But her trust in Ralph had gone, and she didn’t know if she would ever be able to get it back. He had risked everything he had because he was a fool, and she felt sure Peasebrook had only been spared because it was a step too far. It made her blood run cold to think of what might have happened. Her respect for him had gone, too. He was weak. And no matter how he tried to excuse it, or explain it, he just wasn’t the man she thought he was. In no way did she blame herself for what had happened. She was a good wife, and she wasn’t insecure enough to start looking for imperfections or ways in which she didn’t measure up. She bloody well did. It was Ralph who didn’t.
She didn’t share what had happened with many people. She hated gossip and speculation. She didn’t want Ralph being a public spectacle, for Alice’s sake as much as anything. Sarah was a very private person. It was a huge burden to shoulder all alone. Every now and then she longed for a friend to share the truth with, but she didn’t trust anyone. A few glasses of wine and your private business was public knowledge. She’d heard enough intimate secrets splurged at dinner parties to know that. So she kept quiet.
The first Christmas was awful. They had to tighten their belts. They didn’t send out invitations to their usual Christmas Eve party, and Sarah ended up fabricating an excuse involving a tricky and unpleasant varicose vein procedure to stop people from thinking they had been left off the guest list, because the party had become a tradition locally. She found the pretense dispiriting and exhausting, and all the excitement of Christmas was tainted. Tainted by the stupid, awful, ridiculous debt. She still didn’t understand why Ralph had felt the need, because there’d always been sufficient money, or so she thought, but when he tried to explain that gambling wasn’t driven by any logic, she got upset. And tried not to get angry.
But when there wasn’t enough money for Christmas presents, because every last penny was going into the development fund for Peasebrook, she felt resentful. All those bloody acres, she thought, and no cash in the kitty. She was determined that Alice should have what she wanted, and not have any sense of the crisis they were in, so she bought everything on her list to Father Christmas—more than she would usually—and everyone else was going to have books.
Books, after all, were her escape from the horror she had been through. At night she could curl up with Ruth Rendell or Nancy Mitford, and the stress melted away, and for a couple of hours she could be somewhere else. Reading gave her comfort.
She went into Nightingale Books. Until now, she had been working her way through the books in the library at Peasebrook, but she wanted to choose specific books for everyone in the family.
Julius Nightingale was behind the counter when she walked in, wearing a distinguished pair of half-moon glasses and peering at a catalog. She gave him a smile.
“Can I help?”
“I’ve come to do my Christmas shopping. I’m just going to have a wander round.”
“Shout if you need me.”
She saw a pile of Dick Francis novels on one of the tables and thought how in previous years she would have bought one for Ralph. Not this year, though.
As she browsed, she found the horrors of the recent past fading away. She lost herself somewhere among the shelves as she chose for her friends and family: a thick, weighty historical biography for her father, a sumptuously illustrated cookery book for her mother, The Chronicles of Narnia for Alice, the latest escapist fiction for her younger sisters, jokey books for the downstairs loo for her brothers-in-law. Choosing the books was soothing her soul.
The pile was enormous. As she handed over her debit card, she hoped there’d be enough in the account to cover it. She thought she’d probably overdone Alice’s stocking. She was definitely overcompensating. Sarah busied herself looking at a rack of Penguin classics while he processed the payment, her heart hammering.
“I’m so sorry,” said Julius. “It’s been declined. It happens a lot at Christmas,” he added kindly.
Sarah felt her cheeks burn. She was mortified. She was going to cry, she realized with horror. Thank goodness she was the only person in the shop at that moment. And then it struck her that, throughout all the turmoil and the trauma and the chaos and the fear and the panic, she hadn’t cried once. Ralph had, great sniveling, gulping sobs of self-pity, and it made her want to scream, because the whole situation could have been avoided if only he hadn’t been such a fool. He had brought it on them through his own stupidity. But Sarah wasn’t a shouter; she was a stiff-upper-lip-and-get-on-with-it sort of person who came up with solutions rather than wallowing.
Only now, suddenly, she felt as if she were six years old and the world had come crashing down around her because she’d smashed her piggy bank on the kitchen floor. She swallowed back the tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered.
“Take them anyway. You can pay me later,” Julius said, and he grinned. “I know where you live, as the Mafia say.”
“No, I can’t possibly,” said Sarah, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears.
Julius was the perfect gentleman. He made her an industrial-strength cup of tea and sat her down. And he was so understanding and so nonjudgmental that she found herself spilling out everything that had happened.
“What a horrible time you’ve had,” he sympathized.
Sarah put her face in her hands. “Please. Don’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I won’t breathe a word,” he promised solemnly. “Honestly, sometimes I feel like a priest in here. People tell me all sorts of extraordinary things. I could write a book. But I’m too busy selling them.”
In the end, he made her laugh so much that the world seemed a much better place.
“Look,” he said. “Take the books. Pay me when you can. It’s honestly no skin off my nose.”
