Just for the Summer

by Fay Keenan

  ‘Have you got them?’ she gasped as she burst through the door of the shop, causing the slightly knackered office worker who’d popped in for the latest Lee Child novel to glance up in surprise.

  ‘And hello to you too, Gracie!’ Harry grinned at her. ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Fine.’ Gracie rolled her eyes. ‘Dad insisted I call him when I got on the train, and every half an hour after that so he knew I was okay. It was, like, totes lame.’

  ‘He worries about you, doing the trip from your mum’s to here,’ Harry said reasonably. ‘It’s a long way for a, erm, for someone your age.’ He had been about to say little girl, but he was pretty certain that moniker would have earned another eye-roll from Gracie.

  ‘It’s not like I haven’t done it before,’ Gracie replied. ‘Ever since I turned twelve I’ve been allowed to catch the train here by myself. Dad worries too much.’

  ‘That’s his job,’ Harry said consolingly. Turning back to the counter, where the Jacqueline Wilson box set lay waiting to be collected, he got out a brown paper carrier bag and popped the books inside.

  ‘That’ll be twenty pounds, please,’ he said as Gracie hovered impatiently by the counter. She handed over the cash and he handed over the box set. ‘Enjoy.’

  ‘I will.’ Gracie beamed at him and in her excitement to get her hands on the books she suddenly looked much younger than she was.

  ‘And when you’ve finished all those, I’ve got some recommendations for you. Pop back in and we’ll see what we can find.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry,’ Gracie called over her shoulder. She was already halfway across the shop. ‘See you around.’

  ‘Bye, Gracie, say hi to your dad for me.’

  ‘I will.’ And she was gone, racing back up the High Street to meet Jack at the coffee shop.

  ‘Nice to see a child who’s not glued to her mobile phone all the time,’ the seeker of Lee Child observed as she handed over a small pile of the author’s Jack Reacher books, some new, some second-hand.

  ‘I’m sure she’s pretty keen on her phone as well as her books,’ Harry said, ‘but you’re right, it is lovely to see such enthusiasm, long may it last.’ He tapped in the prices of the books to his till and took the proffered bank card. ‘Some good choices here,’ he continued. ‘Let me know what the new one’s like. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet.’

  ‘I will.’ Taking her purchases, the customer glanced at the walls as she left. ‘Do you have any plans to refurbish the shop? I don’t think it’s had a lick of paint since the previous owner retired.’

  ‘I know,’ sighed Harry. ‘I’ve spent the past year putting it off, but I suppose I ought to just pull my finger out and get someone in to sort it out.’

  ‘Wouldn’t take long,’ the customer said. ‘Bit of a bugger moving all the bookshelves, though.’

  Harry laughed. ‘I’d be tempted just to paint around them!’

  ‘Then you definitely need to get a professional in!’ And with that, she, too, mooched out onto the High Street.

  Harry gave it another half an hour or so, and then, content that the commuters had all headed home for the evening, he began the process of cashing up. Not a bad day’s takings, he thought, for an independent bookshop in a sleepy Somerset town. Willowbury was attracting its fair share of tourists since the ruined Priory in the centre of the town had become a National Trust site, and his takings were definitely benefitting.

  Just as he was finishing up, his phone pinged with an email notification. Noticing it was from Artemis Bane’s publisher, his heart sank. Artemis was doing his book launch in a couple of weeks at Harry’s shop, and, while Harry was initially over the moon to have scooped such a big name author away from larger venues, the logistics were proving complicated. He’d already swapped several emails with them, recommending a hotel and other things for the author’s visit; what did they want now?

  Dear Harry,

  Sorry to trouble you again, but Artemis has asked if it is possible to provide an armchair for him to sit in during his talk. He would particularly appreciate one with a sprung back. I hope this will not cause too much of an issue?

