Book People

Chapter Eight

I don’t have a facility with words, unlike the great poets. So this might sound trite, but . . . you captured me from the moment I saw you.

H

SEBASTIAN

I blink as Miss Jones looks down at me, her grey eyes full of glimmer and sparkle.

‘What?’ I am unable to hide my surprise. ‘Now?’

‘Of course now.’ She gives me a smirk. ‘Unless you have something better to do?’

Clearly implying that I do, in fact, have nothing better to do than go straight back to my flat and unearth my great-grandfather’s personal papers.

Naturally, now I want to give her a list of all the ten million other things I absolutely have to do instead, but that would be petty.

I’m not above a little pettiness, but looking through those papers is in my interest too, and, after all, it was my idea. And I did very much like the glow in her eyes when I suggested it. That instant spark of curiosity.

I like her curious, though I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t like the thought of taking her to my flat, of her being in my space, in my territory, either, but I do.

I’m the biggest cliché known to man.

I’m a Neanderthal.

I flick a glance towards Dan, but he’s deep in conversation with Gerry. The traitor. I shouldn’t have risen to his obvious bait with his half-spoken dinner invitation, yet I did. I couldn’t help myself. Now he’s going to see us leave together and he’ll be assuming all kinds of things.

Prick.

I can’t pretend I’m not attracted to her now, not to him. And definitely not now I’ve given myself away so blatantly. But at least I haven’t acted on it yet. Which I won’t. I’ll still be able to tell him with a straight face that I’m having nothing to do with her.

Honesty is important.

Ironic when I’ve been lying to myself for the past two months, but still. Admitting an attraction is one thing, acting on it is quite another, and I haven’t committed that sin yet. And I won’t.

I’m thirty-two. I’m a bloody man, for God’s sake. I’m not fifteen. I’m not going into uncontrollable throes of ecstasy at the glimpse of a pert breast or a hint of thigh. Miss Jones, in her pretty blue dress that reveals no skin and yet is somehow sexy as hell, will not get the better of me.

‘Where’s the rush?’ I won’t allow myself to be hurried. ‘Can’t this wait?’

‘Why wait?’ Her smile is a delicate ray of sunshine. ‘If there’s a legitimate secret romance in your great-grandfather’s papers, then we need to find out, because that’s something that Lisa is going to love . I mean, seriously. A secret historic romance is kind of her jam. Especially if it’s forbidden.’

‘What about privacy issues?’

She lifts a golden eyebrow. ‘Hey, you were the one who mentioned it as something that might entice her. You can’t get cold privacy feet now. And if we look and there’s nothing of interest there, then we can go on thinking of other things.’

She’s not wrong, dammit.

I got carried away with finding a solution to our little problem of how to get Lisa here. Miss Jones was glittering away across the table from me and all I was able to think about was how to keep her glittering. I didn’t fully think through the implications.

We’re a private family, the Blackwoods, and I’m not thrilled with the idea of other people picking over those letters. Great-grandfather Sebastian stuffed them into a box and kept them shoved to the rear of his closet for a reason. I only know they’re there because, after Dad moved to Bournemouth, I was clearing out the closet and found them.

Still, we need something to get Lisa Underwood here and if that something is in those papers then we must find it.

‘Fine,’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘I suppose we do need to solve this dilemma quickly.’

She twinkles directly at me like a tiny star. ‘Great.’

I stride from the pub, ignoring Dan as he raises a pint in my direction, as well as the sideways looks from everyone else. Miss Jones follows in my wake. She doesn’t see all the looks because she hasn’t yet comprehended what living in a village is actually like.

She’ll learn.

‘This is a fantastic idea,’ she says, tripping along at my side. She has to trot since her legs are much shorter than mine and I’m not walking slowly. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, keeping up with me effortlessly. ‘Like, really great.’

‘You don’t need to flatter me, Miss Jones.’ My tone is terse. ‘There may not be any romantic letters there at all and the rest may be of no use to us.’

