Chapter 28
When Tilly sees the notification, she is knitting on the sofa, her legs propped up on a stack of box files from Joe’s home office.
Since her failed attempt at tidying she’s been stress-knitting a new jumper, and as she lifts it off her lap she realizes it is lopsided, the stripes uneven.
Maybe it would be good to get out of the house.
When she arrives most of the chairs in the shop are already filled, the tables pushed aside to make room. It is cosy, to say the least.
Alfie looks up as she takes a seat at the back, his hand raised in a wave. The group is small but lively and they welcome her warmly. Every now and then, throughout the evening, she catches Alfie glancing at her as if checking that she’s OK.
When the session disperses to gossip someone suggests moving to the pub, and everyone gathers their things to leave.
‘Coming with us, Alfie?’ Gerald, one of the book club members, asks him.
‘I should stay and get things tidied up. But you have a good night, and thanks for coming.’
‘What about you, Tilly?’
‘Not this time, thanks, but maybe next time.’
‘We’ll hold you to that!’
Eventually the shop empties, leaving just Alfie, Tilly and Georgette, who prowls the shop licking up biscuit crumbs.
It’s later than Tilly realized. She should probably get home but the thought of returning to the chaotic apartment doesn’t feel especially appealing.
Instead she starts collecting discarded paper cups.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ says Alfie as he turns around and spots her, having just shut the door and turned the sign to ‘closed’.
He looks tired, his hair messier than ever, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes.
‘That’s OK. I figured you might need some help. And it makes a nice excuse not to go to the pub. I’m really glad I came tonight but I’m not sure I’m up for much more chat about genre theory with Gerald.’
‘You can’t blame him, he’s an academic,’ says Alfie.
Tilly laughs in reply. ‘I hear there’s no cure for that.’
Alfie procures a plastic bag and scoops up paper napkins abandoned among the books.
Despite the warm evening he’s in a forest-green jumper that hangs off his frame.
For a second, she recalls the sight of him in his cycling jersey and the strong, muscular arms that are usually hidden beneath his oversized knits.
Ever since that day by the canal it’s been quite difficult to look at him in exactly the same way.
‘Did you enjoy it, though, despite Gerald?’ he asks, the sound of his familiar, friendly voice enough to push the thought of him in Lycra to the back of her mind.
‘I did, in the end. I wasn’t sure about coming,’ she admits. ‘I’ve had a bit of a week. But being here always makes me feel calmer.’
‘Really?’ His face brightens in a way that makes her chest squeeze.
He runs a hand through his wild dark hair, and for just a brief moment Tilly wonders what it would feel like beneath her fingers.
‘That means a lot. I’ve always wanted the shop to feel like a safe space where people can just be, as well as a place to buy books.
My favourite bookshops are all like that. ’
‘OK, now I need to know your favourite bookshops.’
They have finished clearing up the rubbish. And so, without saying anything, they make a start on the chairs, Tilly folding them and passing them to Alfie who stacks them in the corner. As she hands over the first one, their hands brush, his fingers warm against hers.
If he noticed the touch it doesn’t show on his face, instead his brow furrows, as though thinking, before he replies, ‘It’s hard to pick. Here in London I love Daunt Books in Marylebone, especially for the mezzanine floor full of travel books.’
‘I love it there too, it’s so beautiful.’
‘BookBar when I fancy a glass of wine with my books. Then Word on the Water is amazing.’
‘Of course. Who doesn’t love a canal boat full of books?’
He looks thoughtful for a moment, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
‘But if I want to get lost for a whole day I like heading to the big Foyles at Charing Cross.’
Tilly freezes, a wooden chair half-folded in her hands. In a heartbeat she is back in the huge bookshop on a wet August day, bumping into a man in a grey hoody and shorts, with blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, who smelt of rain and cedarwood.
She forces herself to swallow down the lump in her throat and finish folding the chair, handing it over to Alfie.
‘Did you always want to run a bookshop?’
He stiffens. ‘It’s … complicated.’
He slips his phone from his pocket, pulling up an image and handing the phone over.
It’s a scan of an old photograph which shows the inside of Book Lane almost exactly as it is now.
There is a large, tall man standing in the middle holding a stack of books and smiling, his eyes exactly like Alfie’s.
