It’s ten to one on Saturday afternoon when Dimitri suddenly jumps up from the reading area and starts shoving pencils back into his bag and gathering up his sketchbooks. ‘Oh God, I’ve forgotten the book club!’
Never mind that, I’ve forgotten the book club. I glance at the display of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on the back wall of the shop. I hadn’t realised how much it had diminished over the past week or so. I know I’ve rung up a few copies, but it didn’t even occur to me they were for the book club.
‘Are you getting up to help me?’ I frantically search around under the counter for where I put the list of teas and coffees Robert left me.
He lets out a laugh so hard that he starts choking. ‘No, I’m going to hide. You know that song by Meatloaf, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”? The original lyrics were probably “the Saturday afternoon book club at Once Upon A Page in Buntingorden”, but they thought “that” was more succinct for the final version. Did you get biscuits in?’
‘No.’
He freezes in his tracks and his eyes grow impossibly wide. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘I’m sure they can cope without—’
‘Give me money from the till. I’ll do an emergency supermarket run. Quick!’ He’s practically vibrating on the spot as I fumble around until the till opens and I take a tenner out of it. ‘Will this—’
He grabs it out of my hand so quickly that he nearly takes a couple of fingers with it. ‘Your life won’t be worth living if you’ve forgotten the biscuits! Can you put my stuff away?’ He shouts from outside the window as he’s running down the road. He suddenly stops and doubles back. ‘Hallie, CHAIRS!’ he yells before running off again.
All this over biscuits? Surely they could’ve done without? All right, I haven’t exactly stocked my cupboards lately, but I’m sure I could’ve found a bar of chocolate or two for them to nibble on, or maybe some cheese and crackers … Well, I don’t have any crackers, and I suppose offering them pieces of cheese would’ve felt a bit like feeding a herd of mice, but I’ve never seen anyone get so wound up over biscuits before. And this is Britain – if there’s one thing we’re going to get wound up over, it’ll be biscuits.
I mutter to myself as I go over and pack pens, charcoal sticks, erasers, sharpeners, and approximately 48,283 pencils back into his bag, stand the sketchbooks in and go to return Pentamerone to its usual shelf under the stairs. There are a few chairs stacked in the office so I drag them out and set them up near the reading area, but there’s nowhere near enough for all the names on the tea and coffee list, so I go and grab some of the kids’ ones from upstairs too, frantically wishing I’d had time to prepare. Book clubs are supposed to have questions and intelligent discussions led by a leader, and although I’ve read the book, it was years ago, and I intended to flick through it again to refresh my memory before this afternoon arrived, but now I’ve got no chance.
Dimitri comes dashing back in with an armful of packets of biscuits, which he dumps on the counter along with a clatter of change. I look at the selection in bewilderment. There is literally a packet of each Great British Biscuit rolling around on the countertop, from Rich Teas to Malted Milks to Custard Creams.
I pick up his bag. ‘Here’s your—’
‘Thank you.’ He grabs the bag from my hand, his fingers lingering on mine for just a second too long. ‘I’m not here. Good luck – you’re going to need it.’
And with that, he’s gone. Disappeared into the shelves where he hides when it’s busy, not giving me a chance to consider that touch or how much he seems to be over-reacting to a few old people coming in to chat about a book they’ve recently read.
I can still hear him panting from the run as the first group of old ladies enter, all clutching the blue-striped book, and I take their momentary distraction at the window display as a chance to surreptitiously grab a packet of Chocolate Hobnobs and shove them to the back of a shelf behind the counter. If there’s an event that requires this amount of biscuits, I’m going to need a Chocolate Hobnob to myself, although I don’t know what he’s so worried about. It’s a book club. What could possibly go wrong?
***
Oh, God, they’re everywhere.
When I go upstairs to make drinks, I have the brilliant idea of writing the names from the list Robert left onto Post-it Notes and sticking them to each mug as I make it rather than trying to remember which one is which, and by the time I’ve taken the risk of carrying a full tray of mugs down the stairs, there’s a woman called Pauline behind the counter serving a customer, another one trying to sell a young student on the merits of Jilly Cooper, an old man having a snooze in the reading area, and another old man with a grandson who’s trying to show him how to use an iPad while the little boy looks like he’s swiftly losing the will to exist.