  Best regards

  Eloise Padgett

  Publishing Assistant

  Harry sighed. It looked like tomorrow he’d end up blowing some of his takings on an armchair for Artemis, then. If the man hadn’t been such a huge draw, he wouldn’t have bothered, but Harry knew he’d end up selling treble figures of the latest Artemis Bane novel as a consequence of the author’s visit, so he’d have to suck it up. He’d heard so many horror stories about Artemis Bane, he wondered just how much of an ordeal this session was going to end up being. At least he had a couple of weeks to get prepared for it. Perhaps there might even be time to get the walls painted before the World’s Greatest Urban Fantasy Author (self-proclaimed) descended for the signing. Flipping the sign on the shop door to closed, he headed upstairs to his flat above the shop.

  It was only when he got through his front door that he remembered he’d agreed to meet Jack in the Travellers’ Rest pub for a drink after they’d both closed up. Then he realised that Gracie must have been on an earlier train. Sure enough, as he swiped to his texts, he saw a message from Jack sending apologies and asking for a rain check. He felt a slight pang of something he couldn’t quite identify as he thought about Jack and Gracie’s relationship. Father and daughter might live miles apart during the week, but their joy at being together was wonderful to behold. Harry felt sad for Jack that he was living so far away from his daughter, but at least with the rail links reinstalled to the West Country she was only a train ride away in one of the leafier Bristol suburbs.

  He wondered whether, if fate had had different things in store for him, he’d be changing nappies and taking toddlers to the playground now instead of working six days a week in his own bookshop. There was definitely a part of him that increasingly wondered what he’d missed out on. He’d just have to focus on the far bigger part of him that thought, actually, if he could avoid all the baby stuff and skip to the parts where children could read, he wouldn’t have minded having some of his own. He liked older kids and got on well with the teenagers who occasionally visited the shop looking for copies of the Harry Potter novels or some set text or other for school on the cheap. Pulling the door between flat and shop shut for the evening, he went into his kitchen to begin making dinner.

  13

  Having slept the sleep of the physically exhausted after another day of decorating, Kate woke feeling refreshed enough to consider taking a quick walk into the centre of Willowbury before she began putting the first coat of paint on the living room walls. If she was feeling particularly energised, she might even head up Willowbury Hill and really blow away the dust and paper particles that she was sure were still clinging to her, despite a bath last night.

  Locking the front door behind her, she smiled as she saw Sam coming back from the direction of the town. He looked harassed.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she asked as she headed down the path from the front door.

  ‘Yes, ish,’ Sam said. ‘I was just grabbing some Haribo for Florence – she’s got these ridiculous cravings for those really sour ones at the moment – and I got a call from base. Mathias, our other pilot, has gone off sick, so they want me to get over there as soon as I can. They’re going to use the relief rota for the night shift, but I was looking forward to a bit of downtime today. I was meant to start nights tonight, but since I’m covering until seven p.m., the rotas have shifted a bit.’

  ‘That’s a bugger,’ Kate said. ‘I was going to ask if you fancied giving me a hand sloshing some paint on Aidan and Tom’s living room today.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Even if I was around, I’d have turned you down! Florence and I were going to have a crack at putting the nursery furniture together.’ He sighed. ‘Guess that’ll have to wait.’

  ‘I can give her a hand if you like, in between coats of paint,’ Kate said. ‘I’m a dab hand with a flat-pack.’
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  ‘That would be great, actually,’ Sam replied. ‘She’s been in fine health for most of this pregnancy, but the doctor warned her against doing too much now. If you could give her a bit of hand, that would help a lot.’

  ‘Consider it done,’ Kate said. ‘It’s been ages since I’ve thought about baby stuff, so it’ll be fun.’

  ‘Only you could see assembling Ikea furniture as fun!’ Sam grinned at her. ‘But each to their own, I suppose.’

  ‘What time do you have to leave?’

  ‘Pretty much now, actually. I’ll just let Florence know and then I’ll get off.’

  ‘Okay. Tell her I’m having a quick walk, then I’ll do some painting and I’ll be with her after lunch.’