‘Maybe not, but it’s better than the nothing we had before.’

‘I suppose so.’

There’s a silence as we walk through the warm, summer-scented village twilight. It’s one of my favourite times, when all the shops have shut and everyone has gone home and the high street is empty. It’s very quiet and, in summer, you can smell the lavender from Mrs Bennet’s window boxes next to the post office.

My mother used to love village evenings.

There’s a small garden to the back of Blackwood Books, where the flat is, and she and I used to sit out there with a bowl of ice cream each, enjoying the warmth and silence, and the scent of lavender, and the roses she loved to grow.

The roses have gone now and so has my mother, but I still like a village twilight.

Except now Miss Jones keeps up a running stream of commentary as we make our way to Blackwood Books. Telling me all about Lisa Underwood and how she knows her and what a great writer she is, a consummate professional, and that Miss Jones didn’t edit Colours , but was her point person and also edited some of her later work, though she had a senior editor’s oversight, and on and on.

Part of me wants to tell her to be quiet, that she’s ruining my peaceful silence. Yet another part of me likes the sound of her voice. It’s light, but not shrill, and full of expression, and the things she’s telling me are . . . interesting. I know the bookshop trade inside out, but not so much publishing.

I like my quiet. However, I’m also aware that maybe I’ve had too much quiet over the years. That maybe I could stand some chatter.

I’m torn.

I seem to be always torn with Miss Jones.

We come to Blackwood Books and I unlock the door, proceeding through the shop to the back-door entrance to my flat. I know a moment’s tension when I push that door open – I want her to see my living space and yet I don’t want her to see it. I feel absurdly like a boy finally deciding to show a girl his precious Matchbox car collection in the hope of impressing her.

The ignominy of it.

Ignoring the feeling, I usher Miss Jones inside.

The flat isn’t big. It’s got two upstairs bedrooms with a tiny bathroom between them, and a kitchen and living/dining area down below. There’s a minuscule bathroom downstairs too, plus the garden to the back.

There’s nothing in that garden now. I came home from school one day when I was ten to find that Dad had pulled everything out of it. All the plants and bushes, and the little herb garden that Mum had tended. Her roses. We’d ended up having a screaming match – the first of many – and I’d sworn to myself that I’d replant it when I had the chance.

I haven’t, though. I don’t know anything about gardening and the shop takes up most of my time.

Miss Jones comes through into the kitchen and then down a couple of stairs into the living/dining area, which is slightly lower than the rest of the house. I had some French doors put in so I could look out into the garden, and I had plans of sitting out there in summer, but I never do.

I spend my time in the shop.

‘This is lovely,’ she exclaims, going over to the French doors and looking out. ‘And you’ve got a garden too.’

I don’t want her obvious pleasure in my living space to matter, yet it does. I wouldn’t have thought it would appeal, since it’s very minimalist and she’s definitely not a minimalist kind of woman.

I’ve made it a little like the shop, with floors of polished wood and Persian carpets. The walls are white, with some of my mother’s favourite pictures hanging here and there. I have a large modular couch in dark linen that takes up most of the living area and faces a flat-screen TV on the wall.

Everything is geared to tasks rather than aesthetics, and I rarely have people over. Only Dan comes with any regularity.

Like the shop, it’s my private oasis.

‘Would you like a drink?’ I offer, dredging up my hostly manners from somewhere.

She turns from the windows. ‘Oh, yes, please.’

‘I have scotch.’ I like a single malt. Islay distilleries for preference. Lowland malts are too sweet for me. I like my whisky rougher and a touch salty. ‘And if not scotch, then coffee or tea.’

‘It’s too late for coffee for me, and I don’t think tea is quite the vibe.’ She looks around my living area with wide eyes, as if she’s never been in the living area of a house in her entire life. ‘Scotch is definitely the vibe.’

I’ve never heard scotch be described as a ‘vibe’ and somehow the word scrapes across my already wired nerves.