Every chair has been occupied and every inch of sofa and table in the reading area is overtaken too.
There is biscuit carnage on the counter. And the tables in the reading area. And the sofas. The Bourbon Creams are nearly gone, and that’s without cups of tea to dunk them in. The rest of the packets look like they’ve been torn into by a troop of famished hyenas, and the constant squawking babble in the shop is also reminiscent, and I glance out the window, wondering if we’ve accidentally turned left and ended up on the African savanna and we’re about to see herds of wildebeests and prides of lions sweeping past while giraffes nibble the bunting overhead.
There’s a vacuum cleaner in the office and I briefly consider getting it out and leaving it running full time and just sort of swishing over everyone’s clothes each time they move to suck up some of the biscuit crumbs that are currently being trodden into my carpet. That wouldn’t be terribly rude, would it? ‘Another Fruit Shortie? That’s fine, just have a quick swoosh with Henry first. Thanks.’
I have to look away from the carpet. It’s stressing me out too much.
‘Hallie!’ they squeal in unison when I appear, waking the snoozing bloke with a jolt.
Old ladies swarm around me as they come over to hug me and introduce themselves, and by the time they’ve all taken their cups of tea and settled themselves back into their chosen chairs, I’m feeling distinctly oxygen deprived. I’m also terrible with names. There’s a Hilda and a Tilda and there might even be a Milda. No, that sounds like something you’d be bleaching out of bathroom corners, I must’ve got that wrong. There’s a Pauline and a Francine, and Barbara’s married to Percy who’s definitely got the right idea about having a Garibaldi and going back to sleep.
‘Did everyone read the book?’ I ask.
No one answers. No one heard me. They’re too busy gossiping about their neighbours’ gardens and whose what is flowering and who looks like they’ve sabotaged someone else’s hydrangeas. I’ve never been in a room with twenty old ladies before, but hydrangeas seem like an unnaturally popular topic of conversation.
I repeat myself, and this time they do hear, but making my presence known was a mistake. I’m immediately surrounded by the Tilda, Hilda, or Milda, and questioned on my age, relationship status, and whether I’ve got my eye on anyone in the village as they start drawing up a list of Buntingorden’s most eligible bachelors.
‘Ooh, have you met the chap who runs the souvenir shop?’ Hilda cries, and a chorus of agreements follow. They are basically my mum in surround-sound.
Somehow the packet of Gingernuts has remained unopened and Tilda or Milda tears into them, accidentally breaking the wrapper and scattering biscuits right the way across the low coffee table in front of the brown leather sofas, breaking as they land, and the ladies set upon the broken smithereens like hungry birds when you throw a handful of seed out on a snowy midwinter’s day and more crumbs fly around, worse than that time I made the mistake of buying glittery wrapping paper.
‘Speaking of gossip, did you see that letter from The Stropwomble of Bodmin Lane in the paper this morning?’ Tilda or Milda says. Maybe it was Vilda? No, that’s a brand of mop, isn’t it?
‘Complaining that the swans are too noisy, for goodness’ sake,’ Pauline says. ‘Swans are the most silent bird in existence.’
‘And last week it was starlings. Too many starlings, he said. Trying to get people to sign a petition to ban starlings from Buntingorden. I put out extra food for them just to spite him.’
‘Whatever will it be next?’ Barbara says. ‘Complaints that the dawn chorus comes too early? Petitions to stop badgers having pedicures? Death to all earthworms?’
‘Oh, not him again,’ I mutter, my mind going back to the little boy called Charlie and his stories about the monster of Buntingorden.
Of course, of all the things I’ve tried to say so far, that’s the one they choose to hear.
‘Have you met him?’
‘No, but I’ve heard of him. I hate people like that – people who can’t find anything better to do with their lives than complain and spoil things for everyone else.’
A collective sigh shakes the room. ‘No one’s ever seen him, you know,’ one of the ladies says. I should get name badges made up because I’ve got so muddled that I can’t remember her name.
