So, yeah, I’ve got two phones. One’s a work one that I got ages ago. I’m not sure if Cameron even knows about it so, you know, best keep shtum!”
Andrew kept replaying his garbled explanation over and over in his mind. Neither Peggy nor Imogen had seemed to know what he was blathering on about, which just meant he carried on and on, digging an increasingly large hole. Thankfully, they’d continued to just look at him blankly, like two bored customs officials ignoring a foreign traveler’s desperate attempts to explain their plight, and the climax of the romcom provided enough of a distraction for the conversation to move on.
Andrew had assumed that they would be going to Barter Books the next morning, but Peggy and Imogen had other plans. What followed over the next couple of days were boat trips to the Farne Islands, where Andrew was unceremoniously shat on by a puffin (much to Suze’s delight), and blustery coastal walks punctuated by tea and cake pit stops (much to Imogen’s delight), followed by delicious dinners back at Imogen’s and two occasions where Peggy fell asleep on Andrew’s shoulder (much to Andrew’s delight).
Alone in the guest room, he thought of the conversation he’d eavesdropped on.
“Okay, well, are you interested in him then?”
“. . . I’m not answering that either.”
“Interested in him.” Could that have meant anything other than romantic interest? Maybe it was from a purely anthropological point of view—that Peggy was planning to make scientific field notes: A squat specimen, frequently observed making a twat of himself. Either way, Peggy had refused to answer the question, and Andrew had watched enough episodes of Newsnight to know this meant she was avoiding telling the truth. He only wished Imogen had gone full hostile BBC interviewer on her.
Finally, the following morning they headed to Barter Books. Andrew got the sense that Peggy had been delaying the visit not because she’d somehow lost interest, but because she was scared that it was going to end in failure.
The kids had stayed behind with Imogen, who had promised to make them a cake so chocolatey it would send Bruce Bogtrotter into a diabetic coma. Peggy had taken Imogen’s Astra, Imogen explaining all the car’s various problems and how to cope with them, many of which involved punching things and swearing.
“Bastard,” Peggy grumbled, yanking the gear stick violently back and forth and making a joke about her first boyfriend’s eyes watering that caused Andrew to wind down the window for a moment.
They passed a sign saying they were fifteen miles from Alnwick.
“I’m feeling a bit nervous,” Andrew said. “How about you?”
“Dunno. Yeah. Sort of,” Peggy said, but her attention was on the rearview mirror as they merged onto a busy road.
The more miles they chewed up, the more fraught Andrew felt, because the closer they got to the bookshop, the closer they were to their adventure’s ending. Most likely they’d just be returning home, deflated with defeat, and Alan would be buried with just them and a disinterested vicar for company. Then it would be back to the daily grind.
They passed another sign for Alnwick. Five miles, now. Someone had somewhat unimaginatively graffitied the word “shit” onto the sign in angry red. Andrew was reminded of something he’d seen coming back from a rare school trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He remembered the evening sky being scorched pink, his eyes following the telegraph wires silhouetted against it as if they were a blank musical score, when he noticed the letters painted white and bold on a fence in the distance: “Why Do I Do This Every Day?” The memory had stayed with him despite his not understanding its commuter-baiting message at the time. It was as if his subconscious was saying, This won’t mean much to you at the moment because you’re too young and your major concern is whether Justin Stanmore is going to Chinese-burn you again, but just give it thirty years or so and its significance will really hit home.
He sat forward.
Maybe he’d just tell Peggy everything. Now. Here. In an overheating Vauxhall Astra on a dual carriageway.
He shifted in his seat, half exhilarated, half terrified at the possibility. Everything could be out in the open. Not just about his growing feelings for her, but about the big lie, too. Peggy would hate him, maybe never even talk to him again, but it would end just . . . this. This relentless misery—of still clinging on to something that barely provided him solace anymore. The realization came to him like a radio signal finding its way through static: a lie can only exist in opposition to the truth, and the truth was the only thing that could free him of his pain.
“Why are you wriggling around so much?” Peggy said. “You’re like my old dog dragging its arse along the floor.”
“Sorry,” Andrew said. “It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“. . . Nothing.”
Andrew lost Peggy almost as soon as they walked into the bookshop, his focus drawn immediately to what was happening five feet above his head. A beautiful, dark green engine (an Accucraft Victorian NA Class, if he wasn’t very much mistaken) was sliding effortlessly around the tracks positioned above the book stacks. The aisles beyond were bridged by signs bearing lines of poetry. The nearest read:
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again / How oft hereafter will she wax and wane.
The train flashed past again, a soft breeze rippling in its wake.
