Chapter 55
Primrose Hill is dressed for Christmas. Lights are strung between the buildings and little fir trees line the pavements.
Tilly winds her scarf tighter around her neck as she passes the greengrocer’s and plant shop where she bought a potted tree at the weekend, decorating it with Joe’s decorations and a new one she made last week – a letter ‘J’ crocheted in red wool.
She walks past the bakery, breathing in the smell of cinnamon and hot chocolate as people queue for pains au chocolat, cinnamon swirls and freshly baked mince pies.
At the florist’s the buckets of red roses that sit among branches of holly and pine make Tilly think back to Harper’s wedding.
Harper sent photos yesterday of her and Raj surrounded by monkeys on their honeymoon in Thailand.
They will be back just before Christmas, which Tilly has insisted on hosting in her flat, even if it will mean sitting elbow to elbow around the tiny dining table.
She wants to make the most of one last Christmas there.
She continues down the street towards the bookshop, ready to collect her final book of the year and to talk to Alfie.
They haven’t seen each other since the wedding, Alfie busy with the pre-Christmas rush.
She wants to tell him her news in person, even if she isn’t certain how he will react.
But when she approaches the red shopfront of Book Lane she stops, staring at the red banner strung across the window.
CLOSING DOWN SALE
EVERYTHING MUST GO
Her heart clenches and her breath catches in her throat. There are ‘sale’ stickers on all the books in the window and a sign taped to the glass.
Dear customers,
It is with regret that we have to inform you that, after twenty-one years, Book Lane will be closing at the end of the month.
Thank you for your loyalty over the years.
Our final trading day will be 24th December.
Alfie Lane
Owner
Book Lane
Tilly pushes the door, the bell jangling cheerfully, jarringly at odds with her mood.
‘Alfie?’
Prudence and Blue look up from the counter where Prudence is on the computer and Blue is wrestling with a sheet of brown paper and a roll of tape. She places the paper down on the table and lets out a sigh.
‘I can never get the corners neat like Alfie does.’
‘Where is he?’
Tilly glances around the shop, noticing more ‘sale’ signs dotted around among the books. ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ plays over the speakers and Georgette sleeps in a corner, oblivious.
The words from the notice roll around in Tilly’s mind. Closing at the end of the month.
Prudence and Blue glance at each other. ‘He’s not here.’
‘I take it you saw the sign?’ Prudence asks.
‘Yes. I can’t quite believe it. I mean, I knew the shop was in trouble, but everything’s been going so well. The crowdfunder, all the new orders …’
‘We can’t believe it either. But despite how well it’s been going, it wasn’t enough. I think it’s hit him hard. He’s asked us to look after the shop until the twenty-fourth.’
Tilly tenses. ‘He’s not coming back in?’
Blue shakes her head sadly. ‘We tried to convince him that people would want to see him, but I’m not sure he could face it.
We figured looking after the shop for the next few weeks for him was the least we could do.
I’ve loved working here. He’s always given me flexibility if I need to go off for auditions. ’
‘I don’t know what I would have done without this job,’ says Prudence.
‘I felt completely lost after my teaching career ended. When I was forced out of my job, to be more accurate. I tried not working, but I hated it. It was like I’d stopped being a part of things.
Like I’d given up. Or like the world had given up on me.
I doubt anyone else will hire me now. Not at my age. ’
‘Which is fifty something?’ Tilly says, attempting a smile.
Prudence smiles back, but it’s clear that her heart isn’t really in it. ‘It’s the end of an era, that’s for sure.’
Overhead, Michael Bublé sings about holly and carols, and they can hear the faint hum of Georgette’s snores. The door opens, the bell tinkling as a woman in a black puffer coat steps inside, looking around her.
‘Is it true? Is the shop really closing?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ says Prudence.
‘Oh, that’s such a shame. I love it in here. I remember coming in here when my son was a newborn. I was having an awful day and just needed to get out of the house. A man who worked here rocked my pram while I browsed.’
‘That would have been Alfie.’
‘Well, I really appreciated it. It was the first ten minutes I’d had to myself in weeks.’
Tilly is in no rush to leave the shop, hoping that Alfie might change his mind and show up.
Throughout the rest of the morning more customers come in, bringing their stories with them: about the recommendations that helped them through a difficult time, or how they were always encouraged to browse and read for as long as they liked.
So many of the stories mention Alfie. A book he chose, or went out of his way to find, but also his patience in listening to the stories that seem to just spill out when you’re in a bookshop.
