Usually the universe is not on my side. Usually the universe is on the opposite of my side, especially when it comes to things like rain on the day I’ve forgotten my umbrella, the wonky table in a restaurant, or the wobbly legged trolley in the supermarket, but today, after the horrendous look at the shop’s accounts last night, Once Upon A Page is sent an exceptionally busy day, like the retail gods of Buntingorden are smiling down upon us.
A group of ladies come in the morning and attack the Catherine Cookson and Sagas shelf, and then in the afternoon, a coach load of tourists on a Cotswolds sightseeing trip are sent off their coach at the top of the high street and picked up again two hours later after they’ve browsed every shop on the street.
According to the accounts I looked through last night, this is the busiest day Once Upon A Page has seen in years, and another 365 days like this might be my only chance of getting back into the black, money wise.
Dimitri was around this morning but he quickly disappeared when the group of ladies recommissioned the reading area as a gossip station. He went out for lunch and returned with a sandwich for me too but I barely had time to thank him for it before more people asked questions and wanted serving. This afternoon, in the midst of the tourists, I saw him pick up his things and go to return his book, but I had so many queries and customers that I missed him leaving, and I feel ridiculously sad at not getting to say goodbye.
The mermaid display has been decimated by people spotting the books from outside and coming in to buy them, and I haven’t had a chance to find any replacements yet. It’s only my third day in this job, but by the time the last customer leaves at ten past five, I can’t shut the door behind her quickly enough. Buntingorden is a traditional little town. We’ve got no late opening hours and there’s still a law against Sunday trading, so every shop on the street opens at nine and closes at five with no exceptions, and it’s not unusual for some to close for lunch as well.
I lean against the door and try to get my breath back. I didn’t even realise that bookshops had days as busy as this, and while I’m not complaining in terms of money taken especially after that look at the accounts last night, it does make me wonder how Robert ever coped. And the day doesn’t end here. I want to go upstairs, flop down on the bed and sleep for a hundred years or until a handsome prince wakes me up, but I have to tidy up the chaos left by so many customers, restock the window display and the picks-of-the-week table, and if all the customer queries and questions I’ve been unable to answer today have taught me anything, it’s that I desperately need to do a stock take and rearrange every shelf so they reflect the categories that are actually written on them.
The group of old ladies kept bringing car manuals and war memoirs and DIY how-to books up to the counter and saying, ‘These shouldn’t be in with the Sagas, love.’ They were trying to be helpful, but now I have two piles of books behind the counter and no idea of where they’re supposed to go.
I run upstairs to make myself a restorative cup of tea, quickly tidy up the window display and restock the picks-of-the-week table, which is going down fast, and then I face the shelves.
The past two nights have been a bit hectic after closing time – Monday with Nicole and Bobby turning up, and then yesterday I had to learn how to cash-up at the end of the day, balance the money in the till against the receipts, and attempt to make head or tail of Robert’s accounting software. I’ve got so caught up in banking that it’s easy to forget I’m doing something that’s always been my biggest dream.
This is my dream job, no matter how much work it needs. Books have always been my escape from daily life and now they are my daily life, and it makes me want to skip around the shop and sing ‘I Have Confidence’ like Julie Andrews running down the lane in The Sound of Music. This is my chance to turn it into the bookshop of my dreams, like starting from scratch with a blank palette. And no matter how convinced I am that something is going to go wrong, I have to throw my all into this. Opportunities like this are rarer than once in a lifetime, and I’ll regret it forever if I don’t give it everything, even if it does fail. Usually I hold back because I’m sure things will go wrong, but I can’t with this. It’s a new start.
‘I own a bookshop,’ I say to myself as I climb the ladder to the top shelf of the autobiographies section, full of dusty hardbacks that no one ever buys because the paperback has come out since and includes an extra chapter, or the Kindle version is 99p, whereas Robert was expecting to get £12.99 for even the most z-list of celebs’ ghost-written ramblings. This is the sort of thing that can go – at least to the new sale section I’m creating to free up valuable shelf space. I lean my body weight on the ladder as I start piling the heavy books into my arms, feeling old and out of touch because I’ve never even heard of half these celebrities.
‘If it’s taken you this long to realise …’
I scream at the unexpected voice in the empty shop and jump so much that I fall off the ladder, clinging to the sides and trying to lower myself down with all the grace of an octopus on an ice rink as the books go clattering to the floor. I quickly assess myself for injuries – just pride this time, thankfully – and despite the shock, I can’t help smiling when I see who it is. I knew he’d have made a point of saying goodbye, no matter how busy it was. My heart is pounding with the shock of his sudden appearance and how good he looks even as the sight of his ever-present smile loosens something in my chest. He’s wearing a long-sleeved teal T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and there’s a silvery-grey tie around his neck, loosely knotted at mid-chest for presumably decorative purposes only because a business tie doesn’t go with the casual top at all. He has a lightness about him, a joy that makes things seem brighter than they are.
‘First rule of working in a bookshop – always check for strays before you close up.’ He bends down and collects up the dropped books, choking on the dust they’ve released. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘It’s all right, I should have known to stay away from ladders.’ I hold my arms out for the stack of books he’s picked up. ‘What were you doing back there? Hiding?’
