The Bookshop on the Corner (19 page)

She was amazed, truly, by how much she wanted the Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After to work now that she had seen it could,
now that she knew there were people—people everywhere—who cared about and loved books as much as she did. How on earth would she build her stock up?

She saw it on the tree before she got to it. It was high up; if you weren't specifically looking for it and didn't already know the exact—and slightly sickly—tree, you might never have seen it, even if your feet had led you almost without your knowledge all the way to the train crossing.

It was a stone-colored cloth bag, rough, with a square bottom, carefully thrown over a branch with a counterweighted rope; the train would barely have had to slow down.

She shinnied carefully up the tree, mindful of what Lennox had said about it, and peered inside the bag. It was utterly overflowing with wildflowers: sharp yellow gorse, bluebells and daffodils, lily of the valley and baby's breath. It was glorious. Without allowing herself to think about what she was doing, she tied the bag with the shortbread and a book around the tip of the branch. If they slowed the train, they ought to be able to simply lift it down, or fish it off.

She slipped back down the tree again. It was definitely getting darker now. She plunged her face into the bag of flowers and inhaled. There was plenty of lavender deep down in there, and rich thick heather, as well as the lighter, sweeter tinkling smells of the bluebells. It was heaven, and she swung the bag all the way back home.

Lennox was sitting on a bench outside the farmhouse in the nearly faded light. She didn't quite catch what he was doing at first, and merely nodded at him. He grunted back in response.
She focused closer. He appeared to be . . . She smiled, unable to help herself.

“He looks just like you,” she said.

Lennox looked up again from where he was feeding the tiny lamb with a baby's bottle.

“Think dead lambs are funny, do you?” he grunted back.

Nina rolled her eyes. “You're the one always telling me to wake up to the realities of farming,” she said. “What's up with him, then?”

Lennox looked down, an uncharacteristically gentle look on his face. “His mam didn't want him. Happens sometimes.”

“Why not? Did she have another lamb?”

“No, just him. They get rejected. Not all mothers want their bairns.”

“So you've adopted him?” she said.

Lennox shrugged. “Neh, just doing the night shift when the boys have gone home.”

“Work never ends as a farmer,” said Nina, genuinely impressed.

“Neh,” said Lennox. “It don't. So you been off seeing someone?”

Nina allowed herself just for a moment to think about the long tinge of Marek's eyelashes on his high cheekbones. “And no. Too early.”

Lennox put down the lamb, who scampered back into the kennel where he was obviously sleeping with Parsley.

“Not for me,” he said shortly. “Think I'll turn in. Good night.”

And Nina carried on toward the barn, and barely woke even when Surinder came in, extremely late and rather inebriated, giggling loudly and telling someone to be quiet.

Y
ou've got your head in the clouds,” said Surinder.

Nina gave her a look. “Well, you've got your bum in the bed, so I have to look somewhere.”

Somewhere along the line, Surinder's mini-break had turned into a massive leave of absence. The weather, completely unusually for Scotland—if the jackets people carried nervously everywhere were anything to go by—had turned unutterably beautiful: clear blue skies, with the occasional high white clouds scudding along like galloping lambs.

Nina had, true to her word, not done anything, hadn't contacted Marek or asked him for any favors at all.

The books had arrived regardless.

Griffin had independently arranged with Marek to send up stock from the latest library to close, adding an invoice for the small fee and a slightly poignant note saying that if she was short of staff at any point to get in touch as the overgrown children he had to work with were all driving him absolutely crackers. He
really wanted to be working with books again rather than trying to stop kids from getting around the library security system to access large amounts of pornography, which appeared to be something of a full-time job.

Marek had simply placed the books by the side of the railway line, Jim had alerted her by e-mail, and she'd picked them up in the morning.

“You're a book-smuggling operation,” Surinder observed. “This isn't right at all. If the police track him down . . . What about when the railway realizes he's stopping all the time? If he loses his job? Will it all be fun and games then?”