  ‘Will do.’ Sam paused. ‘I know this wasn’t exactly where you thought you’d be ending up at this point, Katie, but it’s brilliant to have you close again. Even if it is only for a few weeks.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Kate felt a warm glow of pleasure. She and Sam hadn’t been close as children; as the older sister she’d always been on the sidelines when the two brothers teamed up, but she was pleased that, as adults, they’d discovered they liked spending time together. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’

  As Sam went into the house to break the news to Florence of his unexpected work shift, Kate reconsidered heading up Willowbury Hill. If she had to paint and then put furniture together, she may well need all the energy she could muster. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to stretch her legs a little bit first, though. Perhaps a walk up the High Street and a takeaway coffee from the Cosy Coffee Shop was in order. There was a bit of her that quite fancied seeing Jack again, but she’d try not to spill coffee on anyone today. She felt her face flushing as she remembered the embarrassment of that encounter – hopefully the guy was just a tourist and she wouldn’t have the horror of seeing him again.

  Willowbury in the summer was a picturesque and unique sight. Bunting was hanging from most of the shopfronts, and incense wafted from the shop doorways every time someone walked in or out. It wasn’t unusual, Kate was rapidly finding out, to see people sporting fairy wings or cloaks as they ambled up and down, with patchwork jackets and dresses also a bit of a regular thing. Bare feet in the summer seemed to be an acceptable fashion choice, too, but one Kate wouldn’t be adopting any time soon. Of course, there were enough more conventionally dressed tourists and locals wandering about, but there was a gentle air of acceptance, and no one seemed to bat an eyelid even at the more outlandishly attired people.

  As she continued up the street, she passed the charming looking bookshop that she’d driven past when she and the boys had come down for the Easter holidays. At that time, she’d been too preoccupied with other things to linger in a bookshop, but now she had a free half hour or so, she thought she’d take a look.

  The outside was a little shabby; its pale blue paintwork definitely needed a bit of a touch-up, but the large windows were spotlessly clean, and the window display of ‘Holiday Reads’ caught her eye instantly. There was a string of brightly coloured bunting draped across the top of the window, a deckchair in one corner with a copy of a Sunday Times bestselling author’s most recent hardback sitting decorously atop it, and actual sand had been scattered across the plinth behind the window, with other headlining fiction titles poked into the top of sand filled plastic buckets, their spades leaning at jaunty angles. Gratifyingly, Kate also noticed that between the more famous authors’ creations there were also titles with which she was less familiar that seemed to be from writers local to the area. Whoever owns the bookshop obviously has a creative streak, she thought as she looked through the window display into the shop itself. Glancing at her watch, she decided to take a quick look inside; perhaps she’d find a book to read while she was drinking coffee at Jack’s place.

  Kate pushed open the shop’s door and was immediately assailed by that wonderful, slightly musty old book smell that pervades places like this. However, she was pleased to see that it wasn’t just second-hand books, but also brand-new titles that could be found here. Arranged by genre, Crime and Thrillers were just to her right, Relationship Fiction to her left, and, at the back, in its own little area, was a Children’s section. The middle aisles were marked ‘General’ and at the front, just behind the window display, there was even a section for ‘Local’. The shelves were all dark wood and gleaming, not a speck of dust in sight, and the coloured spines of the books gave the place a warm and cheerful air, although Kate couldn’t help but notice, with her decorator’s eye, a large damp patch on the ceiling above the Children’s section and quite a few marks on the walls. The owner had done everything to distract from them with his or her displays and shelves, but the whole place could definitely do with a lick of paint.

  Kate had loved visiting bookshops and libraries as a child, and she felt the familiar tingle of excitement running down her spine as she spotted at least six titles she’d like to buy. Like most shoppers, most of her books came from Amazon these days, and she had a Kindle for convenience, but there was something about a real bookshop that still appealed to the bookish child in her; the girl who loved to read under the bedclothes until late into the night with a torch stolen out of one of her brothers’ rooms. Gratifyingly, she could see a couple of kids browsing the section at the back. She felt a pang as she thought about how much Corey, her eldest child, would love this place. He was as bookish as she had been, and she used to have to drag him out of places like this on the weekend shopping trips to Cambridge.

