‘And, in the meantime, you’ll be getting on with your wonderful new life here, won’t you?’
Callie nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A life filled with reading and writing and absolutely no men!’
Heidi groaned. ‘That sounds awful!’ she said. ‘I know it’s probably the last thing you want to hear right now, but I really think that throwing yourself into another relationship is the very best thing. Now, hear me out,’ Heidi said, raising her hand as Callie was about to interrupt her, ‘I’m not saying a new relationship has to be serious with some kind of end game in mind. Quite the contrary. I think it should be fun and frivolous. You shouldn’t think about it at all – just go for it!’
‘But that sounds so shallow and–’
‘Shallow can be very good from time to time,’ Heidi interrupted, ‘and I think your time for a bit of shallow is here and now. And Leo might just be the one to help.’
‘But isn’t that horribly unfair to him?’ Callie asked.
‘Are you kidding me? Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you? He looked like he wanted to take you to the nearest farmyard and make hay with you whilst the sun shines!’
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ she said. ‘I’m not like that. I don’t just have flings.’
‘Well, at least think about it, won’t you? Think about being kind to yourself and having a bit of fun. You really do deserve it.’
Chapter 8
Polly Prior nee Nightingale, was in her brother Sam’s shop. So far that morning, she’d made a packed lunch for Archie, hung out a wash load, done a quick repair to Archie’s school blazer which he’d caught on a bramble, walked and fed their spaniel, Dickens, and then made another packed lunch after Dickens had eaten the first one. She’d then driven their Land Rover through the narrow lanes from their village towards Castle Clare, hoping that the tractor she’d immediately got stuck behind wasn’t going to make Archie late for school.
By the time she reached the bookshop, she should have been shattered. Instead, she’d taken a deep breath, made sure that her long dark hair was still held neatly at the nape of her neck with her tortoiseshell hairgrip, made herself a cup of tea and begun work.
When her brother came down the stairs from his flat above the shop half an hour later, she’d served three customers, reorganised a shelf of paperback Penguins which had been annoying her, and had dusted the window display.
‘Sorry I’m so late,’ Sam said.
‘It’s a long commute, isn’t it?’ Polly teased.
‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘I had to make a call and it took far longer than expected.’
‘Good news?’ she asked.
‘Could be,’ he said. ‘There’s a collector who’s thinning out his shelves and wants my opinion. I’ll pop over later today.’
‘Well, I can stay until three,’ Polly said.
‘Grandpa’s coming in after lunch,’ Sam said. ‘He can cover whilst I’m out.’
Polly nodded before walking across the room to return a little pile of books which a browser had left on the library steps, to their rightful home.
‘Everything okay?’ Sam asked.
‘Of course,’ she said, putting the last of the books away. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
Sam shrugged. ‘I was worried about you on Sunday,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ she said, turning to look at him.
‘You were very quiet.’
She quickly turned her attention to the latest blockbusting thriller to have found its way into the shop. Actually, eight copies had found their way into the shop in the last month. It was the kind of fiction which folks seemed to gobble up and then discard. She ran her fingers over the gold embossed title.
‘I’m always quiet,’ she told her brother.
‘No you’re not,’ he said. ‘At least you weren’t until–’
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘We’re all worried about you,’ he said gently.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Mum took me to one side after lunch. I was hoping she wouldn’t, but there was no getting away from it.’
‘Because she cares about you.’
She nodded. ‘But I’m fine so you can all stop worrying, okay?’
‘Are you?’ Sam’s expression was so gentle and concerned that it made Polly’s eyes vibrate with tears and she really didn’t want to fall apart in the middle of the bookshop. ‘I wish you’d talk to me, Poll. We used to talk about everything, remember?’
She nodded, thinking back to how close the two of them had been growing up. As the two eldest Nightingale children, they’d formed an unbreakable bond, creating imaginary worlds together, making dens in the grounds of Campion House and sharing all the heartbreaks and the joys of growing up. Polly adored her eldest brother, but she had to admit to having kept her feelings locked away over the last few years. Perhaps it was just a part of growing up, she thought – part of life’s natural cycle. One couldn’t expect to run back to one’s family all the time, although she knew that her family was always there for her no matter how independent she thought herself and no matter how well she thought she was coping.
‘Why don’t we have a cup of tea, eh?’ he said. I want an excuse to say “Polly put the kettle on”.’
She groaned, but couldn’t help laughing too. It was a favourite family joke which nobody seemed to have grown tired of.
A few minutes later, two mugs of Earl Grey had been made, scenting the back room of the bookshop.
‘How are you coping?’ Sam said without any preamble. ‘I mean, how are you really coping?’
Polly took a long sip of tea, knowing that there was no hiding from her brother now. She felt his eyes upon her and, as much as she would have liked to have brushed him off with a flippant remark, she knew she wouldn’t get away with it.
‘I’m not really sure,’ she said honestly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I try not to think about it all. I fill my days with work, with Archie, the house, the garden. Did you know we grew patty pans and marrows this year? There are masses of them. You’ll have to take some from us. We’ll never eat them all ourselves.’
