Chapter Twenty-eight
The sound of a ringing phone wakes me, but it’s not a tone I recognise.
I open one eye to see that we’re surrounded by open fields, and we’re driving steadily but slowly uphill. There are few trees around, but the sky looks endless and open above us. On the far horizon I’m pretty sure I can see mountains.
Declan glances over at me and the phone keeps ringing, but he doesn’t answer it on the car speaker or pull over to take the call.
‘Do you want me to cancel it for you?’ I ask, yawning.
‘You can if you want,’ he says. ‘But it’s not my phone.’
I’m about to joke that maybe Merry planted some sort of burner phone on us when realisation dumps over me like cold water. It’s my phone, and it’s my mum. I changed her ringtone after she called a few days ago, so I’d know when she was ringing without looking.
Idiot .
Declan glances over at me again. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks. He looks down at the snack bag, where we both know my phone is. ‘We’re almost there, but I can pull over if you need to take it?’
I haven’t heard from her since I sent her the text about not going into the bookshop yesterday. But speaking to her feels like inviting reality back in after Declan and I have just agreed to pause it. I’m not ready to listen to her justify her actions.
I shake my head. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It’s okay. It’s my mum. We have . . . a complicated relationship.’
‘Is she a Brooks?’ asks Declan.
‘She is,’ I say. ‘Though she wants to sell the bookshop.’
So much for completely ignoring reality.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘That’s definitely breaking the rules of the pause.’
‘What?’ says Declan. ‘I thought the only rule was that we weren’t fighting?’
‘You thought wrong,’ I say.
‘I did not,’ says Declan. Then, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.’ He’s silent for a moment. ‘Do you want to sell?’ he asks.
There is no judgement in his words. He’s giving me space to answer however I want to.
‘I don’t know,’ I tell him honestly, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know they’re not true. My heart thumps painfully, and my breath catches in my chest, and the knowledge that’s been building in me for the past week finally comes to the surface.
‘No,’ I whisper, the word making my throat ache. I shake my head. ‘But I’m scared.’
I know, intrinsically, that Declan will let me leave it at that. And it’s that knowledge as much as anything that makes me continue.
‘I’ve never known what it’s like to not have a bookshop in the family,’ I say, the words trickling out at first and then picking up speed.
Sharing this feels dangerous in so many ways.
It’s different to knowing small, random facts about each other.
Different even to Declan admitting his own fears about being on stage, though I’m not sure why.
But, now that I’ve started, I don’t want to stop.
‘My grandparents started Brooks’ fifty years ago and they were always there.
I feel like most of my childhood memories are at Brooks’. ’
‘With your mum?’
‘Sometimes.’
She used to sit out the back and work while I was in the bookshop with Gran. It’s a detail that somewhere along the line I’ve unconsciously edited out, that until this moment I honestly haven’t thought about in the last ten years.
Declan waits.
‘Gran let me help out in the shop, and it always made me feel so grown up. We used to play a game where I’d name a book and she had to recommend something similar, and if she couldn’t do it I got to pick the next window display.
One of my greatest nine-year-old achievements was the installation of a life-sized Charlotte’s Web window display.
I swallow at the memory of Gran talking about it just a few weeks ago, telling me it was one of her best. At the time, she’d complained for days about having to papier maché a life-sized pig and Grandpa had told her that at least it meant they didn’t have to clean the cobwebs out for a little while.
Declan still doesn’t say anything, and I wish he would. I want him to make a joke or change the subject. But he doesn’t, and I keep going.
‘They lived a block away from the bookshop, and it was their life. They ran it together up until he died a few years ago. Gran kept going by herself for a little while after that, but when I left my degree she decided to pass it on to me. We were going to do it together, at least for a little while. But then just after that she . . . well, you know that she left.’ My throat closes, and I swallow past it.
‘She has dementia. She’s in a nursing home now. ’
The words are stark and somehow empty of everything that they mean.
The joy I feel when I see her; the relationship built from years of memories that are now both solid and mist. The familiar pain of the moment she doesn’t recognise me; the gratitude that she’s still here.
The way that the bookshop feels empty without her.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Declan quietly.
I turn to look at him and I regret it almost immediately, because the sight of his face and the care in it hurts , and a few of the tears that have been gathering at the corners of my eyes threaten to spill.
