Chapter 25
Desperate to find a way to give her aunt some sort of nest egg in a dire financial situation, Jules was relieved at Robert’s
findings but then disconcerted when Flo’s response to their news from Exeter was lukewarm.
“I actually think I’d like to keep it,” she announced, when Charlie explored the idea that it might go to auction. “I honestly
can’t imagine what interest a scruffy old notebook will attract, even if it did belong to the last witch executed in England,”
she declared. “And Bridget was a relative. I’d feel odd about it going out of the family. Of course, it’ll come to you one
day,” she told Jules. “You can do what you like with it then, naturally.”
Sitting in her little window seat a couple of nights later, with an insomniac’s mug of hot milk—pressed on her by Flo—in her hand, Jules pondered on Flo’s words.
She had, eventually, agreed with Charlie’s suggestion that they at least take it to London’s Rare Book Fair at the end of the month, just to get an opinion from the Sotheby’s representative there.
A redoubtable man called Richard Davenport, the unopposed leader in his field, had already agreed to meet Charlie for a quick chat.
The trouble was, now Jules wondered if Flo had been guilt-tripped into it.
She knew that Charlie was desperate to get a foothold in the antiquarian book world, and he was canny enough to see how the grimoire might serve as a professional introduction for him.
After all, there would be nothing more Capelthorne’s could do for Charlie soon.
He would be back out on a limb, just like the rest of them.
Worried about Charlie as she was, Jules was mostly worried about doing her best for Flo. Usually buoyant and irrepressibly
positive, Flo seemed weary. She was going along with Jules’s heartbreaking job of wrapping up the business slowly and clearing
through her possessions in the flat with a kind of hopeless acceptance that worried her young niece. Giving in wasn’t Aunt
Flo’s style. But perhaps it was age catching up with her at last. She was in her mid-eighties, after all. A quiet retirement
in Middlemass, sharing Maggie’s cottage by the village pond and telephone box library might be the best thing for her now.
It had been put to Maggie, with the predictably negative—but grudging—response both Jules and Flo had expected. There was
a considerable question mark over Merlin’s future, though. Maggie was emphatically and consistently against pets—any pets—but
particularly cats, which she had suddenly claimed she was allergic to.
This was news to Jules and Flo.
“Also, he’s old and smelly,” Maggie had insisted. “And he’s never liked me. I think he should be put down.”
Jules had to demure at that. “Exterminating someone for not liking you might be a bit much,” she reasoned, thinking that,
on those grounds, most of her mother’s acquaintances should be quite worried.
The thought of being separated from Merlin had uncharacteristically reduced brave Aunt Flo to tears.
Jules had discovered her silently weeping with Merlin in her lap one evening.
She had cried then herself too, but, thank goodness, lovely Diana had swept in, insisting that Merlin would come to live with her and Mungo, and that Flo would see him all the time—every day if she liked—because she was personally going to be finding myriad ways to keep Flo busy.
There were plans for her to join the bridge club, the Portneath Symphony Choir, the Ramblers, and the churchyard working group.
She would have not a single minute to miss the shop, and all would be well, Diana insisted.
This was some comfort to Jules, but for herself, the future was a yawning wasteland. Even with less than three months to go
until the shop lease ended in December, Jules was desperate to find a way to leave Portneath sooner. It felt like the only
way to dull the pain of Roman’s utter betrayal was to be as far away as possible. She hoped very much that absence did not make the heart fonder in her case.
Painful as her close proximity to Roman was, it wasn’t just needing to sort things out for Aunt Flo and Charlie that kept
Jules in Portneath. The truth was that she still had nothing to go to: no job, no home—and no one in her life to complicate
things. Roman, on her insistence, had stayed away, and Jules had been relieved, but like prodding a bruise, there was a secret,
masochistic reason for her hours spent curled up in the window seat late at night. Leaning her head wearily against the window,
she often saw the dull glow of a light in the second-floor office of Portneath Books opposite, and she knew it was Roman,
working late, perhaps battling with the same insomnia that beset her.
They were just yards apart.
It might as well be continents.
The marketing program that Jules had created in the spring trundled on, regardless of the shop’s imminent demise. Jules felt
she may as well continue with all the plans, although they no longer filled her with joy. If nothing else, they kept up footfall,
and that was a help with selling off stock.