‘I didn’t realise the time. I don’t wear a watch, I can’t see the clock from back there, and I could hear you chatting to customers. It didn’t occur to me that it was so late until it all went quiet.’
I don’t know why I asked him that – what do I think he’s doing? Hiding for nefarious purposes? The words nefarious and Dimitri don’t belong in the same sentence – he’s the smiliest, chattiest, furthest thing you could get from nefarious.
‘You were saying you own a bookshop?’
I’m so glad he overheard me talking to myself. Luckily I didn’t get as far as the inspirational pep talk I was about to give myself. ‘No, I mean, I really own it. I’m not looking after it while Robert’s away. I’m not taking care of it until he comes back. It’s not ‘our’ shop – it’s actually mine. And if I want to keep it then things have got to change. I might not know much about selling books, but I do know something about loving books, and this – .’ I indicate the shop around me – ‘is not a book lover’s paradise. Look at the state of these shelves.’
Dimitri’s eyes follow the hand I throw out towards the shelf in front of me, nearly dropping the pile of autobiographies again.
‘I think quirky was Robert’s choice of words.’
‘Chaos would be mine. Unmitigated disaster would be a close second.’
‘Some words do spring to mind.’
‘Which ones?’
He mulls it over carefully. ‘Piss-up, brewery, organise.’
His turn of phrase makes me giggle, but I force myself to be serious. ‘Something’s got to change, because I still believe in bookshops, and I don’t believe all the fear-mongering about the printed page dying out and bookshops falling in their thousands. Every year you see more and more positive reports about independent bookshops thriving and print sales increasing. Busy days like today prove that. There’s so much potential here, but Once Upon A Page isn’t living up to it.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Some of these books have been on the shelf since I was a little girl. The shop was founded in Victorian times and I’m pretty sure that we’ve still got some of the original books. They’re not rare and antique finds, they’re just still here. That’s not good stock turnaround. We’ve got old books, new books, used books, signed books, and ex-library books all muddled in together. We’ve got books that have been handled by customers so much that they’re in terrible condition now. We’ve got every genre muddled on every shelf. To say that the whole lot needs sorting out is an understatement. There are thirty thousand books here. Someone came in today and asked me if we had something, and I opened my mouth to answer but no words came out. I mouthed at her helplessly like I was doing an impression of Heathcliff until she thought I needed medical attention and went away. But the only possible answer was … how the hell should I know?’
I look at him, aware that I haven’t stopped for breath in quite a few minutes, and he nods in agreement, listening seriously.
‘So firstly I need to know what’s on the shelves. Geri was still in the Spice Girls when the last stock take was done. Seriously. I finally found it in the office last night. It’s handwritten and dated 1998. And secondly, the customers need some way of discovering what’s on the shelves, so they need to be completely sorted out and alphabetised because no one has a clue what books we’ve got or where they are if we have got them.’ I glance at him. ‘Except you, apparently. You don’t happen to know what alphabet Robert used to organise his stock, do you? Because it certainly wasn’t the regular one.’
‘I think he’d worked here for so long that he knew the place off by heart and knew where every book was.’
‘I know what I love about bookshops. I know what I loved about this bookshop years ago. I just hadn’t noticed how much it had faded from what it used to be.’
‘Robert struggled in his later years. He knew all this stuff, but he lacked the motivation and strength to sort them out. I think it’s what pushed him into retirement in the end. He knew the shop was going under and he knew he didn’t have the years left to fix it, so he chose someone else who could.’
I blush at the vote of confidence. Not many people in my life think I can do anything.
‘You know the shop’s going under too?’ I ask, wondering why it seems to be common knowledge for everyone but me.
He considers it for a minute before answering. ‘I spend a lot of time here. I see the number of customers Robert has – or doesn’t have. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that when you make that much of a loss for that many years, it can’t continue for much longer.’
His words make a shiver go down my spine, not the usual tingle that he’s been responsible for in the past few days. ‘This shop is my dream. I’m not going to let it go without a fight. I’ve never had anything worth fighting for before, but this place is. I’m not going to step aside and let some smarmy property developer knock it down. I’m going to turn things around.’
Even as I speak, I wonder where this confidence is coming from. I expected to be a wibbling wreck in the face of the accounts last night, but each red minus sign made me realise that I’m closer than I thought to pleading with the horrible Drake Farrer to take the shop off my hands, and I am not going to let that happen. I can’t afford new stock and fancy gimmicks to get people in, but I can make this shop the best it can be with what it already has – books. Lots of books.
‘So what are we doing then?’
‘We?’
‘Well, you’re going to let me help, right? I don’t want to go home yet – there’s something magical about being in a bookshop after closing time.’
I like how easy-going he is and how he seems to find something positive at every turn. There’s something about him that makes me want to step back and appreciate things.