She’s here. In my house. In her pretty blue dress, her long golden hair lying loose across her shoulders, and she’s talking about ‘vibes’.

Fuck’s sake. What am I doing? I’m offering her drinks and being pleased with her calling my interior decorating non-effort ‘lovely’.

I should have made her wait in the shop while I got the letters from my study and then brought them down, given them to her and shoved her back out into the street, leaving me to my quiet twilight.

But no, here I am offering her whisky and no doubt a seat on my couch, and then I’ll get the letters and we’ll pore over them together . . .

Tension crawls through me.

I need to calm down. I need to get a fucking grip.

Grabbing two tumblers and the scotch from a cupboard, I take them over to the living area and put them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

‘Sit,’ I say, gesturing to the couch. ‘Please.’

She does so, putting her battered leather bag down beside her and smoothing the flounces of her dress. It leaves her knees bare.

‘Do you want water?’ I ask, definitely not staring at her knees.

‘Water? No, I said I’d have the whisky.’

‘Do you want water with the whisky?’ I explain patiently.

‘Why would I want that?’

‘It releases the flavours.’

‘Oh . . . well, do you have water with it?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘A book snob and a whisky snob,’ she says, grinning up at me.

She’s teasing and I don’t know if I like that or not. No, I’m sure I don’t like it. Definitely sure.

‘I prefer to think of myself as a purist.’ I hear the insufferable note in my voice and feel suddenly trapped and restless. Itching for some reason I can’t explain. It’s a terrible combination. I usually go for a run when I feel that way, but I can’t now, because she’s here.

‘Well, Mr Purist,’ she says. ‘I’ll have it whichever way you’re having it.’

Silently cursing this ridiculous conversation, I pour the scotch into the tumblers, not bothering with the water. Then I put the bottle down. ‘Wait here,’ I say tersely.

The letters are in my upstairs study, which used to be Dad’s room when I was a child, in a big box in the closet. Dad had had them for years, and when he moved to Bournemouth he didn’t take anything with him. He just left the box here. I haven’t looked at the contents. I’d actually forgotten all about it until Miss Jones started talking about Lisa Underwood and Colours , and then the story of the letters she’d bought reminded me.

I grab the box from the closet and take it downstairs.

Miss Jones is glaring down at her tumbler suspiciously and a flicker of amusement passes through me.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, as I put the box down on the coffee table and sit, making sure there is a good amount of space between her and me. ‘You don’t like it?’

She makes a face. ‘It’s . . . interesting.’

‘It’s an Islay malt. They’re a little more intense taste-wise than other single malts.’

‘Intense and you like it, huh? What a surprise.’ She takes another sip and pulls another face. ‘Delicious.’

More amusement flickers through me and it feels strange. Almost . . . foreign. I know the village finds me aloof and reserved, and that’s a Blackwood trait. But I have been known to smile on occasion, so I’m not sure why this amusement feels so odd.

Maybe it’s simply because Miss Jones is the cause and that’s a novelty. Especially since all she’s made me feel so far is angry and hungry.

‘Are you sure you don’t want water?’ I ask.

‘I think I have all the flavours I can handle right now. I don’t need the water to release any more.’ She puts the tumbler down on the coffee table and looks at me expectantly. ‘Also, I’m impatient. Are you going to open that box, or shall I?’

I’m very tempted to pick up my scotch, swirl it around for a good long time, take a sip and chew on it, really tasting it, and only then will I open the box. But that’s being needlessly passive-aggressive and I’ve already decided I’m not going to behave like that. She won’t make me stoop to that level.

So I say nothing, turn to the box and take the lid off it.

It’s full of papers. Old accounts, postcards, Christmas cards, ticket stubs and pamphlets from various places. Ancient bills. Bank statements . . .

I carefully go through them all while Miss Jones vibrates with excitement right next to me, and as each paper is taken out and it’s not a letter, I try to ignore the disappointment sitting inside me.