Every single box had come with a little something from Marek on it: a joke, a poem, even a lovely drawing of a dog. And every day, when Nina had finished tending to the book hungry of Lanchish Down or Felbright Water or Louwithness or Cardenbie or Braefoot or Tewkes or Donibristle or Balwearie—where she would park the van and serve up the hottest romances, the grimmest crimefests or the latest, goriest Japanese serial-killer series (as always, going to the mildest-mannered-looking of people; in Nina's experience, the more sensibly dressed the person, the more unutterably depraved they liked their fiction; no doubt there was a cosmic balance in it somewhere)—she would unpack some more.

She also sold a lot of copies of
The Hamlet Cookbook
, written by a woman who had moved to a tiny island in the Hebrides and who ate nothing except what she could digest of the local grasses. There was a lot of boiling involved. But you did get thin pretty fast. Surinder could tut all she liked, but she couldn't deny that Nina was beginning to make a success of it.

Ainslee was looking as shy as ever as she unpacked the latest box, then gasped in delight.

“What?” said Nina, leaning over.

“It's a whole box of
Up on the Rooftops
,” said Ainslee. “An entire box! It's like gold!”

“Not the originals?”

“I haven't . . . I mean, there was one in my old school, but I wasn't allowed to touch it.”

“Oh goodness,” said Nina. “Oh goodness, they can't have known what they had. Otherwise they could have sold them.”

“But you bought them,” said Ainslee.

“I bought a hundred boxes, sight unseen, library closure clearance,” said Nina. “You don't really know what you're going to get. But this . . . this is treasure.”

It was a clutch of hardback first editions of the famous book about three children who had to cross London without touching the ground; the books had inlaid binding, golden covers, and numerous exquisite line drawings.

“Oh my word,” said Nina, bending down. “Shall we just close the doors and sit down and read our favorite parts to each other all afternoon?”

“AINSLEE?” came a voice outside the van. They both looked around.

“Who's that?”

“No one,” said Ainslee, scowling. “Can we shut the doors?”

“Not really,” said Nina, going forward.

“AINSLEE!”

“NOT NOW, BEN!” yelled back Ainslee suddenly, louder than Nina had expected. “I'M BUSY. GO AWAY.”

Nina hurried down the steps. Standing at the bottom was possibly the dirtiest little boy she had ever seen. His hair had obviously been cut with kitchen scissors. His cheeks were sticky, his fingernails black.

“Hello,” Nina said. The child, who looked to be around eight, scowled back at her.

“AINSLEE! I WANT BREAKFAST!”

Ainslee came out scowling. “I told you not to come here.”

“There's no breakfast!”

“I left some custard creams in the side cupboard.”

“I ate them yesterday.”

“Well, that's your fault, isn't it?”

The boy screwed up his face as if he was going to cry.

“Is this your . . . brother?” said Nina, not wanting to sound nosy or interfering.

Ainslee had started coming in mornings before school and Nina had started to pay her a small wage.

“Aye,” said Ainslee. She reluctantly took out the wages Nina had given her the day before.

“Can I go to the bakers?”

“Aye, but don't come back.”

Nina didn't say anything, in case what she said was wrong, but she didn't like the look of this at all.

“Where's your mum?” she said gently.

Ben looked at her rudely. “Shut up,” he said, and snatched the money out of Ainslee's hand.

Ainslee turned back to unpacking the books, her face closed up and inscrutable, daring Nina to say something, so Nina didn't, and instead concentrated on serving one of her regulars, who only read books that took place in a postapocalyptic universe. He didn't care if it was zombies, flu, or a nuclear bomb that had taken everyone out; he only cared that there was almost nobody left to get in the way.

Nina let her eyes stray out of the van. The boy was still loi
tering in the square—they were back in Kirrinfief where Ainslee lived—chowing down on a sausage roll and staring at them. She smiled encouragingly. When the customer left, she went back to helping Ainslee with the beautiful golden editions of
Up on the Rooftops
.

Suddenly he was there again, looking over Ainslee's shoulder.

“What's that?”

“Go away,” hissed Ainslee. “I told you not to come here.”

“You can come here,” said Nina, even as Ainslee shot her a look.

“Looks boring,” said Ben. He was still staring at the cover, though: the three children, and Robert Carrier the pigeon, in his top hat, silhouetted against the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

“Off to Galleon's Reach . . . to meet the Queen of the Nethers,” said Ainslee dreamily. “Oh how I would love to be reading this for the first time.”