He is wearing corduroy trousers and a moth-eaten cable-knit jumper that skims over his broad shoulders.
‘Is that your dad?’
He has Alfie’s deep brown eyes flecked with amber, his long lashes and long limbs.
He’s heavier than Alfie, his chest and stomach barrel-round, and his hair is cut short, his face clean-shaven.
He’s smiling with a carefree joy that Tilly has never seen on Alfie’s features, but the resemblance is unmistakable.
Alfie nods, taking the phone back and returning it to his pocket.
‘This was his shop.’
He reaches behind the counter for a bottle of wine that still has a couple of glasses left, and retrieves two fresh paper cups. Then he sits down heavily on one of the empty chairs, running a hand along his jaw and looking around at the shelves of books.
‘Oh wow, Alfie. I had no idea.’
She joins him on the chair beside him, moving it until they are facing each other in the small space, their knees almost but not quite brushing against each other. Alfie silently pours the wine and hands a cup to Tilly.
‘Thanks.’
They tap their cups together, wine sloshing with the quietest of sounds and making Tilly aware of how still it is in the shop.
Compared with the noise and laughter of earlier it feels like that bit after a party where it’s just you and the person you arrived with, having a debrief in your pyjamas over cups of tea. Her favourite part.
She watches as Alfie takes a long sip, the soft skin of his neck exposed as he tilts his head. When he looks back at her it’s with a tight-lipped expression, his brown eyes shining with a vulnerability that makes Tilly want to reach across and take his hand.
She keeps her hands wrapped around her drink as he says, ‘He worked in publishing when I was young but he always wanted to open a bookshop. And eventually he did. This place came up to rent when I was ten, and he jumped on it. He started it from nothing. It was just an empty shell, but he built all the bookshelves himself and Mum found the counter at a flea market and together they completely transformed the place. Dad made it exactly the bookshop he wanted it to be.’
‘Wow, so you grew up here, then?’ Tilly exclaims.
It suddenly makes sense; no wonder it’s felt strange the couple of times Tilly has seen Alfie outside of the bookshop. He seems woven into the very fabric of the place. Alfie is the bookshop.
‘I always wished my parents had their own bookshop,’ she confesses. ‘Did you always know you’d take over from your dad?’
Alfie lets out a breath, the muscles along his jaw tightening.
‘I think that’s always what Dad hoped. He didn’t pressure me, exactly, but it was this unspoken expectation.
My sister was never interested in it – she’s always been more into films than books.
But I’d help out when I could, after school and in the holidays, and I always enjoyed it.
But when I was coming to the end of school I had this sudden urge to rebel.
I didn’t like the idea that someone else had written the book of my life and I didn’t have a say in it.
I wanted to live my own life, at least for a while.
So, I left London and went to Edinburgh to study geology. ’
‘You studied geology to rebel?’
She can’t hide her laughter and Alfie flashes her a look, making warmth pool in her stomach.
‘In my family studying anything other than the arts was as good as a revolt. My mum is an antiques dealer, and even Tash chose film studies and history. But I’d always been interested in science as well as reading.’
‘And you love rocks?’ Tilly adds with a raised eyebrow.
It is surprisingly easy to imagine Alfie as a teenager, all long gangly limbs and a messy mop of hair. She pictures his childhood bedroom, its stuffed bookshelves, the windowsill brimming with rocks and shells carefully carried home from beaches in sandy pockets.
‘Hey, I know geology doesn’t sound especially interesting,’ he says, his dark eyes meeting hers and his voice soft and low. ‘But rocks tell the story of life on our planet. By learning about different rock formations, you can learn the history of … well, everything really.’
‘I’ve never thought of it that way before. When you describe it like that it does sound pretty cool. When did you swap rocks for books, then?’
‘When Dad died,’ he says. ‘I’d just finished university and was taking a year out to travel before deciding what to do next. But a couple of weeks into the trip I got a call from Mum. Dad had had a heart attack.’
He looks down at his lap as he says it. Tilly draws in a breath.
‘Oh, Alfie.’ Her heart tightens and she reaches across, placing a hand on his arm. He looks down, his eyes fixing on her fingers. ‘Did you make it back in time?’
He shakes his head, still not looking up from her hand on his forearm.