‘They say he’s a hideous monster, disfigured and cold to a world that’s turned its back on him,’ another one says.
‘You sure that’s not The Hunchback of Notre Dame? He hasn’t got a couple of talking gargoyles, has he?’ My sarcasm goes straight over their heads.
‘He’s this nasty, evil presence. Whenever something nice happens in Buntingorden, you can be sure that he’s lurking in the wings to find a way of ruining it. The whole town would be so much nicer if he wasn’t here.’
‘And look at that house on Bodmin Lane. It used to be so lovely, and now it’s all crumbling and overgrown, and he’s got this great big iron fence with barbwire on top. I think he killed the previous owners and took over the place and that’s why he never comes out, because he’s a murderer on the run,’ Tilda says. Now I remember her name because of the brand of rice.
‘A fugitive!’ Someone else claps.
They sound abnormally excited by the prospect of a murderous fugitive in town, while I wonder if I’ve accidentally stumbled into an episode of Midsomer Murders.
‘We were hoping you’d have met him. He likes to complain about everything – we thought he was bound to have come in and complained about the bookshop.’ Milda, the biscuit crusher, sprays crumbs as she talks.
‘You’ve still got bowls of water outside for thirsty dogs, and you let dogs inside. He’s always writing to the local newspapers complaining about how unhygienic it is,’ says the man who’s given up on his iPad and is watching his grandson playing on it now.
‘I love dogs. Who wouldn’t want them inside? One of the nicest things about this village is that it’s dog-friendly and you can’t go far without meeting a dog to scruffle. It’s not uptight like other high streets where dogs aren’t welcome. It’s great considering we’re in the middle of a touristy dog-walking spot.’
‘And that roof terrace.’ Hilda ignores my monologue on the benefits of allowing dogs in. ‘You had that open the other day. There’s no way he would’ve let you get away with that. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come straight over to demand you close it at once.’
‘It was open for ten minutes,’ I say incredulously. ‘How would he know about that? How do you even know about it?’
They ignore me. ‘You can bet your best socks that he’s written to the council complaining about it. You’ll probably get a letter from them soon saying they’ve received a complaint.’
‘And your window display,’ the one called Barbara says. ‘It’s very pretty, but he’s always writing letters to the local newspaper whenever something changes on the street. He’ll say that’s a visual hazard or an invitation to thieves because it blocks some of your visibility.’
I glance at the mermaid window. It’s about time I changed it, actually. Dimitri’s chalk scales are being accidentally rubbed off by hands reaching for books in the display, and my selection of mermaid-themed books are getting thin on the ground. ‘That’s not fair. Why would anyone complain about it? It doesn’t affect him in any way.’
‘He would’ve called it an eyesore. He’s done it with every shop – written to the council complaining about the things on display in their window.’
‘That’s awful. My friend did those scales – they are not an eyesore.’ I feel ridiculously protective of Dimitri’s artwork.
‘Ooh, that gorgeous young chap who sketches here?’ Tilda asks, but the question is obviously rhetorical because a wave of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ sweep through the group at the mention of him.
‘Oh, if I was thirty years younger,’ one of them says, kicking off a squabble with her neighbour who has the gall to suggest that fifty is more accurate.
‘I want to set him up with my granddaughter but he’s never here on Saturday afternoons,’ another one adds.
‘He’s delicious,’ Milda says. ‘And single too, you know?’
‘Is he? I had no idea.’ My voice goes high and unsteady, even though there’s something adorable about a group of old ladies thinking he’s the best thing since chocolate was invented.
‘Are you going to ask him out?’ Tilda says. ‘I think you’d make a lovely couple.’
A chorus of agreements follow from everyone else in the group. I know my face has gone red, which is kindly pointed out when one of them squeals, ‘Ooh, you must like him – you’ve gone red!’
I sincerely hope Dimitri can’t hear any of this from his hiding spot.
Percy sits up long enough to say in a deep, booming voice, ‘Hush now, you’re embarrassing the poor girl,’ before going back to sleep. I suspect he might be faking it to get out of book club.