Nina nodded emphatically. “Every time I stopped reading it, I couldn't believe I couldn't fly.”

Ainslee nodded. “You're going to have a whole village full of kids who haven't read it.”

“Everyone still reads it, don't they?” said Nina. “Otherwise how do they know what it's like to fly?”

“No one can fly,” said Ben scornfully. He'd now taken out a packet of crisps and was eating them messily, crumbs falling onto the floor of the van. Ainslee scowled at him.

“They can in this book,” she said. “That's what you don't understand about reading, idiot.”

“What, that it's a bunch of made-up stuff?”

“You can look at it if you like,” said Nina, although she was nervous about his sticky fingers. These books were valuable.

Ben shrugged and turned his face away. “Sounds rubbish.”

“Well, it doesn't matter to you, does it? He won't go to school,” said Ainslee.

“Can't you make him?” said Nina. “Or your mum?”

“Ha! He won't listen to us!”

“Reading's for babies,” burst out Ben suddenly, his ears bright red. “It's stupid. I don't care.” And he suddenly hurled his crisp packet on the floor and disappeared out of the van, running across the square.

Ainslee sighed and shrugged. “That's all he does,” she said. “I can't help.”

Nina looked after him. “But can't the school help? That's not right.”

“They've washed their hands of him,” said Ainslee. “He won't go. My mum doesn't care. The school doesn't care; he's a ‘disruptive influence.'” She hung her head. This was a long speech for her. “And there isn't another school for five miles. I don't think anyone cares.”

“Do you want me to call social services?”

Ainslee jumped up, her face a picture of dismay. “No! Please no! You can't! They'll separate us!”

“They're very good these days,” said Nina, who'd come up against them a lot in the library service. “They're really kind and helpful. Honestly.”

Ainslee shook her head, tears gleaming in the corners of her eyes. “Please no,” she said. “Please. Please don't. Please. We're fine, really. We're okay. We're all right.” And she looked so heartbroken, Nina didn't know what to do.

Another child came in, nicely dressed and cared for, with her mother.

“Oh look!” said the mother. “I haven't seen this for years!
Up
on the Rooftops
! Wow!” Her rather tight face softened suddenly. “I loved this book so much. It made me feel like I could fly.”

The little girl looked up curiously. “Can I have it?”

“Of course, darling. We'll read it together. I think you're going to love it!”

Ainslee's face was stony as Nina took the money, the most she'd ever made on one sale.

T
he days began to take on a pattern. After Nina had finished work, she would cash out, then start planning what she was going to leave for Marek on their tree. It had developed into a full-blown flirtation. Some days she wanted to be funny, some days more serious. Some days she just wrote to him what was on her mind, and he'd write back. She realized that she hadn't written a letter for years and years, actually sat down and committed her thoughts to paper rather than pinging them off in an e-mail. She wrote more slowly, felt more deeply.

Always she remembered Marek's big puppy-dog eyes, his sweet concern for her. He wrote to her about things he missed from home, about funny things he'd seen through people's back windows. His English was broken and his spelling could be hit and miss, but he had a lovely, often curious way of expressing himself, and she understood him perfectly.

No matter how much Surinder told her it wasn't real, that she was living through a fantasy, she couldn't help it. For even with
Surinder there, and the new people she met every day at the van, she still felt rather lonely, brand new, alone up here in this little green corner at the tip of the world. Daydreaming about Marek was something to keep her warm, a lovely idea she kept in her heart all day long, thinking of things he would like, what would make him laugh, what would make a pretty parcel in a bag. One night it was a little sculpture of a bear she found for pennies in a market; another time a book of woodcut art nobody wanted; a miniature of whiskey she'd been handed as part of a promotion in one of the larger towns; some deep-scented heather. And he would drop off bags of sweets from his home country; a carved pencil she thought he might have made himself; some new handmade notepaper, which she treasured.

And then, one day, as she was wondering to herself, wandering down the lane by the meadow, how on earth it could possibly still be light at ten thirty in the evening, she opened the latest note in his familiar dark hand, written as if the pen was too small for his large paw.

Saturday
, it said simply.
No sleeper
.

Her heart began to beat faster immediately. What had been delicate, a little courtship played out in an unusual way, had suddenly changed into something far more real.