  ‘Morning!’ a cheerful voice called from the counter, which, as she turned, she realised was tucked just out of the way at the back of the shop.

  ‘Morning,’ she called back absently. The newest release from one of her favourite authors had caught her eye, and she’d reached for it just as the voice had called to her. Opening the book, she only just managed to restrain herself from taking a deep sniff of the new, crisp pages. The first paragraph grabbed her instantly, and she decided that this would be her companion for coffee this morning. She’d have to be careful not to get too sucked into it, though – she was being paid to do a job at Aidan and Tom’s house, after all.

  Browsing the shelves for a little longer, she also found a copy of Antony and Cleopatra, which she knew was one of Corey’s set texts for A Level in September, so thought she’d buy it for him, along with a fantasy novel that was on offer from one of the many tables positioned around the store. If she was wrong, she could always keep either, or both, for herself. She’d loved studying the play at school and was long overdue a reread. Finally, glancing into the children’s section, she found the latest David Walliams for Will, and then a Tom Gates novel for Tom.

  As she approached the counter, still looking at her book choices, it wasn’t until she was at the desk that she looked up. Right into the smiling face of the man she’d spilled coffee on yesterday.

  ‘Hi,’ the man said.

  Face flaming, Kate muttered a slightly less than friendly sounding greeting in return. Obviously noting the tone of her voice, the man paused before reaching out a hand for her purchases.

  ‘Some good choices here,’ he observed as he took them from her. ‘If you’re a fan of this guy, perhaps you’d think about coming to our book signing for Artemis Bane in a couple of weeks’ time?’ He was looking at the fantasy novel Kate had chosen.

  Kate, who’d been digging around in her purse for her bank card looked up briefly. ‘Artemis Bane is coming here?’ Was she imagining it, or did the guy behind the counter look faintly affronted at her tone?

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘He’s a local, raised a few streets away from here, in fact, so his publisher thought it would be nice to include this place on his book tour. We do quite a good trade, you know.’

  Now he sounded defensive as well.

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ Kate smiled. Then, by way of mitigation, she added, ‘You’ve got a great range here – I love that you sell old and new alongside each other. And that seaside window display
is great.’

  He seemed to thaw slightly at the compliment. ‘Thanks. I really enjoy putting the displays together. Although we’re a little way from the coast, here, I think the holiday reads theme still works.’

  ‘It certainly does.’ Kate nodded as he offered her a brown paper carrier bag with the name of the bookshop printed on it. ‘It got me in here, for a start! I’ll definitely be back in for another read before the end of the summer.’

  ‘Great,’ the man smiled, and then, as if realising who she was for the first time, added, ‘although if you’re holding a cup of coffee, I might give you a wide berth!’

  Kate tried to look cross, but as she looked into the bookseller’s sincere, open face, with its slightly prominent nose and deep, dark blue eyes, she couldn’t muster up the emotion, so she laughed guiltily.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Did the jacket clean up all right?’

  ‘Whipped it straight into the dry cleaners when I left Jack’s yesterday,’ he said. ‘They seemed to reckon they could do something with it.’

  ‘I’m happy to foot the bill,’ Kate said. ‘Let me have it when I come back for a new book.’

  ‘No, honestly, it’s fine.’ He regarded her again for a moment, before adding, ‘I’m Harry, by the way.’

  ‘Kate.’ She held out the hand that wasn’t clutching the brown bag of books. ‘It’s nice to meet you without having to throw coffee your way to do it.’

  ‘The same.’ Harry’s hand was dry, and warm, and as their palms touched, Kate felt a distinct flutter in her chest. Putting it down to embarrassment, she released the handshake first.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you around,’ she said as she turned towards the door.

  As Harry bade her goodbye, she again couldn’t help but notice the shabby walls and the damp ceiling of the bookshop.