How to Find Love in a Bookshop

by Veronica Henry

  He smiled. “Mr. and Mrs. Basildon?”

  They nodded, mute with dread. They couldn’t read into his smile. Was it just a greeting, or was it a barometer? If it was bad news, would he bother smiling?

  “Well, she’s in a bit of a pickle, I’m afraid.” He grimaced. “But the good news is we’ve done a brain scan and there doesn’t seem to be any great injury. Obviously we need to keep her monitored. There’s never any guarantee. Bleeds can occur unexpectedly after trauma. But so far, so good.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Sarah leaned against Ralph, limp with relief.

  “It’s not all good news. Her left leg is in very bad shape. There are multiple fractures, and we’re going to have to operate and pin it all back together. It’s a bit of a mess. It’s going to be a while before she can walk. There’ll be a lot of rehab work. A lot of physio.”

  “We want the best people,” said Sarah. “We can pay if necessary.” God knows how, but they’d find the money. Sell a painting. She’d sell her soul if necessary.

  “You don’t need to worry about that just yet. She’s in good hands at the moment. Although there is more.” He cleared his throat and Sarah looked at him. Somehow she knew this was going to be the bad bit. “Her face is badly lacerated. There’s a very nasty cut on her left cheek. She may well have to have some cosmetic surgery.”

  “Oh God,” said Sarah. “She’s getting married in November.”

  “We’ll do our very best for her.” He paused. “Look, there’s a lot to take in, and we don’t know yet which order we are going to be doing things. But in some ways she’s been very lucky—”

  “Lucky?” Sarah looked appalled. Beautiful Alice, who was the least vain person Sarah knew.

  “We should tell Hugh,” said Ralph. Hugh had gone out for fresh air. He said he was feeling odd after the crash.

  Sarah stiffened slightly at the mention of Hugh’s name. “It’s all his bloody fault.”

  “Darling. It was an accident. The road was wet . . .”

  “Yes.” Sarah didn’t sound convinced.

  “It must be awful. Imagine how he feels.”

  “He drives too fast. I know he does.”

  More than once Sarah had had to brake in her car, meeting Hugh coming the other way in the narrow lanes leading to Peasebrook.

  “Boys will be boys.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Come on. We should be celebrating the fact that she’s not got a brain injury—”

  “As soon as she comes back from X-ray, you’ll be able to see her,” said the consultant.

  “She’s going to be as right as rain. I know it,” said Ralph. “She’s made of stern stuff, my daughter.” He managed a smile. “Like her mother.”

  —

  Sarah looked up from her seat in the waiting room when Hugh walked back in smelling of freshly smoked cigarette and Wrigley’s. He gave a tentative smile. He was, quite rightly, wary of Sarah.

  “The nurse just told me. She’s going to be all right—”

  Sarah cut him off.

  “You were driving too fast,” she said flatly.

  “Sarah!” Ralph stood up.

  Hugh looked down at the floor, then sighed.

  “I know I was,” he said quietly. “And I’ll never forgive myself. But there’d been a bit of an incident in the pub. I was trying to get Alice home as quickly as I could.”

  “What do you mean—incident?”

  There were fisticuffs in the White Horse sometimes. Not often, but it was inevitable sometimes after a few too many beers.

  “It was your gardener chap. He was being a bit . . . aggressive.”

  “Dillon?” Sarah was incredulous.

  “Yes,” said Hugh. “I should have taken him outside, but I didn’t want trouble.”

  “What do you mean—aggressive? That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Everyone’s different after a few.” Hugh put on a pained expression. “I think he’s got a bit of a thing about Alice. It was pretty embarrassing. He was following us. In his car. I put my foot down to get away from him. It was just instinct.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t believe you. Dillon wouldn’t put Alice in danger.”

  “Well, I can assure you it happened.”

  “Following you and then what, exactly? What was he going to do then?”

  Sarah was staring at Hugh, her eyes hard. He shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I think he’d had a few too many. Maybe I should have reported him. Stopped him from driving. In retrospect, that would have been the responsible thing to do—”

  “I don’t think any of this is true.”

  Ralph stepped forward. “Darling, I don’t think this is the time.”

  Hugh looked distressed. “I’m sorry. I was trying to protect Alice. And yes, I put my foot down on the gas—”

  “So it was your fault.”

  “Sarah—this isn’t an inquisition.”

  “I want to get to the bottom of what happened. And I’m not convinced Dillon had anything to do with it. It sounds completely out of character.”

  Ralph and Hugh shared a complicit look.

  “Oh, Sarah,” said Ralph. “You always see the best in everyone.”

  “Not everyone.” She looked at Hugh. “I don’t always see the best in everyone.”

  Hugh attempted a disarming smile. “Look, we’re all a bit upset. We’re bound to be. The great thing is Alice is going to be all right. Let’s not lose sight of that.”

