Chapter Twenty-Six
Valentine’s Day
Annie lingered by the door, and not because the postman usually called in at this time.
Harri had decided to start packing his cases first thing, even before he’d brewed the morning coffees, so she concluded he was truly set on getting out of here. She didn’t know what was worse, the countdown running in her head ( twenty-four hours exactly ), or the methodical calm with which Harri was treating the approaching end of their time together.
‘Guessing the cinema thing will be called off?’ he shouted from his room, out of sight as Annie peered once again into the courtyard.
This drew her up. ‘Why? I thought it was a sell-out, and the weather report says it’s gonna stay dry all day.’ In fact, it had said it was going to be a ‘perfect Valentine’s Day’, but she didn’t tell him that now. He seemed to have forgotten it was the fourteenth of February.
Harri popped his head around the doorframe of his room. ‘We’ll be looking for Mrs C., I guess?’ He disappeared again. Annie heard a case drag across the floor.
Of course they would. A woman was missing and here she was waiting for a Valentine she had no idea Harri had even written, let alone mailed, and certainly not addressed to her. If anything, it had gone to Paisley, or it was somewhere in one of those cases of his, forgotten.
None of this prevented her from swooping upon the mail as it fluttered onto the mat. The postman gave a cheery wave through the glass as he went, like this was his favourite day of the year, when he was at his most appreciated. She tried to smile back in a dignified, unbothered way, before diving for the red envelope as soon as his back was turned. She pulled it to her chest. It had her name on it. She glanced back at Harri’s door. He was singing, badly, to one of his playlists. He must have headphones on, she thought, about to rip into the envelope when she saw the US frank, the airmail sticker. It wasn’t from Harri.
She toed at the pizza menu still on the mat. Would it reveal another card beneath?
‘Nope,’ she muttered under her breath. Opening the card, it read ‘Happy Galentine’s Day’. Of course, it was Cassidy returning the favour of her letter.
Inside she’d written:
See you in Arrivals. I’m bringing you to the Old Santa Fe for Galentine’s cocktails and we’re working on our battle plan for Principal Johnson. I’ve got your back this time, Cass, x
‘What you got there?’ came Harri’s voice and she swung around too quickly to think of hiding the card. Harri stared at it, then at her face. She felt frozen. Could he tell she was disappointed it was a card from her girlfriend? Did he know she’d been wishing for one from him?
He broke the silence first. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said as if to himself, before brightening. ‘So, uh… coffee?’ And he was gone, and he stayed gone, clattering around in the cafe, cleaning down the machine, making great jets of steam fill the serving area, baking one last batch of hangover buns, the original recipe, which seemed more than appropriate given the vacation hangover that was going to hit them both around about the time Annie was at thirty-thousand feet tomorrow.
Eventually Harri carried through two mugs.
‘Ooh, what did you make for me this morning? Colombian single-shot, extra froth, extra-rare…’ She was wittering, she knew it.
‘Just tea,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ She schooled her features. She’d got hooked on his coffees and wondered how she’d do without them. ‘Perfect,’ she said, and Harri was off again, working hard in the cafe, serving the early customers, all couples in the village on Valentine’s breaks.
Shortly before ten, Kit and Anjali arrived, bringing two scruffy dogs in matching harnesses.
‘Oh wow, hi! You’ve adopted some pooches, then, Kit?’ Annie was genuinely pleased to see them both, and they were holding hands too. At least some good had come out of their excruciating double date.
‘We thought we’d better pop by,’ Anjali said sweetly. ‘To say, thank you.’
‘Thank you?’ Annie echoed.
Harri stepped into the bookshop too, swinging a tea towel over his shoulder. He looked different today, Annie registered. Like a weight was off. He was dressed for spring too. Grey t-shirt, eyeglasses, dark pants.
‘Thanks for not fancying us, I guess?’ Anjali said to them both, accompanied by a nervy flutter of laughter. Kit grinned shyly by her side.
Harri looked like he wished he hadn’t come through, but Annie didn’t mind the weirdness. ‘Are you kidding me? You two are so cute; but you’re cuter together. And who’s this?’
There followed a long, involved discussion on the adoption of Danny and Sandy (not names Kit would have chosen, but what can you do?). All Annie had to do was listen and nod and pet the happy dogs. The whole time they spoke, Kit’s tattooed fingers clasped Anjali’s and they shared soppy smiles.
‘Are you helping with the search for Mrs Crocombe and Bovis today?’ Harri asked when they stopped for air.
‘We’re on our way to the Big House now. Minty’s co-ordinating efforts,’ said Kit.
‘I’ll join you up there in a bit,’ said Harri.
