wet enough. For Thomasina was shy. She never joined in the staffroom banter or went on nights out with the others. She was painfully introverted. She wished she wasn’t, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d tried.

Julius was one of the few people in the world who didn’t make her feel self-conscious. He made her feel as if it was OK just to be herself. And the shop wouldn’t feel the same without him. She hadn’t been in since she’d heard the news, but now, here she was, hovering on the threshold. She could see Emilia, Julius’s daughter, putting the finishing touches to a window display. She plucked up the courage to go in and speak to her. She wanted to tell her just how much Julius had meant.

Thomasina had been three years below Emilia at school, and she still felt the awe of a younger pupil for an older one. Emilia had been popular at school: she’d managed to achieve the elusive status of being clever and conscientious but also quite cool. Thomasina had not been cool. Sometimes she had thought she didn’t exist at all. No one ever took any notice of her. She had few friends and never quite understood why. She certainly wasn’t a horrible person. But when you were shy and overweight and not very clever and terrible at sport, it turned out that no one was especially interested in you, even if you were sweet and kind and caring.

Food was Thomasina’s escape. It was the only subject she had ever been any good at. She had gone on to catering college, and now she taught Food Technology at the school she had once attended. And at the weekends, she had A Deux. She thought it was probably the smallest pop-up restaurant in the country: a table for two set up in her tiny cottage where she cooked celebratory dinners for anyone who cared to book. She had been pleasantly surprised by its success. People loved the intimacy of being cooked for as a couple. And her cooking was sublime. She barely made a profit, for she used only the very best ingredients, but she did it because she loved watching people go out into the night glazed with gluttony, heady with hedonism.

And without A Deux, she would be alone at the weekends. It gave her something to do, a momentum, and after she had done the last of the clearing up on a Sunday morning she still had a whole day to herself to catch up and do her laundry and her marking.

She was used to being on her own, and rather resigned to it, for she felt she had little to offer a potential paramour. She had a round face with very pink cheeks that needed little encouragement to go even pinker and her hair was a cloud of mousy frizz: she had been to a hairdresser once who had looked at it with distaste and said with a sniff, ‘There’s not much I can do with this. I’ll just get rid of the split ends.’ She had come out looking no different, having gone in with dreams of emerging with a shining mane. She did her own split ends from then on.

To her surprise, her students loved her, and her class was one of the most popular, with girls and boys, because she opened their eyes to the joys of cooking and made even the most committed junk food junkie leave her class with something delicious they had cooked themselves. When she spoke about food she was confident and her eyes shone and her enthusiasm was catching. Outside the kitchen, whether at home or school, she was tongue-tied.

Which was why she had to wait until the shop was empty before approaching the counter and giving Emilia her condolences.

‘Thomasina!’ said Emilia, and Thomasina blushed with delight that she had been recognised. ‘Dad talked about you a lot. When he was in hospital he said he would take me to your restaurant when he got better.’

Thomasina’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It would have been an honour to cook for him. Though it’s not really a restaurant. Not a proper one. I cook for people in my cottage.’

‘He was very fond of you – I know that. He said you were one of his best customers.’

‘You are staying open, aren’t you?’ asked Thomasina anxiously. ‘It’s one of the things that keeps me going, coming in here.’

‘Hopefully,’ said Emilia.

‘Well, I just wanted to tell you how – how much I’ll miss him.’

‘Come to his memorial service. It’s next Thursday. At St Nick’s. And if you want to say a few words, it’s open to everyone. Just let me know what you’d like to do – a reading, or a poem. Or whatever.’

Thomasina bit her lip. She wanted more than anything to say yes, to honour Julius’s memory. But the thought of standing up in front of a load of people she didn’t know petrified her. Maybe Emilia would forget about the idea? Thomasina knew from experience that if she protested about things, people became fixated, whereas if she concurred in a vague manner very often their ideas faded away.