I hand him the stack of biographies back with a grin. ‘We’re sorting out each shelf one at a time. My laptop is on the counter with a blank spreadsheet open on the screen, and we’re painstakingly putting every title, author, genre, publication date, and number of copies into it, which we’re going to update on a weekly basis with what’s been sold so we’ve got some hope of having a clue what’s actually on these shelves, and we’re also creating a sale section and an unsellable section. There are so many old books here that I can’t possibly expect money for. I thought I’d give them away for free, or maybe do that thing where people hide books around town for others to find …’
‘That’s a fantastic idea. I was at a hospital in London with Dani a few years ago and she found one hidden in the children’s ward. It made her day. She read it and then we went and re-hid it for someone else to find.’
‘Then we’ll do that.’ I watch him, wanting to pry for more info, but he quickly takes the books across to the counter.
‘Where are you putting the sale section?’
‘Over there.’ I gesture towards an empty space near the picks-of-the-week table. ‘There are two spare tables in the cupboard under the stairs, they’ll fit together, and I’ll load them with these books that have been sitting here for donkey’s years and clearly aren’t going anywhere: £2 for hardbacks, £1 for paperbacks. It’ll clear shelf space, shift some books, and bring in more money than they’re earning by sitting up here gathering dust.’
After clearing another three shelves, I run upstairs to get some cleaning products and a duster, and when I come down, Dimitri has dragged the two tables out of the office and is clipping them together as I climb back up the ladder and start cleaning the shelving, daydreaming about how I can make this place my own.
‘How did the book balancing go?’ he asks, bringing me out of the reverie with a crash. ‘Was your first look at the accounts as bad as I suspect it might’ve been?’
I hold my hands up like they’re scales and then dramatically drop one down so it clonks onto the shelf. ‘Not well. I’m not good with numbers and figures so I’m not even sure I’m reading them right … but I think “struggling” would be the word of choice to describe the shop …’ I trail off as I realise how unprofessional it is to talk to a customer about my business woes.
Like he can read my mind, he says, ‘I’m not an ordinary customer. You can talk to me. I studied business at uni. I know a bit about figures and stuff …’
I think about it for a moment. On one hand, it’s no one else’s business and I should keep it to myself because it’s my problem, not his, but on the other hand, I want someone to know. Since Monday, I’ve felt adrift here, thrown into the deep end to learn as I go, and I am completely out of my depth when it comes to the business side of things. Robert left his new address, but no phone number so I can’t keep hassling him with questions, and I’ve got no one to turn to. My sister thinks I’m mad for taking it on, the only use Bobby has ever found for a book is when a wonky table leg needs balancing, and the only part of my life that my mum’s interested in is who I’m going to marry. She was pleased about my win solely because ‘business owner’ will look more attractive to potential matches than ‘waitress’. And there’s something about Dimitri that I just like. He’s positive and cheerful, and that’s something that’s been missing from my life for a while now.
‘Robert was barely making a profit. The occasional good week was the only thing keeping him afloat, and every bit of his earnings seem to be tied up in paying business rates and public and premises insurance. His only expenses were second-hand books from car boot sales and electricity for the shop. He must’ve been paying for his own essentials like food and bills from his savings because he hasn’t taken a wage in years, and he hasn’t bought any new books in months.’
‘He never worried about anything. He thought that there was no point stressing about a bad week because the next one would be better. He lived by the mantra that one way or another, everything would be all right in the end.’
‘Yeah, but it won’t, will it? Not if everything stays exactly as it is. Things are failing.’ I glance at him and then back at the dusty shelves in front of me. ‘Fast.’
‘Once Upon A Page might be on its last legs, but it’s not sunk yet. There’s still a chance to pull things around, and you’re already making the best start possible. We can do this, Hallie.’
I appreciate his blunt but cheerful words, and his use of the term ‘we’, like we’re somehow in this together. Having support, a gorgeous friendly face who seems to know what he’s talking about, buoys my confidence in my ideas for this place. ‘So, business studies?’ I ask, because he seems like the furthest thing from a businessman.
‘It was a long time ago. Before I realised that life’s too short to do something you hate. I’m not that person anymore. Now I just draw pictures for a living.’
‘What’s your ultimate dream?’
‘To have my own gallery. And to have a book published.’
‘Well, you’re well on the way with Pentamerone. You’re going to do a book signing here when it comes out, right? When’s the release date?’
‘We’re not that far along in the process yet.’ He suddenly seems awkward and clammed up, and I wonder if I’ve been too nosy.
He’s quiet as he piles more books into his strong arms, and I find myself distracted by the way his biceps flex under his teal shirtsleeves as he takes the stacks across to the counter.
‘What’s your favourite book?’ I ask because something has got to get my mind off his biceps. And forearms. And the curve of his chest, and how just a hint of collarbone shows above the rounded neckline of his T-shirt …
He gasps in mock horror. ‘You can’t ask me that! That’s like asking a parent to pick their favourite child. I could do you a top thirty, but you’ll be collecting your pension by the time I’ve decided on it.’
It makes me giggle and something in my chest floods with warmth. He’s so much like me, and I love that he ‘gets’ loving books. If I asked my family that question, Nicole would say the last book she heard of but hadn’t read just to get me off her back, Bobby would say ‘The Highway Code’ because it’s the only book he’s ever read without a secondary school English teacher breathing down his neck for an essay afterwards.