‘Polly,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about marrows. I want to talk about you.’
‘I know,’ she said, taking another sip of tea.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘What do you expect to be happening? He’s been forgotten. Nobody’s interested in what’s happened to him now.’
‘Did anybody get in touch with you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I got the usual anniversary phone call but nobody knows anything new.’
Sam shook his head. ‘I can’t believe nobody’s doing anything.’
‘They’ve done all they can,’ Polly said. ‘What more is there to do?’
He frowned at her. ‘You sound as if you’ve given up.’
‘What else can I do?’ she said, her voice hollow and helpless. ‘I feel like I’m in a strange sort of limbo where I can’t move on. I sometimes wish that–’ she stopped.
‘What?’
‘I can’t say it. It’s too awful.’
‘Tell me,’ Sam said. ‘You can tell me anything.’
She looked at him, his eyes wide with concern and she knew that she could, indeed, tell him anything and so she did.
‘I sometimes wish that they’d find his body,’ she said in a hushed tone. ‘Then, at least, I could move on.’
‘Oh, Polly.’ Sam reached out a hand and held hers. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’
‘But you do so much already.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘This job. I don’t know what I would have done without it.’
‘But that’s nothing.’
‘It’s everything,’ she told him. ‘I would’ve gone out of my mind without it. The thought of being in the house on my own all day when Archie’s at school.’ She shook her head. ‘Th
e evening’s are bad enough when he’s gone to bed.’
‘You should call me,’ Sam said.
‘I can’t call you every night,’ she said.
‘Yes you can,’ he said. ‘Of course you can. You know that.’ There was a pause. ‘How’s Archie coping?’
‘He’s fine. He doesn’t know about the anniversaries. He doesn’t even know when his dad’s birthday was. He was so young when it all happened,’ she said. ‘He occasionally asks me questions and I’ll say something vague and then feel guilt-ridden the rest of the day because I can’t bear to tell him the truth.’
‘So he still thinks Sean is working away from home?’
Polly nodded. ‘I feel terrible about lying to him, but what can I do? Tell him that his father’s missing? That he walked out of the house one day and just never returned?’
They gazed at each other, not knowing what to say
‘Listen,’ Sam said at last, ‘Antonia Jessop was in last week.’
‘Oh, she’s such a bossy boots,’ Polly said. ‘I hope she wasn’t giving you any grief.’
‘Well, just a bit, but she also said something that I’ve not been able to shake from my mind.’
‘What?’
‘She’d just got back from a holiday to her sister’s and, whilst she was there, she took part in a book club and she wanted to know why Castle Clare doesn’t have one what with all our bookshops and the festival and everything.’
‘Didn’t there used to be one?’ Polly asked. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard Aunt Bonnie talking about one.’
‘That’s what I said. Apparently, it all fell apart. Nobody took enough interest in it to keep it going.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Polly said.
Sam nodded. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
Polly watched him carefully. ‘You’re not thinking of setting one up, are you?’
‘Actually, I am.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, why not? Just think about it. We’re perfectly placed here to run one with all our bookshops and the library too. It would be a great way to bring the community together during the months when the festival isn’t on.’
‘You’re really serious about this?’
Sam laughed. ‘Don’t you think it would be great?’
‘I’m just thinking of the administrative nightmare and the organisation it will take.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Sam said. ‘About that–’
‘What?’ Polly asked, immediately on her guard.
‘What you said about your evenings at home,’ Sam began hesitantly, ‘well, I was kind of hoping you might want to help me out.’
‘Sam Nightingale – that is so like you to think up a brilliant project and then hand all the work over to somebody else.’
‘That is not so like me,’ he protested, making her smile.
‘So what did you have in mind?’
He shrugged. ‘I just thought you could do a bit of research about book clubs, see what sort of ideas you can come up with, how often we should run them and the sort of things we could discuss at meetings.’
‘Like whether or not Antonia Jessop is going to be in charge?’ Polly said raising an eyebrow.
‘She is most definitely not going to be in charge,’ Sam said sternly.
‘I’m very glad to hear it. She’d totally take over everything,’ Polly said. ‘So, are you going to hold meetings here?’
‘Yes. To begin with at least. It’s pretty central and we have the kitchen and plenty of seating available if I bring some chairs from upstairs. We can always borrow more chairs from the village hall if it’s really popular.’
Polly grinned at his enthusiasm.
‘It’s good to see you smile,’ he told her. ‘There hasn’t been enough of that lately.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘So, are you going to help me with this?’
Polly cast her eyes to the ceiling, delaying her response.
‘Polleeee?’
‘Of course I’ll help you, you oaf!’ she finally said.
‘Good!’ he said.
‘As long as I get to choose a book.’
‘That seems fair although I’ve already planned the first choice.’
‘Oh, you have, have you?’
‘Far from the Madding Crowd.’
‘You and Thomas Hardy!’ Polly said. ‘I really can’t understand what you and Dad see in him.’
‘Then you’d better enrol in the book club and find out!’ he said with a wink.