I decide it’s well past time we stopped talking about gorgeous men who sketch here and pick up a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. ‘So how did you all get on with this month’s read?’
The sooner we can get on with the book club discussion, the sooner I can get those crumbs hoovered up.
‘A refill!’ Tilda shouts.
‘Have you got any more biscuits?’ Milda asks.
More biscuits? They’re not having my Chocolate Hobnobs, and they’ve wolfed down nine packets already. No wonder this is only a monthly occurrence. I’d have to buy shares in McVitie’s otherwise.
I take another round of orders for tea and coffee and leave them muttering about my pathetic lack of biscuits. It’s almost like they know I’ve got one hidden and are trying to sniff it out.
By the time I get back downstairs with more drinks, I’ve lost them again as Hilda holds court with a story about her postman’s canary. Even Heathcliff is hiding inside his aquarium castle, and he’s usually all over a bit of gossip. Even a Shih Tzu walking past outside isn’t enough to tempt him from his hiding place.
‘Shall we get onto the book?’ I say loudly. I’m sure I can hear Dimitri’s laughter echoing out from the shelves under the stairs.
They all turn to look at me.
‘I read it years ago. I remember not liking the sound-a-like words, even though I see the innocence the author was trying to convey, and I thought Bruno was unrealistically dense to not realise what was really going on. But that ending. That’s an ending I never, ever saw coming, and I’ve never forgotten it since. What did you all think?’
I get a chorus of ‘oh, yes, that’ and ‘excellents, goods, and greats’. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that not one of them has read it. And if they have, then they definitely didn’t come here to discuss it.
A customer makes her way through the biscuit crumbs with a couple of hefty Shakespeare plays and I go behind the counter to serve her, and there I stay, wishing I could risk a Chocolate Hobnob without being seen. The other old man goes to sleep on the sofa and the grandson with the iPad turns up the volume on whatever game he’s playing, so the soundtrack to the afternoon is a series of bloop-bleeps as he shoots down pixellated aliens, and a whole slew of gossip about people I’ve never met.
At five to five, they all put their cups down in unison, pop their books back into their handbags, gather up their coats and cardigans, which have been strewn an impressive distance across the shop, and start filing out. Hilda drags me out from behind the counter and envelops me in a hug. ‘Lovely, Hallie. Just as good as Robert ever did it.’
Each one follows in her footsteps with a hug and a variation of the same thing. ‘Better, even. More biscuits to choose from.’
‘See you again next month.’
‘Don’t forget to put June’s book up on Monday. We’ll all be in for a copy.’
‘Can you get the double-pack of Custard Creams next time?’
‘I wouldn’t mind some Jaffa Cakes. Ooh, how about a packet of Fig Rolls?’
I can still hear them discussing various biscuits as I shut the door behind them and flick the book-shaped sign to ‘closed.’
I let out a breath that feels like the first one all afternoon. I see why Dimitri went into hiding.
I go through to the back half of the shop and duck around shelves until I get to the little corner under the stairs where Robert stored rare or valuable books. I knock on the edge of the shelf like it’s a door and put my head round it. ‘They’ve gone – you can come out now.’
It’s a short aisle with shelves down either side and one across the back wall, and Dimitri’s sitting in the corner, surrounded by cushions, reclining against the back shelf with his head resting on the right-hand shelf. Pentamerone is on the floor beside him and his sketchbook is open on his knees as he draws.
He looks up at me sleepily. ‘No, I can’t, because that would require moving, and I’m way too comfortable to move.’
He does look comfortable. And I’d thought the sofas were looking a bit bare because he must have every cushion from the reading area.
I lean against the shelf. ‘So when you said it wasn’t a book club, but a monthly biscuit-eating contest … Why didn’t I take you seriously?’
He gives me a soft smile. ‘Some things you have to learn for yourself. A rite of passage, like your first Stephen King novel or the first time you find out a bandicoot is a real animal or discover it’s not really Christopher Plummer singing in The Sound of Music.’
To be fair, my first Stephen King novel was a lot more enjoyable than my first Once Upon A Page book club, although equally terrifying.