‘Well, I was thinking we should start doing personalised recommendations – you know, those little cards on the shelf in front of the book with a note from the bookseller saying what they enjoyed about it? I’ve been noticing that picks of the week are popular. People come in to discover new books rather than with something already in mind.’
‘And you want recommendations from me?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind writing out a few notes about books you’ve enjoyed, I’d love to display them. Customers want recommendations, and you love books and obviously have excellent taste.’
He looks up at me, holding my gaze as a smile twitches his lips. ‘Wouldn’t mind? I’d be honoured. No one ever asks me for book recommendations.’ The smile he’s been trying to hold back lights up his face. ‘Can I sign them off as the bookshop’s resident artist?’
I grin. ‘You can sign them off as the prime minister’s poodle if you want. I can’t recommend a whole shop of books by myself, and I’d love for you to be involved. If people like the idea, I was thinking we could extend it to customers too. I’ve had two people come in over the past few days, not knowing Robert’s left and wanting to tell him how much they enjoyed a book he recommended, and it’s got me thinking. You know how you feel when you finish an amazing book, and it’s kind of a happy sigh and immediate desire to tell someone, anyone, how good it was? I always like going on Amazon and reading the reviews to see if other people enjoyed it as much as I did. And I always want to write one, but I can’t articulate how much I enjoyed it and it just comes across as fan-girly and obsessive. People want to tell people when they’ve enjoyed a book. I was thinking we could have a stack of little cards and if anyone mentions that they’ve enjoyed something, I could ask if they fancied writing a little note to highlight it to others …’
He’s stopped in the middle of taking a stack of books from me, his arms frozen in mid-air, and he’s grinning like I’ve announced the secret of getting free chocolate every day for life. ‘That’s a fantastic idea. That’s exactly how I feel when I finish a great book and I have no one to tell. It’d be great to come in the next morning and write a little bit about it. You’ll have to stop me rambling though. I do have a tendency to go on a bit … I don’t know why I’m telling you that – you’ve obviously noticed … I say while rambling … I’m going to shut up now.’
Apart from how utterly adorable he is, the main thing I’ve taken from that conversation is that he must be single. Why does it make a little sparkle run through me? Why do I care if he’s single? As if he’d be interested in me. He’s gorgeous and talented and lovely. I’m clumsy and flustered and so far away from looking for a relationship that I may as well be in Outer Mongolia. I do better in relationships with fictional book boyfriends only. Real ones have never worked out for me. I’ve never felt a spark like the ones I read about. The only time I ever did feel chemistry with anyone … well, that didn’t work out either. I’ve decided that men are better on the page. Love doesn’t happen like it does in books, and I’d rather get my happily-ever-afters that way, because it never happens in real life.
‘Kids would love it too.’
It takes me a moment to realise he’s not talking about fictional book boyfriends and has gone back to the index card idea.
‘It would make children feel important if you asked them to recommend whatever book they read last. Anyone who loves books generally loves talking about books.’ He takes the books from my arms, puts them on the table and then comes back. ‘You’re good at this, Hallie. I don’t mean to overstep the mark, but you clearly doubt yourself sometimes, and I just wanted to say from the perspective of an outsider that Robert absolutely picked the right person.’
I blush and my throat closes up, unsure if I’m about to burst into nervous laughter or embarrassing tears. Or both. ‘Thanks,’ I croak at him.
He takes another stack of books from me. ‘So, after that totally unfair question, it’s my turn to ask – what’s your favourite book?’
‘Ah, see I defy the laws of being a book lover because I do actually have one that’s really special to me – just a little bit more special than the rest. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume, do you know it?’
He shakes his head.
‘My dad died when I was twelve, and a few months later, I was in a charity shop with my granddad. He’d gone to try something on, and I was sitting in front of the bookshelf – obviously, it was always my favourite place in any shop. It was right by the till, and this random woman got her change, came over and handed me a pound coin, and told me to buy myself a book. I remember being really touched by the kindness of strangers.
‘Anyway, I loved Judy Blume books. I’d devoured all the ones my school and local library had and my granddad had given me book vouchers for my last birthday, which all went on Judy Blume books too, and I found one on the shelf in the charity shop that I’d never heard of before. It was 65p, and I know that because I’ve still got the same copy with the original price sticker on. I don’t think I even read the back of it, just bought it with the money this lovely stranger had given me, and it felt like fate. It was like the book had found me at exactly the moment I needed it most.
‘It’s about a girl called Davey who’s just lost her dad and how she’s coping with the grief and emotions. Her mum takes her and her little brother to stay with an aunt and uncle that she doesn’t know, and she goes climbing in the canyons of New Mexico even though they tell her it’s too dangerous. She meets this mysterious boy called Wolf whose own father is dying and they help each other through the grief. She’s reckless and angry at the world and the empty canyons represent the vast hole in her life.
‘It was the first time I’d ever recognised myself in a book. It was the first time I realised that books could be written about people like me. I understood Davey, I climbed into the canyons with her, I met Wolf, I discovered I wasn’t alone in the way I was feeling after my dad’s death. I felt isolated from my friends at school because they didn’t know what it was like, but I clung to that book and read it over and over again, sobbing into it every time because the book “got” it. Davey got it. It made me feel less alone. It was the first time I’d ever read present-tense narration and it transported me there. The style really captured me.’