He was so insistent that it was easier to take them than to refuse. And it gave her an excuse, a few days later when she’d managed to scrape together some cash, to go in and pay him. And she stayed nearly an hour and chatted, because the great thing was you could stay in a bookshop talking about books for as long as you liked and nobody thought it strange.
—
The books she’d chosen made Sarah’s Christmas brighter. Even the book she had chosen for Dillon, the lad she had taken on to help with the garden, went down better than she had expected. She’d given him a copy of The Secret Garden. It was a book she herself returned to time and again, and she never failed to find the story one of hope.
She wrapped it in white tissue with a dark green ribbon and gave it to him.
“You probably think this is a really weird and inappropriate present,” she told him. “But this book means the world to me. And I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing here at Peasebrook. You make me feel as if I can achieve what I want to.”
He was so polite when he opened the book. He thanked her effusively, and assured her he didn’t think it was a boring present. It was the only present he’d had that was actually wrapped. His mum and dad had got him some safety goggles and a bottle of Jägermeister.
“I wasn’t expecting anything at all from you, to be honest,” he told her.
She thought he would probably take it home and shove it away somewhere, never to be seen again. But to her surprise he came to her a few days into the new year and told her how much he’d enjoyed it.
He might have just been being polite, but the next time she went past Nightingale Books, she went in and told Julius, and he was delighted.
“It must happen to you all the time,” said Sarah. “People telling you how much a book has meant.”
“Yes,” said Julius. “It’s why I do what I do. There’s a book for everyone, even if they don’t think there is. A book that reaches in and grabs your soul.”
And he looked at her, and she felt a tug deep inside, and she thought—That’s my soul.
&nb
sp; She looked away, flustered, and then she looked back, and he was still looking at her.
She could remember every detail of that moment as she took her navy coat off the peg in the cloakroom and then tucked a silk scarf around her neck. The last one he had given her. They had always given each other scarves at Christmas. After all, no one ever questioned a new scarf the way they might a piece of jewelry, yet they were pleasingly intimate. Sarah cherished the feel of the silk against her skin, as soft and caressing as her lover’s fingers had once been.
She buttoned up her coat and walked briskly to her car.
—
Thomasina was grateful, for once, for the distraction of her unruly class. Trying to keep them in check kept her mind off the stress. They were particularly skittish today: clearly the rigors of making a béchamel sauce weren’t enough to hold their attention. They liked things they could take home and share, like pizza or muffins or sausage rolls. And béchamel sauce was tricky: difficult not to burn, even harder to get rid of the lumps. It took practice and patience, neither of which came naturally to her Year Elevens.
Her star pupil, Lauren, proffered her saucepan, showing her a glossy smooth sauce, and Thomasina smiled.
“Perfect,” she said.
The result particularly pleased her because Lauren was one of the school’s problem pupils. She’d been threatened with expulsion on more than one occasion for disruptive behavior. Lauren took bubbly to a new level. She was incapable of keeping quiet or concentrating for any length of time. Thomasina had sat in on endless staff meetings to discuss Lauren’s behavior, and had heard every teacher express exasperation.
“She’s either going to end up in prison or on the Sunday Times’ Rich List,” sighed the head.
For some reason, Lauren behaved impeccably in Thomasina’s class. She was the only member of the staff who seemed to have any influence over her. Which was odd, because Thomasina usually found people took no notice of her whatsoever.
She’d taken a risk two months before, and with the head’s permission asked Lauren if she would like a Saturday job with her at A Deux.
“Good idea,” the head agreed. “She’ll only be out shoplifting or drinking cider otherwise.”
She wasn’t stereotyping. Lauren had been cautioned for both in the past. Thomasina was surprised at how pleased she was when Lauren agreed to the job.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Help me prep. Lay the table. Make sure the glasses and plates and cutlery are spotless. Run to the shops if I need anything. And wait at the table while I do the cooking.”
“Be your bitch, you mean.” Lauren grinned.
“Well, yes,” said Thomasina. She knew she was taking a big risk, but she had seen something in Lauren the other staff had overlooked. She’d seen her concentrate while she was cooking, her total absorption in the process. Lauren wasn’t interested in the written theory, but she threw herself into the practical work with something bordering on passion, and she wanted to please Thomasina—again, something none of the other teachers had ever experienced. Thomasina wanted to capture that passion and do something with it, and giving Lauren a job out of school, where she didn’t have the rest of the class to show off to, was a step in the right direction.
Thomasina was halfway out of the classroom door when Lauren stopped her.
“Do you need me this weekend, miss?”
“Yes, please. I’ve got an anniversary dinner booked in.” She looked at Lauren. “But you know the drill. Short nails. No perfume. Hair tied back.”
Lauren came to school with glittery fake nails, her blond hair back-combed into a bouffant mane, drenched in noxious perfume.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” She looked at her nails—silver with black lightning streaks appliquéd on. “Do you know how long these take?”