Every night, she'd gone to bed thinking about Marek, about his gentle, strange foreign ways, his unflappability. And this unexpected relationship that had somehow sprung up between them. She knew that the railway tree, ailing as it was, was just as important to him as it was to her. His notes, filled with poetry and the occasional snatches of his own language, felt to her deeply rich and romantic, and she had saved them, every one.

Nights when he was not working or there was nothing on
the tree were wholly disappointing. Nights when a bag rocked gently in the wind filled her utterly with delight.

But now . . . to meet. To be with each other in person once again. Her heart sped up in her chest with excitement.

Surinder, predictably, was unimpressed.

“What are you going to do, snog on a train? What if you get covered in coal?”

Nina swallowed hard. “Of course not. It'll just be . . . it'll just be a chance to stop and chat, that's all.”

Surinder snorted.

“Oh come ON, Soors. It's just . . . it's been so long.”

“What about Ferdie?”

“Ferdie doesn't count.”

Technically Nina's last boyfriend, Ferdie had been a faintly cadaverous poet who'd hung around the library in Birmingham after an event because she was the only person who would listen to him. They'd ended up kind of dating, although he got very upset if he didn't feel she was listening properly to his poetry, which was convincingly awful and squarely of the dead crow/I hate you, Daddy school. On the other hand, this had made it far easier to break up with him; Nina had simply indicated that she hadn't really understood the metaphors in his most recent work, entitled “All Is Black (17),” and he had flown into a rage and declared her a philistine. She'd heard that after that he'd given up the poetry, cut his hair, and taken a job in a bank in Aston, but she didn't know if that was true.

“Well, he certainly hung around my kitchen for long enough.”

“That's not a real relationship, is it? And Damien, in university.”

“Yes, you told him you were leaving him so that you could
take on the world and go out and do lots of different things, then you sat upstairs in your bedroom reading for the next eight years.”

“Well, exactly. And now I'm here, and it's all exciting and full of possibilities! You're the one always telling me to get out there and do more.”

“Yes, but not with some guy you met on a train.”

“Why not? People meet each other in all sorts of places. You met the Gus in a barn!”

“Yes, and then we hung out together and got along.”

“You use my luxury pad to screw in!”

“That's hanging out! We don't moon about and leave poetry on treetops and behave like funny little people in a story or teenagers or something.”

“Well, that's what this is about. We're going to spend some time together. Get to know each other.”

“Why doesn't he just come up during daylight hours?” said Surinder.

Nina couldn't answer that.

“See? It's because he's as hooked on the entire thing as you are. This little fantasy life you've got going where he sends you pretty flowers, which he can do as long as he likes because it's all in your heads. I'm sure it's fun and everything, but it isn't real. And neither is meeting at midnight in a freight shed.”

“It's not a freight shed. It's a train crossing. It's . . . romantic.”

Surinder rolled her eyes. “Well, good for you. The Gus is coming around and we're making a takeaway—which would be like getting a takeaway if there was anywhere to get a takeaway, which there isn't—and watching a movie.”

“Hang on, have you moved in here? With the Gus?”

“I'm on vacation,” said Surinder severely, in the same tone of voice she used every morning when the office rang to ask politely if she was considering coming back at any point.

“Are you going to find out the first part of his name?” said Nina.

“I don't feel it's very important at this juncture.”

“Okay, well try and learn it before you get married.”

They were now coming to the very height of summer. Although you still needed a jacket after the sun went down, the fields were ridiculously awash with glory: wildflowers, ripening crops; waving long grass, soaked during the long winter, and now sprouting profusely in every hedge and space it could find; an orgy of blooms and growth everywhere, the entire countryside spilling over.

It was how Nina felt herself; that after a long, long winter she too was ready to emerge, proudly casting off her old clothes, her protective coating of books and heavy tights and downcast head. She was nervous to absolute distraction, couldn't help it. And she was cross with Surinder, too; wasn't she always saying she had to live more? Stop burying herself away? Well, here she was. Going out. Into life. And a big life too, not takeaway and telly. Not listening to someone complain about the lack of opportunity for poets in Birmingham, and how misunderstood they were. This was great buckets of flowers; of poetry, real poetry; of, she truly believed, deeply held feelings. She was catching the night train.