‘Word to the wise though – do not buy Jaffa Cakes next time. Robert did once. They were here for three days having the “cake or biscuit” debate. And don’t buy Jammie Dodgers, the chewiness leads to all sorts of denture-related pandemonium.’
I really hope he’s exaggerating.
He looks so relaxed that he could fall asleep, different to the usual way he sits hunched over his sketchbooks on the table. His eyes are heavy lidded behind his thick glasses when he looks up at me again and pats the empty cushion beside him. ‘Come and sit here.’
I gesture towards the shop. ‘I have to clean up.’
‘Hallie.’ His voice is gentle but firm, and I don’t need any more persuasion.
I get an idea and point at him. ‘Hold that thought.’
Steadfastly ignoring the biscuit crumbs, I dash upstairs and make two cups of tea and snag the hidden Hobnobs on the way back.
Dimitri’s face breaks into the widest smile I’ve ever seen when I reappear at the shelves. I’ve always thought a smile lighting up a face was a myth, a trope that romance authors use to convey happiness but I didn’t think it was something that actually happened. ‘You’re a star, thank you. I was just thinking how much I wish I’d nicked a packet.’
He pulls Pentamerone under his legs to make space for me, and knowing how clumsy I am without me needing to say it, he takes both cups off me and sets them carefully in the space at the front of the shelf he’s leaning against, and holds his hand up to help me down.
I’m quite capable of sitting down without assistance, but I don’t miss an opportunity to slip my hand into his and lower myself onto the cushion beside him, and he produces another one from seemingly thin air and I stuff it in behind my back, surprised to find it’s comfier than it looks down here. It’s not exactly roomy though, and I’m sort of tipping towards him on the uneven cushions. I wriggle around a bit, but one arm is already pressed against the shelf to my left and the other is pressed against his.
He neatly undoes the packet of Chocolate Hobnobs and offers me one first – ever the perfect gentleman. We both manage to take one out without spilling a single crumb, which is quite a feat for two people who are so uncoordinated, but I’m not sure I can handle any more biscuit-related mayhem today.
‘For what it’s worth, I thought you did a great job. I silently applauded your efforts in trying to get the conversation back round to the book. And if it’s any consolation, I thought The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was excellent and totally agreed with what you said. It’s been years since I read it and that ending has never left me.’
‘And to think I was worrying that I hadn’t had time to swot up on the book.’ Our hands brush as he passes my cup of tea over, holding the hot mug itself so I can take the handle. ‘So let me get this straight – they buy the book, either read it or don’t read it, and then come here once a month on the pretence of discussing it but really just to eat biscuits and gossip? They’re supporting the shop, but as a biscuit-eating and tea-drinking establishment.’
‘I wouldn’t knock it. That’s a good amount of books you sell each month, and no one cares what they’re about. I reckon you could have a book about painting walls and they’d still buy it to read about which ones dry first. I do think they read the books, but they only get around to talking about it when they run out of biscuits and village gossip, and with at least twenty busybodies on site, they never run out of village gossip, although the biscuits don’t stand much chance.’
‘Even though I’m seriously questioning your loyalty for going into hiding …’ I nudge my shoulder against his. ‘Thank you for doing the supermarket run. I see how it would’ve been an unforgivable offence not to have biscuits.’
‘Aw, I’m sorry. I’m not very good with being surrounded by people, but I didn’t want to abandon you entirely.’
I look up at him, his hair falling across his forehead, looking floppier than usual, reflecting how relaxed he is. ‘You’re a real introvert, aren’t you?’
He considers it for a moment. ‘I’m used to being on my own. When my sister was alive, she was self-conscious of how she was treated in public, and when the treatment started up again, she lost her hair and was terrified of running into girls she knew from the time when things had been better and she’d been able to go to school, so we rarely went anywhere apart from hospital appointments and the library. And since then …’ He takes his glasses off, blinks up at the ceiling, and puts them back on again. ‘I must sound so dull. Until Robert took pity on me and let me come here, I was basically a hermit.’
The mental image makes me grin. ‘You are way too clean-shaven to be a hermit. Did you have a beard?’
