Chapter 44
‘Just a nice understated sitting room, then,’ Alfie says as the Buckingham Palace tour guide leads them and the rest of their group into the White Drawing Room, a room dripping in crystal chandeliers, ornate furniture and shining gold.
Every single surface gleams. There’s a richly decorative red rug, marble statues and a bright gold grand piano elaborately embellished with cherubs and woodland creatures.
The tour guide begins to explain the provenance of the room’s furniture, the rest of the group pressing close to listen while Tilly and Alfie linger at the back.
Tilly has dressed for the occasion in her tweed coat worn over a red floral tea dress, cream tights and blue Converse, with earrings made from doll’s house teapots she found at a charity shop and fashioned into jewellery.
Alfie is in one of his usual chunky-knit jumpers, this time rust brown, but worn with dark indigo jeans that actually fit him and look brand new.
Tilly keeps wanting to tell him how nice he looks but holds back, deciding it would probably mortify him.
‘Yes, I can see they went for a muted, minimalist look in here,’ she whispers.
‘I like the subtlety. They could have painted the floor gold as well as the walls and ceilings but they clearly thought, no, that would be too much and restrained themselves.’
‘I can just imagine Camilla curled up on that gold sofa to eat a Nando’s.’
Alfie lets out a snort and the tour guide shoots them a look. Tilly watches as he struggles to compose himself, feeling a thrill at having broken his ever-polite demeanour.
‘I think this is my favourite bit,’ Tilly says later as she takes a breath of the autumn air, having been led out into the gardens.
She can easily picture stretching out on the grass with a book in the summer. For a second, she imagines Alfie doing the same, perhaps with his long limbs sprawling out of a hammock. The sun picks out the auburn in his hair as he looks up at the sky, his eyes closing, his long dark lashes dipping.
‘I agree,’ he replies. ‘It’s just a shame they didn’t show us the library, I’m sure with all those rooms they must have one. What do you think King Charles likes to read?’
‘Whodunnits?’
‘Rom-coms?’
‘Self-help?’
‘Westerns?’
‘Oh, I know,’ Tilly says, clicking her fingers together. ‘Celebrity memoirs. Maybe he’s read some of the ones I used to publish. The inspiring stories of TikTok stars’ rise to fame. I bet he’d really go for that.’
Alfie laughs again, throwing his head back, and Tilly feels the sound vibrate through her entire body.
Is this what it feels like to feel … relaxed?
It has been so long since Alfie took a day off that he almost doesn’t recognize the feeling as he walks along the South Bank, the river Thames flowing on one side and Tilly strolling on the other, swinging her arms and looking around animatedly as though they really are tourists.
‘Ooh, can we stop here a minute?’ she says as they spot tables overloaded with second-hand books, beneath a bridge.
It is cool and damp here, the air smelling of river and old books.
‘Do you even have to ask?’
They split up, Tilly heading for the classic novels and Alfie lingering at the travel books. He spots a tattered guide to Mexico, noting how well used the book looks, pages folded down and stained in places. Exactly how travel books should look – unlike the pristine ones in his collection at home.
‘You know, you could actually go to some of these places instead of just reading about them,’ says Tilly, appearing at his side.
‘You’re forgetting I run a bookshop …’
For a few hours he had even managed to forget about it too. But his anxieties come rushing back. He puts down the book and steps away from the stand.
‘You left Prudence and Blue in charge today.’
‘That’s just one day. I couldn’t go away for longer than that.’
‘Prudence and Blue seem pretty capable. Don’t you trust them?’
‘They are capable and I do trust them, that’s not the issue. It’s just I’m the one who is ultimately responsible. I don’t think I could switch off even if I did go away. The shop is always on my mind. What would be the point in travelling when, in my mind, I’d still be in the shop?’
‘I get that …’ says Tilly.
The path is busy with people out enjoying the autumn sunshine, wrapped up in coats and scarves against the cold breeze that rushes in from the river. They sidestep around a family with pushchairs and are nudged momentarily closer together.
‘… but it’s so much easier to stay in touch these days. You could go away and still check in with the shop from afar.’
‘Just drop it, OK?’ His eyes flash, his hands clenching in his pockets, but as soon as he sees her flinch he relaxes his fists, letting out a breath. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.’
‘It’s OK. I know nothing about running a business. I shouldn’t have overstepped.’