  “All right?” said Sarah. “She’s going to be scarred for life.”

  “Sarah.” Ralph’s tone was sharp. “This isn’t helping.”

  The door swung open and the three of them looked toward the nurse. She was smiling.

  “If you want to come and see Alice, just for five minutes . . .”

  “Just me,” said Sarah. “I want to see her first.”

  Neither Hugh nor Ralph dared to argue.

  —

  Alice was a tiny bundle in a bed in the middle of intensive care, a mass of bandages and wires and bruised flesh. There was barely a bit of her Sarah recognized. Even her voice was just a croak.

  Sarah didn’t want to say much. She didn’t really do drama. The confrontation in the waiting room was as high as her voice had been raised for years. She was the epitome of calm, brought up to be serene and gracious.

  She held Alice’s little paw and stroked it gently.

  “Sweetheart,” she whispered.

  “How bad is it?” asked Alice. “I can’t move anything and my head hurts. I can’t think.”

  “You’ve bashed your poor leg up a bit,” said Sarah. “They’ll need to pin it back together.”

  She swallowed. She couldn’t look at Alice’s face. She couldn’t say anything about her face. Not yet.

  “We’ll have to cancel, won’t we? The wedding?” Alice’s voice was a quaver.

  Sarah looked at the floor. Something inside her said yes. That would be the answer to everything. Cancel the wedding. She had a bad feeling about it. About Hugh. But she didn’t want to upset Alice by agreeing, because it would imply that things were terribly serious. Which indeed they may well be, but Alice had been through enough already. She needed soothing.

  “We don’t have to worry about that at the moment. It’s a long way off.”

  She suddenly felt drained, and incredibly emotional. She didn’t want to cry in front of Alice.

  “What happened, darling?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember. There were loads of us. In the pub . . .”

  “Was Dillon there?”

  “Dillon?” Alice was trying hard to recollect the events. “Maybe.”

  “Did he and Hugh have a row?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Be
cause Hugh seems to think they did.”

  Alice shook her head. “I can remember the Jäger train . . .”

  Sarah wasn’t going to push it. She didn’t want Alice distressed.

  “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

  “Sorry? What on earth are you sorry for?”

  She could see Alice struggling with a thought, a memory.

  “I don’t know,” answered Alice, and her eyes filled up with tears. “Is Hugh here?”

  “Yes. And Daddy.”

  “Yes . . . is Hugh all right? Was he hurt?”

  “He’s absolutely fine.”

  “Can I see him?”

  Sarah hesitated. She couldn’t really say no. “Of course.”

  She got up to call Hugh and Ralph in. They came and stood at either side of the bed. Hugh bent down to kiss Alice.

  “What were you thinking, darling—giving us a fright like that?” His voice was soft with concern and affection. Alice reached out her hand and their fingers linked. She turned to look at Ralph. “Daddy . . .” She reached out her other hand and Ralph clasped it.

  “I can’t remember what happened,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Hugh. “All you need to concentrate on is getting better.”

  “Should we cancel the wedding?”

  “Certainly not. I’m going to be waiting for you at the end of that aisle no matter what.”

  Alice managed a smile. The nurse came back in.

  “I think it’s probably time for Alice to get some sleep.”

  Sarah and Ralph nodded, but Hugh frowned. “Is there any way I can stay with her?”

  “Well, we don’t have a bed, but there’s that.” The nurse indicated a slippery-looking armchair next to the bed.

  “Perhaps you could find me a pillow and a blanket?” Hugh flashed a charming smile.

  “I’m sure we could,” said the nurse, coloring slightly.

  “Would that be okay?” Hugh looked at Ralph and Sarah. “I don’t want her to wake up on her own and panic.”

  “Of course,” said Ralph, looking at Sarah. “That’s a wonderful idea, isn’t it, darling?”

  Sarah managed a wan smile of agreement. She wished she’d thought of it first. But she hadn’t, so there was nothing she could do but agree.

  —

  It was eight o’clock before Sarah and Ralph got back to Peasebrook Manor from the hospital. The nurse had assured them repeatedly that Alice would be comfortable, and that they would end up being a nuisance if they stayed any longer.

  Sarah sank down into her chair at the kitchen table. Yesterday morning seemed a lifetime away, when she had sat here preparing for Julius’s memorial. You never knew what lay ahead.

  “Shall I make scramblers?” asked Ralph. She shook her head. She couldn’t bear the thought of food. “You’ve got to eat.”

  “Not now. Honestly. I’m beyond it.”

  “Tea.” He grabbed the kettle and put it on the Aga. “That hospital tea was definitely made from scrapings off the factory floor.”

  How could he be so jovial?

  She stared at the dresser on the wall opposite. She could see Alice’s Noddy eggcup. It had been hers when she was small: a Noddy cup with a little blue felt hat with a bell on, to keep the egg warm. She thought about all the boiled eggs she’d made her daughter.

