Chapter 28 #2
‘I left on the first flight I could, but it was too late. By the time I got back he was gone. There was no one else to take over the shop – Mum was a mess, and Tash was pregnant. And I couldn’t let it close, not after all the work he’d put into making his dream come true.
I just couldn’t. So, I cut off my trip and took over. ’
‘That must have been so hard, losing him like you did, and then taking on such a big responsibility when you were grieving and still so young. I can’t even imagine.’
‘It was hard. But I was grateful for the shop too. It gave me something to focus on. Especially as Dad had these very specific ways of doing things. There was so much to learn, and it helped keep me going.’
‘I get that,’ says Tilly with a nod. ‘I was the same with work after Joe died. It was something that felt normal when everything else was in chaos.’
‘Exactly,’ Alfie replies with meaning. ‘I don’t think my mum and sister totally approved of how hard I was working, but I think if I hadn’t kept busy I would have …’
He doesn’t finish the sentence but he doesn’t have to. The thought of this big, kind man – who knows everything there is to know about romance novels – falling apart is almost too much to bear. He coughs slightly, and when he looks up at her his eyelashes are damp.
‘I bet it felt like a way of staying close to him too,’ Tilly suggests softly.
Alfie nods. When he replies his voice is rough with emotion.
‘It always has.’
Tilly sees the shop as if through new eyes.
No wonder she often spots Alfie working late, stooped over the desk at the back, when she’s passing on an evening run to the convenience store.
This place isn’t just a tiny but well-stocked London bookshop.
It holds Alfie’s memories of helping his father on the weekends as a child.
It represents one man’s dream and another’s thread connecting him to the father he lost too soon.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offload all of that on you,’ Alfie says, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper and leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees.
‘You don’t have to apologize. I’ve offloaded on you plenty and you’ve always listened.’
‘I just don’t get to talk about him that much. Mum has remarried, my sister has her family, and life just … goes on, you know?’
‘I do.’
Tilly still can’t believe that spring has turned to summer and that Joe isn’t here to see it.
Or that she only has six more books to collect from him and then life will just …
carry on. To distract herself from the emotion rising in her chest she picks up the wine bottle from the floor and pours the last of it into their cups, giving more to Alfie.
‘What was he like, your dad? Can you tell me more about him?’
Alfie raises his head, sitting back up and taking a sip of his wine, his full lips lightly stained a reddish purple.
‘His name was David, but never Dave.’
Tilly listens as Alfie tells her about a man who loved cooking but didn’t like following recipes, who liked dancing and cats and was quick to anger but even quicker to apologize after an outburst. She learns about the big things, like the fact he and Alfie’s mother met when they were at university and were technically dating other people, and the small things like how he never went anywhere without a paperback and a penknife in his pocket.
She picks up little things that Alfie must have learnt from his father: his work ethic when he talks about the long days his father would always put in.
And his kindness as he explains that his father was the one person who would always be able to get Alfie to open up as a kid, probing him very gently and allowing space for Alfie to talk at his own pace.
‘He sounds like a great dad,’ Tilly says when there’s a natural pause in the conversation. She looks across at Alfie, his face slightly flushed from the wine and the memories, the green of his jumper bringing out the amber flashes in his eyes. ‘Can I say something?’
‘Of course,’ he replies, taking a bite of a chocolate florentine from the tray of fancy biscuits that he pulled out of a cupboard earlier, admitting they were a gift from an author but deemed too good for book club (in a way that had made Tilly smile into her cup of warm wine).
‘The outfit your dad was wearing in the photo … I swear I’ve seen it before. On you.’
‘Ah. Got me,’ Alfie says, stretching out his arms, pointing at his chest. ‘This jumper … this shirt …’ He lifts the jumper slightly to show the shirt underneath, but he must have grabbed two layers at once because Tilly gets a flash of pale, firm stomach, a dark line of hair pointing down into his jeans.
He doesn’t seem to notice, instead readjusts his jumper and continues pointing out items in his outfit.
‘Shoes … jeans … they’re all his. Basically, everything I wear is his. That’s probably weird, I know.’