As scheduled, Imogen turned up with her easel and paints to do her artist-in-residence week.
Jules was glad to have her company, and Imogen, being so shy, was glad to have Jules as an ally, chatting to pass the time when it was quiet and bringing endless cups of tea to sustain her when it was busier.
Imogen was also hugely sympathetic about the Roman thing, although she stopped short of declaring that he was a terrible human being, something Jules would have found helpful, even if she knew well enough it wasn’t true.
Jules concentrated instead on publicizing Imogen’s presence in the shop, delighted her new friend was gaining such a positive profile from it.
Despite the school term being well underway, there were still some older holidaymakers in town, and they were thrilled to meet the woman who created the books they read to their grandchildren with such pleasure.
Imogen signed endless copies of her Tango and Ruth series, and Jules—now generally opposed to buying in new stock—was glad she had plenty of copies on hand.
On Thursday, Jess brought in a gaggle of children from the six primary schools she worked for—these were the children chosen
for their particular talent and interest in art, and they could obviously hardly believe their luck at being out of school.
They were reticent and overwhelmed at first, but Imogen soon had them sitting around her in a semicircle with brand-new sketch
pads and pencils, learning how to draw a cat in lots of different poses, just like the Tango character in her books. Tango,
she explained to their rapt faces, was a real-life cat too, and a lively discussion ensued around the children’s pets, ranging
from a border collie called Steve to a pair of rats magnificently named Persephone and Hecate, who reportedly lived in the
hood of the child’s sweatshirt, but only when he was not in school, he explained to the women’s relief.
Jules was just distributing the tray of orange squash and biscuits that Flo had brought out when the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Imogen’s face transformed into a beam of pleasure, and Jules turned to see the reason.
Ruth, in Gabriel’s arms, was delightedly crowing, “Ma-ma-ma-ma!” and pointing at Imogen. Gabriel was looking pleased to see
her too, but when his gaze fell on Jules his expression changed.
“Jules,” he said tersely, giving her a little nod.
“Hello, Gabriel,” said Jules, trying to keep her voice neutral, suppressing the urge to ask him why he suddenly, on seeing
her, had a face like a slapped arse, whereas if anyone was entitled to look like that, it was her. “How is Roman?” she asked
coolly, determined not to accept a single atom of the blame he was quite unfairly, wordlessly blasting at her.
“Not good,” he growled, “as you might expect.”
“Well, Gabriel,” she came back at him in a singsong voice, “since you didn’t ask, he’s not the only one having a shitty, shitty time, but hey, when the Montbeau family is keen to call in a ‘debt’”—here
she did the bunny ears sign to show what she felt about the legitimacy of the “debt” in question—“which is, by the way, the
result of some random drunken card game a hundred years ago, and that ‘debt’ is apparently more important than the relationships
and livelihoods of living, breathing people, then I think we all have to accept that a few of us are going to be feeling just
a tiny bit crap.” She popped her lips on the final letter, emphasizing her disdain for the topic of the conversation.
“Roman’s a good man.”
“I. Know. That,” said Jules with icy precision.
“So why are you breaking his heart? Because you are.”
At this, Jules faltered and pressed her hand to her upper lip, which was trembling in a precursor to tears. The last thing
she wanted to do was cry in front of this unreasonable, unfeeling ape, who seemed to think this whole painful matter was her
fault.
She kept her gaze on the middle distance even as Ruth blew a raspberry and reached out to plant her little starfish hand on Jules’s face.
Jules caught it and dropped a kiss on the little girl’s palm, making her giggle delightedly.
Her soft skin was slightly sticky and smelled of vanilla.
Would she—Jules—ever have a gorgeous little girl like Ruth to call her own?
Not at this rate. For a fleeting moment she pictured herself here, in the bookshop, with a baby in her arms and Roman standing proudly over them both.
She took a shaky breath. “The last thing I want to do,” she told Gabriel, meeting his eye again, “is to upset Roman. I love
him. He knows I do. But it’s not just about us. We can’t be together. We just can’t. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”
Gabriel made to speak, but Jules held up her hand, silencing him.