I want us to find something and not just because of Lisa Underwood. I want to find something for her. For Kate Jones. I want her to be pleased with me, which is humiliating in the extreme, yet it’s all I want.

Then, just as I’m despairing of finding anything, my fingers close around a bundle of papers. I draw the bundle out and it’s a stack of envelopes held together with an ancient rubber band.

Miss Jones’s eyes have gone very wide. ‘Oh,’ she breathes softly.

The rubber of the band has perished and snaps when I take it off. I discard the pieces then look at the stack in my hand. Small envelopes. Unaddressed. No stamps.

Miss Jones says nothing, but I can feel the pressure of her will, urging me to pick up one of the envelopes and look inside. That she hasn’t snatched them out of my hands to look at them herself is a minor miracle, and also a point in her favour.

I take one of the envelopes, which is open already, and slide out the piece of paper inside. It’s thin, lined, cracked a little with age. There’s writing on it, in red ink, flowing cursive, and I take my glasses from my pocket and put them on so I can read it.

I am sorry about tonight. I wanted to meet you so much, but he’s being particularly ruthless about me going out in the evenings. Perhaps in a couple of days, things will have died down and I can slip away.

I miss you.

C

It’s not my great-grandfather’s handwriting, I know that much. It’s also definitely a love letter.

‘What does it say?’ Miss Jones demands. ‘Let me read it.’

Wordlessly I hand it over and she looks at it, her pretty eyes getting wider and wider.

‘Wow,’ she murmurs, and glances up from the letter. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

‘Possibly.’ I pick up another envelope and take out the piece of paper inside. Again, it’s written in red ink, in a flowing cursive.

I loved Wuthering Heights . Thank you. It was wonderful. It’s very female of me to like it, but I cannot see what is so wrong about a love like that. It’s trite, I know, but I think you are my Heathcliff. You said not to put down our names and I agree, but I cannot call you nothing. You are my own darling Heathcliff.

Again, I hand it over and again Miss Jones reads it.

‘Wow,’ she says again. ‘Your great-grandfather was courting hard. Wuthering Heights is a power move.’

I snatch the letter back off her.

‘Hey,’ she says, making a grab for it, but I hold it away, staring down at the initial at the end of the letter.

And I will be your Catherine.

Forever, C

So . . . the gossip was right. He did have an affair with someone. And he kept all the letters she wrote to him, because, surely, those are her letters in red ink. Unless they’re from my great-grandmother . . . But no. By all accounts Grace Blackwood wasn’t one for reading, and had hated the bookshop. She definitely wouldn’t have loved Wuthering Heights .

‘C,’ Miss Jones says. ‘Who could that be?’

‘It’s not my great-grandmother, I can tell you that.’ I stare at the note, though what I’m trying to find, I’m not sure.

‘Why not?’ Miss Jones shifts on the couch, getting closer. She’s reading over my shoulder, I can feel the warmth of her right next to me. I can smell her scent. It’s sweet, vanilla maybe. ‘Can you tell by the handwriting?’

My mouth waters. The red ink on the page I’m holding blurs and I struggle to remember what question she asked.

Something about my great-grandmother.

‘Grace didn’t like the bookshop,’ I say, every inch of me aware of every inch of Miss Jones right beside me. ‘She wanted my great-grandfather to get a better job and she didn’t like the village. She didn’t like him spending so much time in the shop. At least that’s what my grandfather said.’

Miss Jones leans forward a little more, her breath against the side of my neck. ‘Open another one. Go on, let’s see what they all say.’

I grit my teeth. ‘Personal space, Miss Jones. You’ve heard of it, I presume?’

Take off your clothes, Miss Jones. Let me see how pretty you are.

‘What?’ She sounds startled. ‘Why?’

It’s too much. I turn before I can stop myself and meet her grey eyes staring back. ‘Because if you don’t move away, God help me but I won’t be responsible for what I might do.’