I pause to take a breath because I’ve been rambling for so long, and when I look down from the ladder, Dimitri’s smiling at me. ‘What?’
‘This is why books are so important. It’s why kids should be encouraged to enjoy reading – because books can change lives and make people feel not alone when they most desperately need it.’
‘Have you ever read a book that’s so special you don’t want to tell anyone about it? You just want to keep it to yourself so it’s all yours? My sister wasn’t a reader and my mum had very specific tastes and I never told them about that book because I didn’t want them to ridicule it. It was mine. And with the lovely stranger giving me money to buy it, it was like my dad had somehow sent it to me, and I didn’t want anyone else to have that.’ My eyes are filling up the more I talk about it, and I turn away to scrub a particularly stubborn spot on the shelf.
I know he can hear the wobble in my voice, but I appreciate that he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. ‘No wonder you always wanted to be a bookseller.’
‘I volunteered in the library when I was sixteen. I always wanted to be a librarian, but libraries were closing left, right, and centre when I left school – it wasn’t a viable career path. I thought about trying to get into publishing but most publishers were London-based and moving there was too scary, and this corner of the world always felt too small to pursue it in any other way.’ I watch him as he goes over to type in the titles of every book so far chosen for the sale section. ‘How about you? What’s your story? How did you get into drawing? Actually, it feels wrong to say that because what you do is not just drawing. You’re an artist. How do you get into the world of illustrating children’s books?’
‘Do you want the superficial, flippant answer that I always give, or do you want me to overshare?’
‘Oh, overshare, always. Usually at inappropriate moments in front of inappropriate people.’
‘I’d agree, but that would imply that I actually talk to people.’ He laughs, but I like how introverted he seems. He’s a bit of an enigma, really. He seems happy and cheerful but also sad and contemplative sometimes. He talks to customers and gets involved with questions but it’s easy to see that he’s uncomfortable when the shop’s busy.
‘I was terrible at school. The only things I was good at were art and reading. My father forced me into studying business at uni, but halfway through I quit and got into an art school in Oxford, and after I graduated, I worked on a series of graphic novels. Do you know Death Note?’
‘I’ve seen the films. The original Japanese ones were amazing. I flicked through the anime in a bookshop after I watched them.’
‘Well, they were a bit like that – the art style and the weird, otherworldly, eerie tone. I got a literary agent and then a publisher signed me for all three …’
I go to congratulate him because that’s an amazing achievement, but his tone isn’t a happy one, and he’s already said he hasn’t had anything published.
‘My little sister was ill all her life. She had a form of cancer when she was a toddler, and had a leg amputated at four and an arm at six. My mum was her carer. She had everything under control. My sister was in remission for a long time. She could get around in her wheelchair, but she also had a learning disability that meant her mental age was a lot younger than her years. She went to a special school and things were great for a while, and then my mum died. She went out one night and never came back. She had a van that was modified for Dani’s wheelchair and it flipped over on a roundabout not far from our house and she was gone. So I stepped into her role. I moved back home and became my sister’s carer. Family comes first and Dani needed me. I tried to keep up with the deadlines but I couldn’t do it. I lost the publishing deal and eventually the agent. So for the past seven years, I’ve been living my mum’s life and caring for my sister. Not long after Mum died, the cancer came back and Dani couldn’t beat it this time. She died last year. Since then I’ve been alone, trying to find my way in the world again …’ His voice breaks and he turns away.
It’s probably a good thing I’m still up the ladder, because if I was any nearer to him, I doubt I’d be able to stop myself giving him a hug. Instead, my fingers grip on to the side rails so tightly that it’s a wonder the wood hasn’t started splintering. I haven’t found the right words to say before he speaks again.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. It was such a big part of my life that I can’t explain how I got to this point without mentioning it.’
‘What about the rest of your family? Didn’t they help?’
‘I’ve got an older brother but he wasn’t interested. He’d rock up once every few months and take her out for a couple of hours, giving me a fun chance to catch up on housework. My dad’s still around but he and my mum were divorced, and it was an ugly battle. Things with my father are … complicated. Before my mum died, I hadn’t been home for a really long time because of that.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I feel inadequate because I don’t have the words to tell him how awful it sounds and I daren’t vocalise how much I want to give him a hug.
‘So no, it was just me. We read together because she loved to read. I drew pictures because her eyesight was failing and she struggled to imagine the images described in books and the middle-grade books she was into by the end didn’t come with pictures. That’s how I found Pentamerone. She loved fairy tales but was too old for kids’ ones and too young for YA or adult books, so I went on the hunt for something darker than Disney and more original. I baked because Dani loved to get involved. She could have mixing bowls on her lap and stir with her good arm. Every morning she’d give me some random flavour combinations and I’d try to find something to bake with them by the end of the day. So there you go. That’s why I love how much you enjoy my baking. It’s something I find relaxing and de-stressing, but I always did it for someone else to enjoy, and something’s been missing in my life without having anyone to share it with.’