‘Anyway,’ said Anjali, ‘we just wanted to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day.’
‘And we hope you both get home safe,’ Kit said, already finishing their girlfriend’s sentences.
‘It was great meeting you,’ Annie said, her cheeks hurting from smiling, and they were gone.
Harri fled back to the cafe in an instant.
William hadn’t come up to the shop today, Annie mused. Not that he had to. It’s not like it was his job or anything, but he did seem to like it here, and where else was he going to spend his days? She shuddered at what his absence might signify. Had Jowan told him the news about his new place? Was he sad? Was he sulking? She hoped he hadn’t gone stalking off across the cliff paths like he had when he’d been lost and wandering. The last thing Clove Lore needed was another misplaced senior.
She pictured herself alone and shutting up the shop later today for the last time, when there’d be nothing left to do but pack her things, if she and Harri were going to pull their books for the display table sometime after dinner. She didn’t relish the thought of doing any of that but still, she checked in to her flight using her phone, hoping somehow it would be cancelled due to bad weather, but no such luck. It was showing as departing on time. In fact, the plane that would carry her home was already on its inward journey to England. She rubbed at her stomach to stop the queasiness.
‘Hey, Harri,’ she called. ‘Got any of those hangover buns?’
His answer, however, never met her ears. Instead, a great commotion in the courtyard drew her attention, and Patti, Austen’s girlfriend, appeared. She shoved the door open, her face a picture of delight and urgency.
‘Here,’ she shouted, out of breath, throwing something to Annie behind the counter. She caught the box out of the air, and Patti threw a second. ‘No time to explain. Just be waiting out on the slope in a few minutes. They’re on their way down. I still have half the doors to bang on…’ Leaving a cackling trail of laughter behind her, she was gone.
‘What the heck was that about?’ Harri said from the cafe doorway.
Uncomprehending, Annie looked down at the boxes of confetti in her hands.
The noise came Down-along first, before the sight of children picking their way quickly downhill surefooted on the cobbles like mountain goats. Then came the adults, all in their winter coats, unbuttoned in the mild morning air, scarves flapping, and in the middle of them all, being bumped and jostled on one of the sleds usually reserved for transporting laundry or groceries, sat the happy couple, Mr and Mrs Bovis-Crocombe, if the snatches of shouted gossip passing from open door to window were to be believed.
‘They eloped!’ Austen told Annie as she passed by, making her way a few cottages further down from the bookshop turning, to where the Ice Cream Cottage waited for the newlyweds.
Harri could only gape and shake his head. He glanced at Annie. She was tearing into her box of confetti, a huge grin on her face.
The couple drew nearer, and the crowd progressed alongside them, a great billowing cloud of confetti already in the air above their heads.
Mrs Bovis-Crocombe wore a lilac skirt suit and a boxy hat with a spray of white netting over her eyes. Bovis looked odd in a corduroy suit. They both looked very sheepish.
‘Three cheers for the return of the happy couple!’ someone was shouting, and the hip hip hoorays rang between the cottages.
Harri spotted Bella and Finan making their way up from the pub to meet the din, and between them, William Sabine, each of them supporting his arm. He looked out of breath and fed up with making the journey Up- and Down-along.
As the couple drew nearer, Jowan emerged from the crowd. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the books, eh? Been to bloody Gretna Green, they have!’
‘No way!’ Annie thought it was fabulous.
Harri took a dimmer view. ‘The whole village was out looking for them!’ he said, surprised by how annoyed he was. Maybe it wasn’t entirely the newlyweds to blame for his mood, but it was as good an excuse as any to vent some of the frustration he’d been saddled with for the last couple of days.
‘Apparently, they wanted a quiet ceremony,’ Jowan said, his eyebrows raised.
The younger Mrs Crocombe appeared now, her arms folded across her chest. Laura didn’t seem to be in the same celebratory mood as her mother, who was blushingly responding to the building chant of ‘ kiss him, kiss him, kiss him ,’ with a slow lean towards her husband on the juddering sled, her eyes twinkling in the low winter sun.
Annie had her confetti poised for their passing and emptied the whole box over them, cheering and hollering as loud as she could. Harri held his confetti firm in his hand, unimpressed.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ he caught Laura shouting to her mother as they drew alongside them.
‘We wanted to keep it private, just us!’ the bride shouted back.
This raised a great roar of approval and laughter from the locals. It almost drowned out her daughter’s observation. ‘That’s rich!’
Annie was pulling at Harri’s t-shirt sleeve, making for him to move down the slope in the wake of the wedding sled. Reluctantly, he walked with her.