I can feel Declan’s eyes on me, but I keep my gaze fixed on the window because this is over in a few days and he can’t be more than a moment to me.
And because maybe I’m not ready to fully look at what wanting the bookshop for myself means. I wipe the sides of my eyes.
‘Did you always want to be an author?’ I ask after a while, silently willing him not to try to circle back to me.
‘It was either that, or a professional soccer player,’ says Declan, and I exhale in relief.
‘Both good options. What made you choose the writing over the soccer?’
‘ Bend It Like Beckham ,’ says Declan immediately, and I am so legitimately surprised that for a few seconds I don’t say anything.
‘The early 2000s film Bend It Like Beckham ?’
‘That’s the one,’ says Declan. ‘It came out when I was maybe eight. I was so excited that there was a soccer movie coming out. I planned my birthday around it.’
‘You planned your birthday around Bend It Like Beckham ?’
‘I did,’ he says. ‘Five eight-year-old friends and I went to the first possible screening to watch what I was expecting to be a solid soccer film.’.
‘It’s not really a soccer film,’ I say tentatively.
‘Not really a soccer film,’ says Declan, his lips quirking. ‘Some might even call it a romantic comedy.’
‘You took five of your friends to see a romantic comedy when you were eight?’ I say, a laughter I didn’t think was possible ten minutes ago bubbling in my chest.
‘I did. After that, soccer was never quite the same for me,’ says Declan.
‘Great movie, though,’ he adds a second later, and I can’t describe the feeling that rushes through me, this fierce, warm affection.
It’s bright and it’s terrifying and I’m fairly sure I could drown in it. I clear the warmth from my throat.
‘Did anyone say anything afterwards?’ I ask, and Declan grins.
‘Not much,’ he says. ‘Everyone sort of just went home.’
‘Do you still play?’ I look at him.
Declan nods. ‘I’m not as good as Keira Knightley though.’ He lifts one hand off the wheel to point out of the front window. ‘We’re almost there,’ he says, and I look forward to see we’ve reached the top of the hill.
A town sprawls out below us: a thatch of old buildings nestles in a sparkling green and yellow valley that is literally glowing in the afternoon sun, and there are rolling hills in the distance.
You could put a picture of this place next to ‘quaint’ in the dictionary.
It’s so peaceful and idyllic-looking that I let out an audible sigh, and Declan glances over at me.
‘Shut up,’ I say without looking, and he smiles.
We start the descent into the valley, the road meandering down until we eventually pass a bright yellow sign announcing that we’re entering Mayfield.
‘What’s in Mayfield?’
‘Telling you would ruin the surprise.’
‘Is it a good surprise?’ I ask. The car bumps over a small bridge and I catch a brief glimpse of shady trees and a winding river sparkling underneath.
‘I guess that depends,’ says Declan, flicking on his indicator and turning right like he’s been here more than once before, ‘on how much you like snakes.’
‘Ha,’ I say. Then I pause, because I’m not actually sure whether he’s joking. I mean, they wouldn’t be the first snakes we’d seen this tour.
I look at him, but his gaze is fixed on the road. We drive straight ahead at the roundabout, away from a sign pointing to the town square.
Declan indicates again and turns down a narrow one-way street with terraced houses on one side and a playground on the other. He looks at home, driving here. The street is full of parked cars, but Declan finds a place to pull in right at the end.
He turns off the ignition and the car stills.
‘Are there really snakes?’ I ask him.
Declan unclicks his seat belt, then reaches across me to open the glovebox.
His arm brushes against mine and despite the threat of snakes my stomach clenches.
He hovers there for about ten seconds too long – which I swear is on purpose – before pulling back with something in his hand, his eyes dancing .
It’s a packet of snake lollies, and I cough on a surprised laugh. The tension at being in this place with Declan eases a fraction.
‘Those look suspiciously like snacks, Declan Archer.’
Declan reaches into the packet, his expression still serious but for his eyes. He pulls out a green snake and pops the whole thing in his mouth.
‘They’re not really snacks,’ he tells me, holding out the packet to offer me one. ‘You find snakes in the wild, so these are really more like research into the wilderness.’
‘Have they been in the car the whole time?’ I ask, and he just grins. I break eye contact and pull a purple snake from the packet.
‘Any other secrets I should know about?’ I ask lightly.