My fingers are actually cramped from how tightly they’re curled around the wooden ladder. I always say the wrong thing so my natural reaction in a situation like this is to go over and give him a hug, but there’s no way that would be appropriate. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ I settle on eventually, because I get the impression it’s not something he talks about easily and I want him to know I realise that. ‘I love hearing people’s life stories. You know when you’re on a bus and a random old woman sits next to you and starts chatting and by the time you get off, you know all about her childhood, where she met her husband, how he proposed, what their wedding was like, where she worked, where her children live, and what her grandchildren’s favourite games are? Most people try to avoid that woman, but I love it.’
‘So I’m a nattering old woman? Thanks.’ He gives me a grin, and it makes us both giggle, but this time, there’s a hint of vulnerability under his smile. It really hits me how much people can hide behind a smile. Dimitri is so happy, easy-going, and cheerful. I would never have guessed he’d been through anything like that.
‘I love stories. I love learning about people and getting glimpses into their lives. Like those inscriptions you find written inside the cover of second-hand books – I love making up stories about the giver and receiver of those books. Sometimes the messages can be so heartfelt that you wonder how anyone ever had the heart to chuck the book out.’
‘Robert always used to say the same thing.’ He nods when I look across at him in surprise. ‘He dealt with a lot of second-hand books and he always used to read those dedications and say, “How could anyone want to get rid of this? Doesn’t it mean anything to them anymore?” I thought they’d decrease the value of books he was trying to sell, but he thought it was a sign of how loved a book had been. He was always reading them out loud and trying to get me interested.’
I watch his brown hair flop forward as he leans over the counter, typing the titles into my laptop before he puts each book on the sale table. He must still be struggling with so much grief, but everything about him is light and happy, and he makes everything seem brighter just by being here.
‘How can you be so positive?’ I ask before I realise I’m going to say anything. ‘I mean, after everything you’ve been through, I’d expect you to be sad and angry at the world …’
‘I always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.’
It stops me in my tracks, knocking me off-guard because it’s such a lovely sentiment. A view of life that I don’t have. I don’t think like that. I’m always waiting for the next sucker punch, predicting the next thing that will go wrong, counting down to the next embarrassment, the next accident, the next time I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. ‘Yeah, but … to you?’ I shake myself. ‘Usually wonderful things only happen to other people.’
‘Says the girl who’s just won a bookshop …’
‘Present circumstances excluded, obviously.’ I tell him about how I believe my luck somehow collected up in a stagnant pond until it overflowed like a sparkling waterfall in that once-in-a-lifetime moment when Robert picked my ticket.
‘But that came out of the blue. You never saw it coming, and suddenly, your life changed in an instant. That’s exactly what I mean – we never know what’s around the next corner.’
‘In my case, it’s probably a bus waiting to mow me down,’ I mutter, even though I have no right to complain about my luck at the moment, and I can’t exactly moan about my life to someone who’s just shared these tragedies in his life and is somehow still smiling. It must take a certain kind of person to give up their own life, deal with their own grief, and still step into the caring role he took over. I can’t imagine the kind of courage and selflessness it takes to do that, especially alone.
I move from top to bottom of the shelf, keeping the few autobiographies that might still be popular, and moving downwards, sorting celebrity lifestyle, coffee-table books, and other famous-in-some-way authors into piles of fiction, non-fiction, second-hand, and new. It feels like quite an achievement to complete one of the tall cherry wood shelving units and leave it clean and smelling of lemon-scented polish, and with two empty shelves to transfer other books onto and clear some of the haphazard stacks on the floor.
Time seems to move faster here. It’s not even seven p.m. yet, and between us, we’ve started on the stock take, dusted a lot of books and cleaned up shelves that hadn’t been cleaned in far too many months. And we’ve made a start on filling the sale table. When I ask Dimitri if he wants to go home yet, he laughs like it’s the most absurd question he’s ever heard, and I try to ignore the little thrill because I don’t want him to go home yet either.
I slide the ladder along, still unable to believe that this magical place is mine and sliding ladders along shelves of books is part of my everyday life now. I move on to the ‘Classics’ shelf and call out to Dimitri to add a new section to the spreadsheet. On the top shelves are forgotten editions of everything from Shakespeare plays to Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Charles Dickens.
‘Great Expectations.’ I pull the battered old copy out. ‘My first ever Dickens book. Everyone in school hated having to read this in English class, but I loved it. I identified a worrying amount with Miss Havisham. I always thought I’d end up as a sad, lonely old bat, wearing a wedding dress and only one shoe. Although, to be fair, stopping all the clocks would be a great excuse for always being late.’
‘Me too.’ He laughs. ‘With the loving it in school bit, not the identifying with Miss Havisham bit.’
‘We’ve got at least three versions of Wuthering Heights.’ I pull them out one by one and blow dust off each different cover. ‘Do you think I should start reading them aloud to Heathcliff to teach him about his namesake?’
‘Yes, I think reading to fish is totally normal. It’s bound to catch on, especially if you do it in public in the middle of a crowded shop. People will definitely not think you’re nuts,’ he calls back, making me laugh.
‘These books are still popular. They shouldn’t be hidden away up here.’ I lovingly stroke a dusty, battered copy of Pride and Prejudice. ‘And now we’ve got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in with them. That doesn’t belong with the classics.’