It was with mixed feelings that Callie saw Heidi leave. On the one hand, she was glad not to be living under her close scrutiny but, on the other, it was like saying goodbye to her past all over again. Heidi was heading back to the place Callie had once called home and she was left on her own in a rural village where she didn’t really know anyone.
She shook her head. There was no need to get all maudlin. No need at all, she told herself. She was blissfully happy in her little cottage and she had chosen to leave London.
‘And I know several people,’ she said, thinking about the new neighbours she’d made friends with and Leo Wildman and Sam and Josh Nightingale.
She thought about the strange way that Leo had just turned up on her doorstep with his rabbit pie, taking over her kitchen and chatting away about gooseberry wine. She’d never met anyone like him before, with his slightly feral good looks and his affable manner. He’d certainly made an impression on Heidi because her friend had already texted her twice since she’d left, with teasing little messages about Callie’s ‘wild man of the woods’.
Callie couldn’t deny that it would be fun to get to know Leo better but, as her eye caught sight of the hardback adventure book she’d bought in Castle Clare, her thoughts turned to another man, Sam Nightingale, and a wave of regret washed over her as she thought about how she’d run out of his shop. She still felt awful about that but hadn’t had a chance to make things right with Heidi staying with her. But Heidi wasn’t there now, was she?
She grabbed her satchel and car keys. It was always best to do these things right away, wasn’t it? If she left it any longer, she might lose her nerve completely.
Getting into her car, she looked across the village green which was bathed in the kind of mellow autumn light that always made her stop whatever she was doing just to take it all in, but she didn’t have time to dawdle today because she was on a mission.
She was just passing the church when she was forced to brake. The Ford in front of her had come to a stop just as it was passing a Jeep on the other side of the road. Callie watched as the woman in the Ford wound her window down and proceeded to hold a conversation with the driver in the Jeep.
‘Really?’ Callie said out loud to herself, thinking how rude it was that neither of the drivers seemed to be considering her and then something occurred to her – something she remembered Mrs Morrison saying to her.
‘You’re in the country now, dear.’
Callie had been late arriving for her second viewing of Owl Cottage because she’d got stuck behind a slow moving farm vehicle, but Mrs Morrison hadn’t seemed to be worried by that.
‘You might find everything’s a little slower than what you’re used to in London.’
Callie grinned as she remembered. ‘And so it is,’ she said, watching as the Ford and the Jeep finally moved on.
It was as she was driving through the beech wood on the way in to Castle Clare that she saw an old green mud-splattered Land Rover heading towards her. It was flashing its lights at her. Callie frowned and slowed down, wondering if there was an accident up ahead but, as the Land Rover came to a stop, she saw that it was Leo Wildman.
‘Hello there!’ he called through the open window as Callie pulled up alongside him and wound her own window down. ‘I recognised your car,’ he said.
‘You did?’
He nodded and she realised that it wouldn’t be too hard for somebody who could probably identify a mushroom at ten paces to recognise a car parked outside somebody’s house.
‘
That friend of yours gone?’ he asked her.
‘Yes,’ Callie said. ‘Back to London. She was serious about you selling your produce there,’ she told him. ‘She mentioned it again before she left.’
Leo shook his head. ‘London’s not for me. Not enough puffballs for a start.’
‘Puffballs?’
He nodded. ‘It’s a massive white fungus. I’m off to a little place I know where there’s a few growing. Can’t tell you where, mind,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose.
Callie laughed. ‘Well, I’d better not delay you.’
‘Where’re you heading, then?’ he asked.
‘Just into Castle Clare.’
‘Are you around tomorrow evening?’
‘Erm–’
‘I’ll pick you up at six, okay? For a spot of dinner.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Callie said.
It was then that a car horn honked from behind and Callie realised that an irate driver was intent on moving her on.
‘Probably from London,’ she said to Leo and he laughed, his handsome face lighting up.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, driving off.
Five minutes later, Callie had parked her car in the square at Castle Clare and was sat staring ahead at the market cross in front of her. Was she doing the right thing, she wondered? Maybe it would be easier just to leave things as they were between her and Sam.
And how was that? A little voice inside Callie asked. Would it be right for Callie to let Sam go on thinking that she was a rude person who had no regard for his feelings? Did she want him to think that she didn’t want anything to do with him? That was probably the impression she’d left him with and she knew she couldn’t let him go on believing that because she wasn’t a rude person and she cared desperately that she might have hurt his feelings.
Getting out of the car, she took a deep, confidence-enhancing breath. Even if she felt like turning and running in the opposite direction as soon as she walked through the door to Nightingale’s, she had to go through with it. She was a grown-up and she owed this man an apology if nothing else.
However, as soon as she opened the shiny green door and heard the shop bell ringing above her head, Callie couldn’t help but want to hide behind the biggest atlas she could find. It was a silly idea to have come. Sam had probably forgotten all about her by now and she was making a big deal about nothing. It would be better if she left and forgot about the whole thing.
The Book Lovers Page 9