During a momentary lull, when it’s just the three of them in the shop again (or four, if you count Georgette who is now awake and playing with a roll of Sellotape on the floor), Blue jumps up from where she’s been leaning against the counter.
‘Your book, Tilly! I can’t believe we forgot. That’s what you came in for. Let me go and get it, I think I know where Alfie put it … Ah, here it is.’
She hands over a brown paper parcel tied with a Christmas-tree-green ribbon.
‘Here you go. Quite a big moment. The last book.’
Tilly grips it tightly, trying to keep her hands from shaking.
‘Are you doing OK?’ asks Prudence, placing a warm hand on Tilly’s shoulder.
Tilly nods, slipping the book into her satchel. ‘Yes, thanks. I’m OK.’
The bell rings as the door opens again.
‘Is the shop really closing down?’ says a wide-eyed teenager dressed head to toe in black, who looks quite a lot like they might burst into tears.
‘I can’t stand this!’ says Tilly once the teenager has left, sniffing and with a stack of novels tucked under their arm.
Whatever might have happened between her and Alfie, the thought of the shop closing feels just too much to bear.
‘I know,’ says Blue. ‘It’s awful.’
Prudence glances at them. ‘There’s something I want to show you both …’ She reaches under the counter and lifts out a large leather-bound book, dropping it with a thud.
‘Alfie’s book!’ Blue exclaims. ‘You didn’t look, did you, Pru? He’s always so secretive about it.’
‘I couldn’t help myself! I wondered whether there might be something in here that could help us. Look …’
Prudence lifts the cover, letting the book fall open on a random page. Tilly sees pages of tightly packed, handwritten notes – a mix of two different types of handwriting, one large and looping, and the other smaller and more tightly spaced.
Mr Theo Manning – likes natural history and non-fiction. Does not like novels. Favourite book: The Salt Path, Raynor Winn
Miss Cleo Martin – likes books with strong female leads and magic. Favourite book: Amari and the Night Brothers, B. B. Alston
Alongside the notes are contact details and lists of books they have bought.
‘It’s a record of all the Book Lane customers,’ Tilly says.
Blue peers closer, running a finger along the page. ‘Some of this looks like Alfie’s writing but a lot of this must have been written by his father.’
‘I imagine it’s how he managed to keep things running so smoothly when he took over,’ says Prudence. ‘It’s like the bookshop bible.’
Tilly flicks through a few more pages, skimming over the painstakingly recorded notes detailing hundreds of customers with completely unique reading tastes.
How many of these customers’ lives have been altered by the books they bought here?
She turns quickly towards the middle of the book until she finds ‘N’: Matilda Nightingale.
There is a list of all the books Joe ordered for her, as well as everything she has bought herself this year.
As well as the books there are a few notes.
Likes cats and Yorkshire tea, crafting and running (sometimes). Does not like camping. Favourite food: pasta.
A smile creeps across her face. Flicking further through the book, she notices something poking out at the back and pulls out a handful of photographs.
‘Oh wow. Blue, Prudence, look at these.’
There is the photograph that Alfie showed Tilly on his phone – the one of his father stood in the middle of the bookshop holding a stack of books – but there are more too.
There’s one that must be Book Lane’s first day, a red ribbon tied across the door and Alfie’s father beaming at the camera, joyfully holding the hand of a tiny woman who could only be Alfie’s mother.
And there’s one that makes Tilly’s heart tighten: Alfie’s father holding the shop ladder at the bottom, two children stood on the rungs above, laughing at the camera.
A young girl with pigtails, and there on the rung above, with a gap-toothed smile and hair that is just as messy as Tilly is used to seeing it now, Alfie.
He is wearing a jumper with a dinosaur on the front that is a little too short for him.
His face is lit up with an open, carefree smile, his eyes squeezed half-shut.
Looking at the photo, she aches for the little boy laughing at the camera, confident that his dad’s hands are firmly on the bottom of the ladder, steadying him.
‘Oh, Alfie!’ says Blue. ‘He was so cute!’
Tilly swallows hard.
‘So, what are we going to do, then?’
‘What do you mean?’ Prudence asks, looking up from the photos.
Blue is staring at Tilly too, her expression questioning.
‘I mean,’ Tilly says, more firmly this time, ‘what are we going to do about the bookshop? Because it can’t end like this, can it?’
After everything the bookshop has given her, she isn’t going to give up without a fight.
And after everything Alfie has done for her … well, maybe this is something she can do for him.