I dust each book off and stack them onto the empty shelves beside me so I can clean each section before I put them back, dusting each book as I pull the classics down from the uppermost shelf they’ve been relegated to.
‘Aww, Les Misérables.’ I pull out the Victor Hugo classic and clutch it to my chest. ‘I love this book. All right, it’s a bit longwinded and in the middle of monumental battle scenes you get three chapters on the history of the Parisian sewer system, but I felt like a rebel manning the barricades when I read this for the first time. I could also sing you the musical word for word, back to front while standing on my head. But I won’t. Because you don’t deserve that, and I don’t need any more problems here when I cause all the window glass to break.’
‘I love the musical. I confess to never reading the doorstop of a book though.’
‘It’s brilliant – it adds so much depth to the musical.’ The spine is cracked from being read, and I run my fingers over the red, white, and blue cover, a version I’ve never seen before, and open it to look at the copyright page for a date. ‘Aww, would you look at this?’
There’s a handwritten note inside the cover that reads:
My dearest Esme,
Victor Hugo was correct when he said that the power of a glance is underestimated in love, and yet, what other way does love begin? You lit up my life from the very moment I laid eyes on you. One glimpse of you was all it took, and I believe, my dearest mademoiselle, that I am a little bit in love with you.
Forever,
Sylvester
‘Those are Eponine’s last words when she finally confesses her love to Marius before she dies,’ I say when Dimitri appears at the edge of the aisle. ‘Isn’t that the most romantic thing ever?’
I hand the book down to him from the ladder. ‘This must be how he told her he loved her. How lovely is that? I’d have married him on the spot for that.’
Dimitri snorts as he reads the message, but I can easily imagine how Esme must’ve felt upon opening that book. What a lovely way of telling someone you love them. Did she already like Les Mis? Did he just think she’d like it? I would love a guy to buy me books, and to write such a heartfelt, meaningful message … Why can’t there be men like this in my life? Men who buy books and write declarations of love inside are sorely missing from my doomed love life. In fact, I’ve never met a man who didn’t question the number of books I had, never mind buying me more.
‘Very sweet.’ He hands it back to me. ‘Very defaced.’
‘This edition was published in 2005.’ I run my fingers over the biro message. ‘This could’ve been the very start of their relationship. They could be married with children by now. Oh my God, they could have named their children Enjolras and Courfeyrac and Combeferre.’
‘A whole barricade of children. Robert would’ve loved your enthusiasm. Like I said, he was equally enthusiastic about messages in books.’
‘I wonder if there are any more. According to the accounts, he’d been buying a lot of used books lately.’ I run my fingers along the spines until I find one that looks particularly well loved and open the cover in anticipation. Nothing.
I take another one and find a random scribble inside that can’t possibly mean anything, not even in Hieroglyphics or Wingdings. Inside a copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are the words ‘love, Dad’ and I find a copy of War of the Worlds by HG Wells with the words, ‘Congratulations on finishing your GCSEs, I bet you never want to see this book again!’
I hold on to one of the ladder rungs and lean out to look at the shelves around me. ‘Don’t you think that’s a lot of books with messages inside them?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s a second-hand bookshop. Well, a bookshop that deals with both new and second-hand books. You know what I mean. You’re always going to find some used books have scribblings in them.’
‘Yeah, but … that’s like an unnatural ratio?’
He takes a copy of Vanity Fair from the shelf, opens it and holds up the blank pages inside the cover. ‘See? Nothing.’
I don’t know what I’m expecting really. I’ve always had a thing about messages written in books. They feel special somehow, like they bear traces of their readers’ lives. A glimpse into a stranger’s life, a view into something that was once important to someone. The giver and the receiver. Whenever I see them, I wonder about who wrote them and who they gave them to. Were they lovers, friends, or family? Did the giver spend hours feeling out the perfect book to purchase? Was the receiver pleased? Did they read it? Did they love it? Did they think, ‘Why the hell has this person chosen such an awful book for me?’ Did the gifter’s choice affect their relationship in any way? Did the giftee start wondering if there could be something more between them given how well the other person knew their taste in books – or did they start questioning their relationship because the giver clearly didn’t know them at all?
Dimitri pushes Vanity Fair back into the snug space on the shelf, and that’s another good point – some of these books are packed so tightly that it’s the equivalent of a gym workout to squeeze them in, and you can’t pull one out without it taking two or three on either side with it. Robert didn’t seem to realise that there can be a balance between loving books and a customer-friendly shop. I mentally add it to the endless list of jobs in my head – take at least one book out of every shelf so browsing is actually possible.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. The organisation of these shelves just gets worse. There’s another Pride and Prejudice down here.’ I lean down to pull it out of a lower shelf that’s full of thrillers and four shelves below where the rest of the classics are.
‘Aww, that was my mum’s favourite book,’ he says.
I know he’s not impressed by the mutilation of innocent books, but I can’t resist a peek inside the cover to make sure. ‘Oh wow, listen to this.’ I read out the gorgeous message, written in age-blurred blue biro on the title page. ‘To the man who brought joy back into my life, you will forever be an even better Mr Darcy than Colin Firth!’