‘It’s not that. I suppose it’s a fair question. It’s just …’ She’s looking at him so intently that the words for some reason spill out of him. ‘It’s exactly what Freya used to say, and I guess I just find it a bit … triggering.’
‘Freya?’
‘My ex,’ he replies, flashing her a quick glance. ‘We got together at uni. She was with me when I got the call from my mum about Dad.’
It was years ago but that day still feels so vivid in his mind. He knew as soon as he heard his mother’s voice wobble, then break, as she said his name on the phone that his life had changed forever.
‘I didn’t realize you were with someone at the time.’
Alfie nods.
They have reached the iconic brick building of the Oxo tower and he veers off from the path, heading for a pier that juts out over the river.
Tilly follows until they are stood side by side at the very end of the jetty, Tilly hugging her coat tightly to her, wisps of ginger hair flying like ribbons in the wind.
Below them people beachcomb on the rocky shore and boats cruise up and down the river.
‘What happened?’ Tilly asks.
‘One moment I was on the beach with Freya, about to go to a bar for cocktails, and the next I was in a taxi to the airport, madly trying to find myself a seat on the next plane to London.’
‘Freya didn’t come with you?’
Alfie stiffens. ‘No. She stayed. I thought it was just until she could arrange a reasonable flight back and cancel our arrangements for the next couple of months. She said she’d sort everything while I was gone and then join me.’
‘Please tell me she actually came … Your dad had just died.’
‘She came back for the funeral.’ He remembers how relieved he was to see her.
He’d been holding it together for his mum and sister, taking care of the organization of the funeral and all the logistics that suddenly needed to happen.
He threw himself into looking after everything and everyone, but when he met Freya off the plane he finally let himself collapse, falling into her arms and crying for the first time since that phone call.
‘At first it was so good to see her. I felt like maybe I could face it all with her there. That we could face it together. But then I started talking about what was going to happen to the bookshop … and everything changed.’
‘She wasn’t keen on the thought of you taking over?’
‘I thought she understood. She seemed supportive. But a week after the funeral, she told me she’d booked her flight and she’d be heading back to India, picking up the trip where we left off.
She wanted me to come with her. But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t just close the bookshop for a year while I went travelling. So I stayed. And Freya went.’
Tilly’s hand grips Alfie’s sleeve.
‘That’s awful, I’m sorry, Alfie.’
He shakes his head. ‘The crazy thing is, I’d even been planning to propose. I had the ring and everything, stashed in the bottom of my backpack. Looking back now, it seems ridiculous. We were so young. But I thought I’d found it.’
He lets out a breath, trying to imagine being that …
optimistic. He’s not the same person who packed for that trip, hiding the jewellery box containing the gold band with the tiny diamond that he’d bought with three years’ worth of tips from working in the student union bar, stashing it into a balled-up pair of socks.
‘I was an idiot.’
He laughs but the sound falls flat. He can feel Tilly beside him, the warmth of her shoulder pressing up against his, the feel of her hand on his arm.
‘No.’ Her grip tightens. ‘A romantic, maybe. But not an idiot. Never that.’
He swallows hard, trying to fight the urge to place his hand on top of hers, wrapping their fingers together.
‘As the final perfect bow to wrap up the whole shit show, about a month after I left, Freya met someone else. For the rest of the year I had to see photos of them together, going on the trip that I’d planned. That we were supposed to take together.’
Tilly winces.
‘You should have blocked her.’
‘Ah,’ he says, turning around now so that he is facing Tilly, his back against the railing. ‘But that would have been the act of a sane person. I was not sane. Not back then.’
‘You were grieving. Grief makes everyone go a bit insane. At least it’s made me feel that way. And what she did was really shitty.’
The sun illuminates her pale face, picking out the green in her eyes.
‘You’re probably right. But I think that’s why I get defensive when it comes to the bookshop. I don’t want to say I’ve sacrificed a lot, because it didn’t feel like a sacrifice. It felt like the only thing to do. The shop … it just means a lot to me.’
‘I can tell,’ says Tilly. ‘I felt it, back when I came in for my first book, even if I was too blinkered by grief to really appreciate it. There’s this atmosphere in the shop, a sense of care and thought.
You can tell how much work you’ve put into making the shop a haven for everyone.
Your dad would be so proud of you, Alfie. ’
She blinks up at him, her face so open and lovely that Alfie has to look away. It suddenly feels hard to breathe.
‘Shall we keep walking?’