“I’m in heaven,” Andrew whispered to himself. If anything was going to slow his pulse back to normal after what had nearly just happened in the car, it was this. He was aware of someone standing next to him. He glanced to his side and saw a tall man in a gray cardigan, his hands held behind his back, looking up at the train. He and Andrew exchanged nods.
“Like what you see?” the man said. Andrew had only ever heard this phrase used by bolshy brothel madams in period dramas, but despite its seeming so out of context, at the same time he really did like what he was seeing.
“It’s mesmerizing,” he said. The man nodded, eyes briefly closing, as if to say: You’re home now, old friend.
Andrew took a deep breath, feeling properly calmed now, and turned slowly on the spot so he could take in the rest of the place. He certainly wasn’t the sort of person who would use the word “vibe,” but if he were, he’d have said Barter Books’ vibe was one he was very much “down with,” to borrow one of Sally’s old phrases. It was so serene, so quiet. People browsed the shelves with a sense of reverence, their voices lowered. When someone took a book off a shelf they did so with the delicacy of an archaeologist bringing ancient pottery out of the soil. Andrew had read that the shop’s claim to fame was that it was where the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster had been unearthed. And while it had spawned thousands of annoying variations (Meredith had a mug in the office with the slogan “Keep Calm and Do Yoga” written on it, possibly the most prosaic sentence ever committed to ceramic), here it felt like the perfect emblem.
But they weren’t here for the atmosphere. Andrew found Peggy sitting low in a chair that looked almost obscenely comfy, her hands linked behind her head, a contented smile on her face.
“Argh,” she moaned as Andrew approached. “I suppose we better get on with this, then?”
“I think we had better,” Andrew said.
Peggy looked at him determinedly and held out her hands. At first Andrew stared at them uncomprehendingly, then snapped into action and pulled Peggy to her feet. They stood side by side, shoulders touching, facing the polite queue by the tills.
“Right,” Andrew said, rubbing his hands together to suggest industry. “So are we just going to go up there and ask them whether a ‘B’ works here?”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea?” Peggy said.
Andrew shook his head. “Do you want to do the talking?”
“Nope,” Peggy said. “You?”
“Not particularly, if I’m honest with you.”
Peggy pursed her lips. “Rock Paper Scissors?”
Andrew turned so he was facing her. “Why not.”
“One, two, three.”
Paper. Paper.
“One, two, three.”
Rock. Rock.
They went again. Andrew thought about going scissors, but at the last minute he changed it to rock. This time, Peggy went paper. She closed her hand over his.
“Paper covers rock,” she said quietly.
They were standing close now, hands still touching. It felt for a second like the hubbub had died away, that all eyes were on them, that even the books on the shelves were holding their breath. Then Peggy suddenly dropped her hand. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Look.”
Andrew forced himself to turn around so that they were side by side once more. And there at the tills, cup of tea in hand, glasses around her neck on a chain, was a woman with green eyes and frizzy gray hair. Peggy dragged Andrew by the arm over to the waiting room café.
“That’s definitely her, right?” she said.
Andrew shrugged, not wanting to get Peggy’s hopes up. “It could be,” he said.
Peggy manhandled him once more, this time out of the way of an elderly couple who were slowly carrying trays laden with scones and mugs of tea over to a table. Once settled, the man set about spreading cream onto his scone with a trembling hand. His wife looked at him askance.
“What?” the man said.
“Cream before jam? Ya daft apeth.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Is it heck. We have this argument every time. It’s the other way round.”
“Nonsense.”
“It isn’t nonsense!”
“It bloody is.”
Peggy rolled her eyes and gently prodded Andrew forward. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve buggered about far too much already.”
As they made their way toward the counter, Andrew felt his heart starting to thump faster and faster. It was only when they reached the woman and she looked up from her crossword that Andrew realized Peggy had taken his hand. The woman put down her pen and asked in the soft yet slightly raspy voice of a smoker how she could help.
“This is going to sound like a slightly strange question,” Peggy said.
“Don’t worry, love. I’ve been asked some very strange questions in here, believe me. Belgian chap a few months ago asked me whether we sold books about bestiality. So fire away.”
Peggy and Andrew laughed slightly robotically.
“So,” Peggy said. “We just wanted to ask, well, whether your name begins with ‘B.’”
The woman smiled quizzically.
“Is that a trick question?” she said.
Andrew felt Peggy tighten her grip on his hand.
“No,” she said.
“In that case, yes it does,” the woman said. “I’m Beryl. Have I sold someone a dodgy book or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” Peggy said, glancing at Andrew.
This was his cue to take the photograph from his pocket and hand it over. The woman took it from him and there was a flash of recognition in her eyes.
“Blimey,” she said, looking at them in turn. “I think this calls for another cup of tea.”