‘I dunno, you couldn’t find it under all the hair that had grown Cousin Itt-style to my feet.’
This time it makes me laugh out loud, and he beams at me with just enough hesitancy behind his smile to make me not quite sure he’s joking.
‘You don’t sound dull at all,’ I say. ‘You sound …’ Perfect. Gentle. Like a guy who’s been through more than he ever lets on. ‘It sounds like my version of heaven. Peace and quiet, and books.’
‘And plenty of tea and biscuits.’
‘Naturally.’ I pull my head back to look up at him, and for one surreal minute, I think he’s going to kiss me. He bites his lip to stop the tremble in it, and his head lowers almost imperceptibly. I can feel the brush of his hair against mine, the fine blonde hairs covering his muscular forearms graze my arms, feeling like burning beacons where our arms are touching, and then he turns away and picks up his cup from the shelf and the moment is lost. I pick up my own cup of tea and take another biscuit, sploshing it in with reckless abandon and regretting it when one half glugs sorrowfully to the bottom of the mug. That’ll teach me to dunk biscuits without due care and attention.
I want to know everything there is to know about his life, but he seems quiet and introspective, and not like he wants to talk about it. My eyes fall on the open sketchbook in his lap. ‘Why does that woman have a goat’s face?’
‘There’s this poor man with twelve daughters who he can’t afford to feed, so a giant lizard offers to raise his youngest daughter in exchange for giving him great wealth. The daughter is raised in a palace and eventually falls in love with a king and marries him, but when she leaves, she doesn’t thank the lizard so he turns her head into a goat’s head. As you do.’
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ I giggle.
‘They’re not all as disturbing as they look, I promise.’ He puts his sketchbook aside and pulls the old storybook onto his lap instead. ‘Here, you’ll like this one.’ He turns some pages and runs his finger across the lines of text on the aged paper and starts reading aloud, a story about three princesses marrying three princes who have been enchanted into the form of animals. I lean closer to him to follow the words he’s reading, but the text is tiny, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world to rest my head against his shoulder, and I’m surprised in a good way when he lowers his head and leans it against mine too. I feel the smile spreading across his face, the quietness of his words and how I feel every breath against my hair.
It only takes him a few minutes to read, and when the story finishes with a typically fairy-tale-esque dragon slaying, the curse being lifted, and a happily-ever-after, I should probably lift my head, but I don’t, and he makes no attempt to move either.
‘Did you just read me a bedtime story?’ I speak in a whisper because speaking normally will sound like a shout in the empty shop.
He lets out a soft laugh. ‘I don’t know what time it is, but it can’t even be six o’clock. We can’t go to bed yet.’ He instantly stiffens and tries to backpedal. ‘I’ve just realised how bad that sounded. I didn’t mean we should be going anywhere near a bed together, I just meant …’
I reach over and pat his knee, the nearest thing I can touch without having to move. ‘I know what you meant,’ I say, even though I’m so comfortable down here that I could happily fall asleep with him.
‘You must think I’m mad to like this stuff. I find the evolution of fairy tales fascinating, and how they’re something that’s survived for centuries in different forms and they still appeal even to this day. There’s something so innocent and hopeful about them, particularly Disney ones. Even the oldest of those films are over eighty years old now, and children still grow up with them. They’re timeless. It feels … I don’t know, kind of special to go back to these original tales and try to update them for a modern world.’
‘These stories are wonderfully weird.’ I look at the brightly striped socks with penguins all over them showing above the ankles of odd-coloured boots that are on the opposite feet this time. Wonderfully weird, just like him.
I try to think of any other person I’ve ever known who would sit on the floor of a bookshop and read centuries-old Italian fairy tales aloud to a fellow adult, and somehow make the simplicity of sharing biscuits and drinking tea into the best evening I can ever remember.
‘Have you met whoever your publisher has got updating the text? I mean, you must be working together on it. What if you hate the translation the other person comes up with?’