Tilly tries not to think about the way her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his stomach. ‘It’s not weird. But it does make a lot of sense.’
‘What does?’
The hint of a smile tugs at her lips.
‘The fact that none of your clothes really fit you. And when I first met you I couldn’t guess your age, because from afar you look like an ageing university professor.’
‘What, you’re saying that battered corduroy trousers and ancient knitwear aren’t a vibe?’ He raises a dark eyebrow, his eyes flashing with something she can’t quite identify.
‘It’s definitely a vibe. “Owns a fossil collection” vibe. Which now I know you probably do.’
‘I’m not sure I’d call it a collection …’
She laughs, catching him looking at her, mouth slightly open, eyes darting across her face.
Heat rushes to her cheeks. They are close enough that she can smell the eucalyptus and mint of his aftershave, mixed with the lingering smell of coffee and books.
He smells good. So good she can almost imagine what it might feel like to do something stupid like taking a step forward, leaning her nose in close to the exposed nape of his neck –
‘Mum wanted my help sorting through his wardrobe,’ Alfie explains, jolting Tilly back to her senses.
‘She wanted to get rid of everything – that was her way of coping. But I just couldn’t do it.
Everything smelt like him. So, I bagged everything up and took it all home with me, telling her I’d deal with it.
But the next day I put on one of his jumpers and it felt so …
comforting … that after that, when I got dressed, instead of heading to my own wardrobe I reached for the pile of his things.
Until I sort of forgot how I used to dress and just wore his things all the time. Like a completely crazy person.’
‘It’s not crazy. I’ve been trying to sort the flat out this week, going through Joe’s things, and it’s not going well. I haven’t thrown away a single thing. I’m failing spectacularly at this month’s book. He gave me a book about tidying – and the flat is more chaotic than ever.’
‘I think the books he chose were intended more as guidebooks, not a map,’ Alfie says steadily. ‘It’s up to you what you do with them.’
Tilly is aware that her throat suddenly feels tight, her palms clammy. Her voice wobbles as she says, ‘I just feel like I keep taking these steps forward, but in other ways I’m still stuck exactly where I was.’
Because when the grief hits her it still feels as sharp as ever. Shouldn’t it feel easier by now? When will her heart stop feeling like it’s too big for her chest, like all the pain and love inside of her could just burst out, breaking her in half?
‘I feel like this is an important step, one I should be ready to take. But honestly, I’m not sure that I am. Or if I ever will be. And that makes me feel like I’m letting him down.’
‘Tilly.’
Alfie reaches for Tilly’s hands in her lap, holding them there with his own. His eyes fix on her, shining with a fierceness but a softness too.
‘You’re forgetting that I met Joe. When he came into the bookshop to order your books, he talked about you.
’ His eyes dart across her features, and the grip on her hands tightens as if he is trying to press his words into her through his fingertips, so that she will remember them and maybe believe them.
‘I don’t think there’s anything you could ever do to let him down. ’
They finish tidying the shop together and say goodbye, Alfie staying behind to cash up the till.
Once she’s stood on the street, she lets out a breath, glad to be in the open air. But there’s a part of her that wants to be back inside, opening another bottle of wine and talking about the things she never manages to find the words for with anyone else.
She thinks back to the moment when Alfie held her hands, his eyes fixed on hers, and how she had imagined what it would feel like to be wrapped up tightly against his chest, the roughness of his beard scraping against her cheek, his strong arms clasped firmly around her back.
Just for a moment it would have been nice to be held.
Alfie switches off the lights one by one.
He can still catch the lingering trace of Tilly’s perfume and the smell he’s come to know as her – apples and tea and a touch of vanilla. All he can think about is the feeling of her skin beneath his hands.
It took all his strength not to reach out a thumb to wipe away the tear that made a trail down her pale cheek, and to stop himself from pulling her soft body into his arms. He had so nearly leant forward, bridging the gap between them, but he managed to stop himself at the last moment.
Because despite the way she makes him feel – safe and calm and like his worries about the future don’t exist for a moment – Alfie knows she is not his to hold, and that his will never be the arms she wants around her.