‘So how’s this book going to end, then?’
‘Oh happily,’ said Marlowe. ‘Like all the best books. And it would be called … How to Find Love in a Book Shop.’
They stood holding each other, tighter than tight.
‘It sounds,’ said Emilia, ‘like the best book ever written. I shall order fifty copies at once.’
Twenty-Six
It was Christmas Eve in Peasebrook.
From early in the morning its streets were thronged. There were queues snaking out of the butcher as people came to collect their turkeys and their geese and Peasebrook Cheese had all hands on deck, handing over wheels of Cheddar and wedges of Stilton and boxes of Vacherin. A choir sang lustily around the Christmas tree in the market place. The air was crisp and cold; the blue sky filled with plump white clouds.
‘There’ll be snow before the day’s out,’ said Jem’s father, gazing up with a knowing look in his eye.
The promise of snow added a sense of urgency to the day. Eyes were bright; noses were pink; smiles were wide as people hurried through the streets to finish their errands and head home.
In Nightingale Books, Emilia hadn’t drawn breath since turning the sign to Open at nine o’clock and she’d been nearly trampled in the stampede. She had no idea how people had the nerve to wait so late to buy their presents, but she didn’t complain. They were buying with gusto. Thomasina had made gallons of mulled wine to hand out to customers as they browsed and the air hung heavy with the scent of cloves and cinnamon. She and Lauren had also made gingerbread men for any stray children to chew on while their parents shopped.
Bea was in charge of the wrapping station. Books were such a pleasure to wrap, with their satisfyingly straight edges and sharp corners, but perfectionist Bea took it to a higher level. The books were covered in the plain brown paper Julius had always used, and tied with red ribbon, then carefully stamped with Merry Christmas from Nightingale Books in one corner.
June and Emilia were kept busy helping customers with recommendations: they were easily identifiable by the red velvet elf hats Bea had made them. Emilia sold The Cat in the Hat and Enid Blyton and Thomas the Tank Engine and Flower Fairies gift books; Sherlock Holmes compendiums and gardening encyclopedias and Agatha Christie box sets; endless cookery books and biographies and atlases.
A dashing man in a navy overcoat came in needing a book recommendation for his wife. Emilia imagined a pretty woman in a beautiful Georgian house and sold him the Cazalet Chronicles, on the basis that no one she had ever met who had read them had ever disliked them.
And at four o’clock suddenly the shop was emptied as if by magic. Emilia put on her coat, shut the door and turned the key. She thought of all the books they had sold, and imagined them being opened the next morning, and people being transported as they sat on the floor surrounded by wrapping paper, or curled up on a sofa with a glass of champagne, or sitting by the fire while the chestnuts roasted.
And she turned and Marlowe was there, smiling.
‘Ready?’ he asked, and she nodded, and hooked her arm through his.
They walked up the high street towards the church as the rest of the shops in Peasebrook shut their doors. And then, in the coldness of the night air, with the crushed velvet sky above them, she saw a bright star and although she knew it was nonsense she couldn’t help feeling it might be Julius, smiling down and feeling proud of them all. And she let herself believe it was him, and she tipped her face up to the sky to smile back, and she felt an overwhelming sense of warmth and joy and belonging.
‘What are you grinning about?’ asked Marlowe.
‘I feel happy,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think I would, because this is my first Christmas without him, and of course I wish with all my heart he was here but … I feel happy.’
Marlowe put his arm round her and squeezed her into him. She didn’t need to explain that he was one of the things that made her happy, because he knew without being told, and that was one of the reasons. Marlowe always knew.
The church was bursting at the seams, but Emilia saw June’s red gloves waving at her and they wove and wormed their way past seated knees to a space near the front, whispering apologies and smiling hellos at the people around them. The Basildons were in the front row, of course: Sarah in a fur hat next to Ralph, then Alice leaning on Dillon, who was looking slightly overwhelmed at being in such a conspicuous position.
The church was as quiet as a mouse as Mick Gillespie took the lectern and read ‘Ring Out Wild Bells’, his unmistakable timbre tinged with West Cork holding the congregation rapt.
‘Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky
The flying cloud, the frosty light …’