“It’s nonnegotiable.” Thomasina was putting on her coat. Her stomach was churning. Why had she said yes? She was starting to hope for a natural disaster—a hurricane, perhaps? It was too early for a snowstorm. Or maybe her car wouldn’t start? It wouldn’t be her fault, then, if she didn’t turn up.
“You all right, miss?” Lauren was looking at her.
“I’m nervous about something.”
“What?”
“I promised to do a reading at a friend’s memorial.”
Thomasina couldn’t even begin to think about it. If she thought about it, she wouldn’t do it. She had the book in her bag—Remembrance of Things Past, by Proust. It had seemed obvious to her, to do the most famous literary passage about food. She had practiced it over and over and over, at home. But practicing at home was worse than useless, because there was only ever her there.
Lauren was staring at her, puzzled.
“What are you scared of? You’ll be ace, miss. Knock ’em dead.” She made a face when she realized what she had said. “Well, you know what I mean.”
Thomasina couldn’t help laughing. And she felt a little bit cheered by her pupil’s faith in her.
“Thanks, Lauren,” she said.
“That’s all right,” said Lauren. “You tell me I can do things I don’t think I can do all the time. No one minds if you mess up, that’s what you say. But you have to try.”
Thomasina was touched by Lauren’s logic. She hadn’t realized her words of encouragement went in. It gave her the courage she needed.
—
Sarah arrived at the church door just before the service was about to begin. She slipped inside and her eyes widened in surprise at the size of the congregation. She scanned the pews for a space, hoping that no one would turn and notice her. She reminded herself there was no reason for her not to be here, but nevertheless she didn’t want to be under scrutiny. There was a space next to a pillar. She wouldn’t have the greatest view, but in a way the pillar gave her protection. She sat down as the vicar stepped forward to begin his welcome.
Oh, Julius, she thought, and clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
—
Thomasina’s reading was one of the first. With terror, she read her name on the order of service and realized there was no time to back out now. On the other hand, her ordeal would be over more quickly. She was in the front row, along with the others who were doing a reading or a performance. Her heart raced, and her palms felt sweaty. She wanted to run out, but she couldn’t make a spectacle.
She turned to look at the exit. It was so tempting, to feign illness and head back up the aisle. It was a mistake to turn and look, because now she realized just how many people there were in the church. Hundreds. It must be hundreds.
Then she saw a familiar face amid the sea. It was Jem. From the cheese shop. He was looking down at his order of service, and she imagined him seeing her name there, and wondered if he knew who she was. Somehow, just seeing him gave her a lift. And then suddenly, the hymn—“Fight the Good Fight”—came to an end and it was her turn. She made her way out of her pew and walked across to the pulpit. She climbed up the winding steps. She felt as if she was high up, in the clouds. She put the book down on the lectern, open at the page she was going to read. She’d underlined the words in red, and they swam in front of her. She couldn’t look out at the congregation. The thought that every single person in the church was looking at her, waiting for her to start, made her feel hot with fear. She was trembling. Just begin, she told herself, and then it will end. Before you know it.
She looked for Jem, and he was there, gazing up at her, and he gave her the sweetest smile and a discreet thumbs-up. She felt as if a spoonful of courage had been ladled into her. She could do this.
She started to read, but her voice was barely there. She paused, cleared her throat, ignored the little demon inside her that was telling her to run down the steps and down the aisle and out of the door, and forged on. Her voice found itself. As she read on, it became clear and true.
By the time she reached the last three sentences, she had hit her stride. She lifted her eyes and looked out as she spoke the words. The congregation was rapt, and she felt a surge of joy that she had managed to do for Julius what had seemed impossible. She smiled as she finished, and closed the book, calm, composed. And confident. She felt confident.
—
Luckily for Sarah, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church when Emilia played her piece on Julius’s cello.
She stood at the front of the church and spoke before she began.
“My father gave me a love of books first and foremost, but he also gave me a deep passion for music. I was five when he first let me play his cello. He taught me to play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ one Sunday afternoon, and I was hooked. I went on to do my grades, though I was never as good as he was. We played together often, and this was one of his favorite pieces. It’s ‘The Swan’ by Saint-Saëns.”
She gave a little nod, sat in her seat, picked up her bow, and began to play. The notes were achingly sad, their melancholy sound echoing round the church, sweet and lingering. Sarah could feel them make their way into her heart and break it. She knelt on the prayer stool in front of her and buried her head in her arms, trying not to sob. She breathed as deeply as she could to calm herself until the last note died away. There was a silence, punctuated only by other members of the congregation sniffing and clearing their throats and wiping away their tears, and then someone began to clap, until the entire church was united in their applause. Sarah gathered herself, sat up, and joined in.
—
Emilia felt elated when she finished playing. She had spent the last two weeks rehearsing every night until she was note perfect, but she was still afraid that she would freeze midway through, or her fingers would betray her. But they didn’t. And then she sat and listened to the quartet play Elgar’s Chanson de Nuit. Somehow under Marlowe’s direction they made the music not sad but uplifting. Emilia didn’t think her battered little heart could take it, but as the last notes faded away she was still breathing. She was still alive.
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