‘My mum loved Colin Firth,’ Dimitri interjects. ‘She was obsessed with that BBC adaptation when it came out.’
‘Thank you for giving me a reason to get up every morning. I would never have learnt how to smile again without you. “We are all fools in love.”’ I read out the quote from Pride and Prejudice. ‘I love you more than words can ever express. Always forever, Della.’
‘My mum’s name was Della …’ Dimitri says slowly. He holds both hands up towards me and I wordlessly put the book into them.
‘This is my mum’s handwriting.’ He runs his fingertips over the words on the title page like they might disintegrate at any moment.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I’ve never understood the saying of feeling like someone walked across your grave before, but I suddenly feel a chill and a shiver goes down my spine. ‘Your mum wrote that?’
‘She must have.’ He shakes his head, looking lost for words. ‘And this was her copy. Or, I mean, it’s got the same cover and it looks well read enough. I never noticed it was missing from her library, but it must be.’
I like how posh he sounds in calling bookshelves a library. Unless his mum had an actual library, obviously, and who has their own library other than The Beast? ‘To your father?’
‘Hah.’ He lets out a sarcastic burst of laughter and then composes himself. ‘There’s no way this was to my father. My father’s never read a book in his life and he’s proud of that. Also, that lamppost outside has got more romantic bones in its body than my father has. This couldn’t possibly be to him.’ He stares at the message for a long few minutes. ‘It’s definitely romantic, right? I’m not imagining that, am I? I mean, comparing him to Mr Darcy and mentioning Colin Firth, who she loved. This is not to a friend, right?’
I bite my lip, unsure of what to say. ‘It doesn’t sound like it,’ I venture, aware of the implication if his mum was writing romantic notes to someone who wasn’t her husband. ‘You said your parents were divorced … It could’ve been after that?’
‘That was only a few years before she died. This looks older.’
It does, he’s right there. The biro has sort of fused with the paper so it’s completely flat, there’s none of the usual indentation you get after writing with biro. ‘Maybe it’s not as old as it looks,’ I say, even though I don’t believe myself any more than he does.
‘It’s okay. This is a good thing. Whoever it was, it means she had someone else. Someone who made her happy, which my father did not. She deserved happiness after what she went through with that man. She deserved someone who loved her and appreciated her. If she had that with someone else, maybe it explains why she put up with my father for so long. She handled him with … serenity and detachment. Maybe this is why – because she was happy elsewhere.’
I’m desperate to ask him what the story with his father is, but apart from him being a relative stranger and it being none of my business, he looks lost in thought, still staring down at the book in his hands.
‘Whatever this was, it must’ve been going on for years. It sounds like she was head-over-heels in love with him. She was very practical and sensible. She wouldn’t have written something like that unless she meant it, and she wouldn’t have fallen in love that deeply in a short amount of time. And my father would’ve gone mad if he’d found out. She must’ve taken huge risks to see someone else, and my mother was not someone who took risks.’
‘Love makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do.’
‘And how did it end up here? Whoever she gave it to … gave it away? She couldn’t have been that important to him then, could she?’
‘It doesn’t have to mean anything. And it’s quite old … Something could’ve happened to the owner and his family got rid of his books. It could’ve been thrown out accidentally. Something could’ve happened between them – a row and he threw out all her stuff. You know, the old-fashioned version of deleting someone from your phone and blocking them on social media? Relationships can end, no matter how much people care for each other. He could’ve been devastated after she died and found all reminders too painful …’
‘And you say I’m the one who always looks on the bright side …’
It makes me laugh and release my grip on the ladder, appreciating the giggle in the middle of such a serious moment.
He holds the book to his chest. ‘Can you … can I put it in the office? I don’t want it to be sold.’
‘You can have it, Dimitri. It’s yours.’
‘No. I feel like it ended up here for a reason. Like it was meant to be here. Like we were meant to find it. I mean, what are the chances? There are thirty-something thousand books in this shop and you come across one with a message written by my dead mother. It has to mean something. And I think it should stay here until we find out what.’
‘I told you there was an unnatural ratio of dedications in these used books … Now do you think there could be more?’
He looks up at me with that ever-present smile pasted firmly back on his face, his blue eyes twinkling again. ‘I guess we’re going to find out.’
‘We?’ I say for the second time this evening, trying to hide a smile because I already know what he means.
He grins. ‘I’m involved now. And so are you. We’re going to take an inventory of this whole shop and we’re going to find out who the man in this note is. Together.’
‘How on earth do you think I can help with that?’ I say, even though I had no intention of letting him do it on his own. I was going to get involved whether he liked it or not.
‘I don’t know. But you found it – that’s got to mean something. I’ve still got all my mum’s stuff. I’ll see if I can face having a look through it and finding out if there’s anything about this mystery man.’
Despite his smile, his voice shakes when he mentions looking through his mum’s things, and I’m glad I’ve stayed up the ladder because those few rungs between us are the only thing stopping me hugging him, and that would’ve been even more inappropriate than the way I found myself watching his biceps move as he put those tables together and lugged around books, and I can’t help feel a little thrill at the idea of spending more time with him.