Chapter 17 #2
I look at the message on the phone and turn it over immediately so Nick can’t see.
I am appalled, Helen. I really am. It’s coming up to eight o’clock now and Nick has been here in the library for nearly two hours, helping me position trees, envelop them with lights and laughing at how one little boy wrote on a bauble that he wanted Fifty Shades of Grey to give his mum.
And I think I’ve found something super attractive about this man that trumps everything else.
He can wrap. The way he glides scissors around the paper, how he doesn’t wing it with paper size but measures out the books first, the way he folds his corners and doesn’t get frustrated by the tape dispenser.
It’s a thing of beauty to watch. And he can tie ribbon like people on Instagram do, looping it around his fingers expertly.
I can’t be lustful and stare at him. I went ice skating two days ago with Old Nick and it was romantic, he talked about our kids and we went for dinner afterwards and had sex.
I think we’re going out and in terms of my own morals and to give that a chance, I can’t be perving on New Nick and imagining things about his hands.
‘So tell me about your farm again? What does your mum do?’ I ask, trying to focus on civility.
‘So my mum really helped my dad turn the farm into an all-year-round business. The café is our biggest earner and then we have a small nursery, holdings for fruit-picking in the summer,’ he says.
Sitting down with him has also been a way to find out more about his history, his family, and as Lucy explained, it’s super wholesome and organic.
‘Lucy mentioned to me that you also build furniture?’ I ask, hoping he doesn’t mind that we’ve been chitchatting about him.
‘Yeah. I have a small carpentry business on the side.’
‘Like Jesus?’ I say, slightly embarrassed that I don’t know any other carpenters to compare him to. I know that’s a shit joke from the look he gives me.
‘What do you make?’
‘I’m into chairs at the moment.’
‘Edge of the seat stuff,’ I say. The look on his face tells me he didn’t get that joke at all. ‘Sorry.’
‘And you write?’ he asks, trying to change the subject from my awful sense of humour.
‘When I’m not here, yes.’
‘These bears you write about, are they based on anyone?’ he asks.
I give him a look. I think he’s being funny. ‘Well, yes, because I know a lot of bears who wear bow ties and hats,’ I say. ‘I don’t know… I had a stupid idea once that wouldn’t it be funny if you had a family of bears – brown, polar, panda – and they all lived together and had bear adventures.’
This he smiles at. ‘I loved the Christmas one I read the other day. How they had to pull Santa’s sleigh because the reindeer got food poisoning.’
‘All my writing is very much steeped in reality,’ I say, trying to sound like an earnest author. ‘But in all honesty, I love writing fiction, a story that creates joy and helps a kid believe in magic and storytelling. And it turns out talking bears are quite the thing.’
He doesn’t reply but pulls at a length of tape and nods to himself. Is he another non-believer? In me or my brand of Christmas spirit, I’m not sure, but it makes me go quiet too.
He picks up a book and holds it up: Poetry for Lovers, flicking through the pages and starts reading aloud.
‘I do not resemble your other lovers, my lady
Should another give you a cloud
I give you rain
Should he give you a lantern, I
will give you the moon
Should he give you a branch
I will give you the trees
And if another gives you a ship
I shall give you the journey.’
He looks at me as he finishes, slowly closing the book. Do not react. It’s a good- looking man reading you love poetry in a sort of husky growl that makes me want to weep. It’s nothing.
‘Corny?’
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to joke.
He starts to wrap it.
‘Meanwhile, more corn here,’ I say, picking up the next book on the pile, a rather hefty cookbook, slightly dusty and untouched.
‘Look at this whopper!’ I say a little too enthusiastically.
I see him smile out of the corner of my eye.
This is what I do, I cover up awkward moments with my weird sense of comedy.
I flick through the pages of the book. One thing I’ve found out is that people donate books without checking them first. I’ve found travelcards, receipts and, well, a library book that should have come back to us in 1994.
Worse are the books with inscriptions, the thoughtfulness given away to someone else.
That always hurts. I hold the book to the side shaking it out, when a letter floats out.
N,
My wonder, my joy, my love. You are my heart and I do not want to spend another day without you next to me. I think about us all the time in some future drenched in light and happiness. Love you, always.
K x
I pause as I read it and the emotion makes my eyes glaze over to see the coincidence of the initials, this wonderful testament to someone’s love in my hands, separated from its owner.
I flick through the remaining pages of the book and find several other letters in there, as if they’ve been put in this heavy tome to flatten them out or keep them safe.
Deep down though, I know that maybe I shouldn’t have them.
‘Is someone not a fan of the River Cottage then?’ Nick asks, noticing my hesitation.
‘It’s just… this…’ I pass him the letter and he reads it.
‘There are more, dozens of them from N to K and back again,’ I say, holding one of them gently to my chest. I can’t put an age on them but sometimes the paper is thick, and other times they’re on paper ripped out of what appears to be a school notebook.
I scan them, they do go mildly erotic at times but what comes across most strongly is the depth of feeling.
You get the idea this was a love story for the ages.
Nick reads through some of the letters and I see a glimmer of a smile. ‘Love you, always. Even when you steal my duvet and leave cold cups of tea everywhere.’ He looks up at me earnestly. ‘Is there any way to trace the writers?’ he asks.
‘I could try, but these books came in from a lot of different places,’ I say, wondering whether it’s possible.
‘Got to be worth a shot though, eh?’ he says.
And again, he gives me a look. He seems to want to say more, ask more.
If not then why is he here, wrapping books for people he doesn’t know, weeks before Christmas?
And for a moment, Old Nick comes into view, the way he laughed all of this off.
I’ve never seen him wrap a present in his life. What if he’s shit at wrapping?
‘Nick… I…’
‘Shit,’ he suddenly says, looking at his phone.
‘How is it eight already?’ There’s confusion in his eyes.
‘I have to get back to the farm. We’re on a late opening.
’ He reaches for his hat and rises from his chair.
‘I’m sorry to rush like this,’ he says, collecting up the plastic netting on the floor.
‘I wish I could have helped you hoover or something.’
You also hoover? I need to stop this. ‘I’m sorry, I should have ordered in dinner or something to thank you.’
‘No thanks needed. I came because…’
Say it. Then I’ll know. I’ll know for sure.
‘I… you know…’ he says mumbling. He looks at me intensely. ‘Charity.’
My face drops. Oh.