‘It doesn’t really work like that and I’m sure you don’t want to hear about this. Another Hobnob?’ He holds the packet out, and if I wasn’t enjoying his company so much, I might’ve thought twice about the oddly abrupt subject change, but chocolate biscuits are enough to distract anyone without adding Dimitri’s aftershave that’s like the fresh wood of walking through a forest where they’ve just been felling trees to the mix.
‘I feel like a kid again,’ I murmur against his shoulder, not keen to move any time before Monday.
He rubs his head against mine gently. ‘Me too. I love being here. Everything feels better here. It’s like being surrounded by different worlds, different lives, and whatever you’re going through, you know there are stories here about people who have been through different things and always found a way to overcome them. I find that comforting somehow, even though they’re only fictional.’
‘I think books have a unique power. A way of transporting you to a place or time that makes you use your imagination, instead of just showing you, like a film does. I’ve used them as an escape all my life.’
‘Me too. I was a shy, dorky kid who didn’t make friends easily, and I turned to books for a better world, and now I’m a shy, dorky adult who doesn’t make friends easily and I still turn to books for better worlds. I’ve never felt like I fitted in anywhere, but it didn’t matter when I was reading about characters who didn’t fit in either. That’s why I love coming here. I’ve always felt at home when surrounded by books.’
Hearing him describe himself like that makes me want to hug him, but we’re too cramped together, and it’s probably best I don’t anyway. I settle for tilting my head and pressing the side of my jaw against his shoulder. ‘Same,’ I whisper against his shirt. ‘Shy, clumsy kid who never knew what to say to make people like me and always ended up choosing the wrong thing. I was bullied at school so I used to hide in the library every lunchtime. I’d snaffle my packed lunch on the way up the stairs and then have a whole fifty minutes every day to read. I found some of my favourite books there. I read all the Judy Blumes over and over again, all the Point Horrors and Point Romances, and my favourite was a two-book series by Dyan Sheldon about a girl who fell in love with the ghost that haunted her bedroom. I used to lie awake at night wishing I had a hot, motorcycle-riding ghost haunting my house.’
I can feel his smile against my hair. ‘Me too. Well, maybe not about the hot ghost, but yeah. I was bullied too for being tall and awkward and stuttery, and I hid in libraries too. My mum used to take me every week when I was little and the librarian always used to tell me off for trying to sneak out more than my allotted four books and an extra four on my mum’s card too.’
‘Kids are cruel,’ I murmur, because the idea of him being bullied for everything I like about him makes me want to pull him into the tightest hug and sort of clutch him to my bosom like some old matronly Mrs Doubtfire character, even though my bosom is nowhere near ample enough and I’ve never once referred to it as a bosom before in my life. I don’t know what’s got into me lately. I must be being possessed by the spirits of all these old book characters. I’ll be pulling up my stockings and going Morris dancing while moaning about my varicose veins next.
‘Adults are worse.’
My breath catches because his voice is flat and quiet and without any of its usual timbre, and I kind of want to pull back and look into his eyes and tell him he’s wrong, but he’s not, is he? Adults can be the cruellest of them all, and they’re old enough to know better, and somehow that makes it worse. And if I move, it might be weird to put my head back on his shoulder again so I don’t want to risk it yet.
Like he can tell how melancholy that sounded, he takes a breath and seems to rally himself. ‘Thank God for books, eh? Every big event in my life has been marked by books. I remember what I was reading at the time, or what was recommended to me, or what was bought for me. My mum was a huge reader and always believed in marking occasions with books. Whenever something good happened, she’d take me to a bookshop to choose whatever one I wanted. Do you remember the school book fairs?’
‘Oh my God, the book fairs.’ I’m glad he can’t see my face because I’m currently the spitting image of the heart eyes emoji. ‘My mum’s most hated week of the term, and my most anticipated. There was something so special about those big metal cases being wheeled into the assembly hall. It’s one thing secondary school was always missing – no Scholastic book fairs.’
‘Mind you, we would’ve been a bit old for them by then, wouldn’t we?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I made my mum get me a Funfax from the book fair when I was eight and I thought I was the coolest kid in class. The best thing ever was filling in all your details and spending all your pocket money on those little books to put inside.’