When they reached the Ice Cream Cottage, Mr Bovis helped his wife roll off the sled in a slightly ungainly way.
‘We’d no idea you’d all be so worried!’ the bride called out, standing at her gate, addressing the crowd.
It was Jowan who called back over the heads now. ‘Why wouldn’t we be? We’re all one family ’ere in Clove Lore!’
Bovis said a few apologetic, shamefaced words, and his wife wiped a tear from her eye. People snapped pictures on their phones and Izaak asked if Bovis planned on carrying his wife over the threshold.
Minty hung back, not saying anything, but Harri noted she wasn’t quite so unsmiling about the eyes as she might be, in spite of all the anxiety their disappearance had caused.
Mrs Bovis-Crocombe caused a little more furore by asking that everyone respect their newlywed privacy, and all the couples she’d brought together over the years shouted back indignant things without a hint of malice in them.
She banished the last of the grumbles by pulling a key from her lilac handbag and announcing, ‘Before this afternoon’s Valentine’s Day movie, my husband and I would be honoured if you would all join us for… free ice cream!’
The noise that went up made Harri stagger a little, and he slowly pressed his way back through the villagers, surprised to note Annie following behind him.
When they got to the turning for the bookshop, William was there waiting for them.
‘Are you coming in?’ Harri said, gesturing down the passageway.
‘I won’t, thank you. I’ve come to take my leave,’ he said, cleaning his tiny gold specs on a freshly pressed handkerchief, just another sign of how well looked after he’d been down at the Siren.
‘Ah!’ said Annie. ‘I see. What about the movie night? Are you coming to that? Whole village will be there, by all accounts.’
‘No, I’ll turn in early. Long journey on Saturday morning,’ he said stoically. ‘So…’ He put out a hand. ‘Good luck, Annwyl.’
Harri watched as they shook hands. Annie’s eyes were wet with tears. Now William was offering a hand to him. ‘I’m grateful to you for your hospitality,’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘And your friendship.’
It was Harri’s turn to well up. ‘You’ve got a place to go?’ Harri asked.
William only bowed his head, drawing his hands behind his back. Harri spotted that his pockets were stuffed, just as they had been when he arrived, with all manner of paraphernalia, tiny treasures saved from the castle. The edge of the photograph he’d taken from one of the boxes was just visible in his breast pocket with his handkerchief. A picture of him and Sir Nicholas kept close to his heart.
Annie had stepped forward, hugging William. Even though he was surprised, he chuckled and patted her shoulder. ‘There, there,’ he said.
After they left William with Bella, Harri knew Annie was crying all the way along the passage to the bookshop, but the lump in his throat stopped him saying anything. It wouldn’t help anyway. They were both solemn and silent, and Annie was already mentally on her way home, if her preparations were anything to go by. Not to mention the Valentine’s card she’d been holding this morning, not that he’d said anything about it. Who had sent it? Were they a part of her steadfast focus on getting home? There couldn’t be someone at home intent on dating her? Someone she’d not spoken of?
Annie said she didn’t feel much like bookselling and went for a lie-down upstairs.
Similarly deflated, Harri didn’t feel like making coffee. In fact, he didn’t feel like doing anything. So he shut the shop and made himself wipe down the syrup bottles and arrange them neatly on the shelves for the next Borrower-barista, his heart sinking low like the winter sun on the horizon.
So it was all over? Paisley had moved on, William had a place to stay, the castle was being sold, Mrs Crocombe and her new husband were safely home, Kit and Anjali were set to adopt every dog in the South West for the rest of their shared lives together, and he had backed himself firmly into his corner of the friend zone with Annie. That was it. Everyone else had taken great big leaps forward except for him.
Two weeks had passed in a blink. Two weeks of not knowing how to act around Annie, and in the morning she’d be hugging him goodbye like she’d hugged William, and that would be that.
What would become of them now? Was Jowan right? Had the wanting her ruined things anyway, just like he’d warned against? Had trying to preserve their friendship only thrown up his selfish, grasping, lustful feelings and repelled Annie so much that she didn’t even want to spend her last afternoon in the shop with him?
An awful desperation hit him and it wouldn’t let him go. He needed a do-over. Like when he failed his summer exams because he’d gone off to see that band with Annie. He’d been given a second chance then, a whole summer of making things right, and it had worked. That’s what he needed now.
He looked at the time on his phone. Two hours until the outdoor cinema showing. Without even knowing what he was going to do, he ran, all the way up the slope and into the Big House garden, not stopping until he found Jasper Gold amongst the deckchairs.
‘I’m going to need your help,’ Harri told him, breathlessly.