He laughs. ‘But you remember it as a pivotal part of your childhood. That’s what I mean. Everyone’s life is shaped by special books. I grew up with Enid Blyton’s tales from The Wishing Chair to the Famous Five, and The Faraway Tree to Malory Towers, and then onto teenage books, and smuggled adult books that were supposedly too old for me.’
‘I loved Enid Blyton, especially Malory Towers. Malory Towers was the Harry Potter of our generation. You know, the boarding school that everyone wanted to go to, full of characters that everyone wanted to be friends with?’
‘I went to boarding school. Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘Really?’ I tilt my head against his shoulder. Boarding school has always struck me as a thing for frightfully posh people and Dimitri doesn’t seem like that at all.
‘Yeah. When you’re young and loving life in the local primary school and all your friends are here, and then suddenly you’re being driven across the country and dumped in this strange environment with all these new people and rules and rich kids who really don’t like you. My brother already went there and he’d taken to it like a fish to water, but he’s different from me. I’d begged my parents for months not to make me go there, but like everything else with my father, what he wants is all that matters.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say quietly, surprised by the bitterness in his voice.
‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say any of that. There’s just something about you that makes me want to talk. Suffice to say it’s not all wizarding spells and house elves, although I wish Harry Potter had been around in our younger days. I would’ve been obsessed with it as a pre-teen. I mean, I was obsessed enough as an adult, but …’
I wasn’t surrounded by book lovers before I won Once Upon A Page, and something as simple as someone who understands my love of books and grew up at roughly the same time I did, reading the same things that I loved … there’s something so special about it.
My mind drifts as I sit there with my head on Dimitri’s shoulder, thinking about all the books I’ve loved over the years, both of us occasionally sharing titles and opinions, from the classics of Great Expectations to the magic of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series by C.S. Lewis, and how enchanted we both were by the idea of finding a whole new world through something as ordinary as a wardrobe, and the crushing disappoint when none of our wardrobes led to Narnia.
‘Should we move?’ he says when silence has fallen. ‘It’s not that I want to, but I’m going to fall asleep in a minute and my biggest fantasy is spending the night in a bookshop, so if you’re not careful, you’re never going to get rid of me.’
‘Worse things have happened.’
‘Mmm.’ He mumbles an agreement and reaches a hand out blindly until I catch hold of it and slip my fingers between his. He squeezes tightly and pulls my hand against his leg, holding it there. ‘I’m really glad we met, Hallie. It feels like I’ve known you forever.’
‘Me too,’ I whisper, my voice sounding as unsteady as I feel.
This doesn’t just happen. Gorgeous men don’t fall into the shop you’re working in and sweep you off your feet – not in real life, anyway. And yet I feel distinctly unstable and like my legs are metaphorically going from under me. He’s perfect. And perfect men like him don’t exist, so there must be a catch. His words make my stomach roll and goose bumps rise all over my body. I still feel light-headed from his aftershave and wobbly from the proximity and how right it feels to sit here holding his hand and leaning against him, and it would be so easy to kiss him. And I want to.
I swore off relationships long ago. Things had never worked out, even before Mr Maybe, and he was the final straw in my disastrous love life, but for the first time in many years, it feels right with Dimitri. Everything feels right and in my experience that can only mean one thing – it’s not.
‘We should get up.’ Tension shoots through him as he seems to sense the precarious situation we’re in. He starts moving with a jolt, shifting back upright from where we’ve slumped against each other, closing Pentamerone carefully and sliding it back into the empty space on the shelf as he sits up and pitches himself forward onto his knees and then feet.
He turns around and holds his hand out, and I look up at him with a disappointed grin, because I could easily fall asleep down here too, but it was a lot more comfortable when he was beside me.
‘You get the chairs; I’ll get Henry out of the office.’ I go to protest but he cuts me off with a threat of upturning what’s left of the Hobnobs packet.
I slip my hand into his and let him pull me to my feet. A man who hoovers. A man who helps. A man who is such a gent that he could’ve stepped from the pages of a Jane Austen novel in a top hat and tailcoat.
That’s worth getting up for, even though there has to be a catch, because men like that don’t exist outside of the printed pages that surround us.