  She could feel it coming. The grief. It was gathering speed, and was going to smash into her at any moment. And this time, she didn’t have to brace herself to withstand it. This time, she could let it engulf her. She’d been through every emotion today. Shock. Fear. Anger. Fury. Worry. Relief. Then more worry, doubt, fear, anxiety . . . There was only so much you could take.

  And being at the hospital had reminded her. Of the day she had said good-bye to Julius at the cottage hospital. It was two weeks before he had finally slipped away. She’d been in to see him, brought him the new Ian Rankin, which she was going to read to him because his eyes kept going blurry and he couldn’t concentrate.

  She hadn’t been prepared for him to tell her he didn’t want her to come in to see him again.

  “I feel okay today. But I know it’s just a temporary respite. Tomorrow I might be out of it. Or gone altogether. I want us to quit while we are ahead. I don’t want you here when I don’t know you are there. I don’t want you to watch me die. I want to say good-bye to you while I am still me. A pretty ropy version of me.” He managed a self-deprecating smile. He was thin. His skin had an awful pallor; his hair was wispy. “But me.”

  “You can’t ask me to do that,” she had whispered, appalled. She stroked his cheek. She loved every bone in his poor failing body.

  “Please,” he said. “I don’t want to argue about it. It’s for the best.”

  Their fingers had been entwined while they spoke. And she knew him well enough to know that he had thought this through, that what he was saying was right. Emilia was on her way home to be with her father. Sarah couldn’t be seen with him anymore.

  She held his hands in hers and kissed them. She kissed his forehead. She leaned her cheek on his and held it there for as long as she could bear. She looked deep into his eyes, those eyes she had looked into so many times and seen herself.

  It was time for her to go, and he was preparing himself.

  “You’re the love of my life,” she told him.

  “I’ll save you a place. Wherever I’m going,” he said back. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He gave a smile, and then he shut his eyes. It was his signal for her to go. She recognized that he couldn’t take any more. If she loved him, she had to leave him.

  She drove home, staring at the road ahead. She felt nothing. She had shut down. It was the only way to cope. There was nothing in her that was able to deal with the horror of that final good-bye. She had wanted to climb into his bed and hold him forever. To die with him, if that were possible. Drift off into that final never-ending sleep with him in her arms.

  She went to the folly when she got back. She curled up on the sofa with a cushion in her arms, folding herself into the smallest ball. There was a copy of Anna Karenina she had been reading. It was the last book Julius had given her. She tried to read it but the words were too small. She shut her eyes and prayed for sleep. She couldn’t bear to be awake. It was Dillon who found her, hours later, and shook her awake. She had looked up at him, wide-eyed, confused for a moment.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, and she nodded slowly. She had to be. She had no choice.

  But now, here in the kitchen, she embraced the grief when it finally hit. She put her head down and wept. Great big jagged sobs that threatened to choke her and take her very breath away. She could hear them, resounding round the kitchen: a primal keening, ungodly and harsh. She melted down into them until she almost became her own tears. In the midst of it all a small voice told her she was hysterical, that she needed to pull herself together.

  But she’d waited a long time for this chance to purge herself of her grief. The chance to cry for the loss of her lover, her best friend. She wondered if she was wicked to hide behind Alice’s accident for the chance to have this outpouring. She wondered if it was a punishment for what she had done. Neither of these thoughts helped her regain control. On the contrary, she felt reason slipping further and further away. It was the sort of crying that would never stop.

  Until she felt Ralph take hold of her arms. He took hold of her arms and shook her.

  “Sarah.” His voice was firm but kind. “Sarah. You must stop this. This isn’t doing you any good at all. You or Alice.”

  She juddered to a halt. He looked at her, concern in his eyes.

  “Listen to me. I’ve never told you how magnificent I think you are. How grateful I am for the way you stood by me. I wouldn’t have blamed you for walking away after everything I did. But you got us through that bloody awf
ul time like the fighter you are. And you’re going to get us through this as well because you’re a brave and wonderful woman, Sarah.”

  He trailed off, looking a bit embarrassed. Ralph wasn’t one for gushing speeches. He wasn’t sure where the words had come from. But that he had meant them, of that there was no doubt.

  Sarah shut her eyes and breathed in deeply. Her breaths were jagged but her sobs eventually stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but of course he had no idea what she was sorry for.

  10

  Bea Brockman loved Peasebrook on a Saturday. It seemed to be fuel-injected: it was faster, busier, more animated than it was during the week. The market was full of interesting stalls: people selling berry-bright liqueurs made from local fruits, tables piled high with artisan bread, handmade beeswax candles in hot pink and emerald green and cobalt blue. She was ever on the lookout for the next new thing. It was—or had been—her job for so long, she had never lost the habit.

  She dressed up on a Saturday more than she did during the week—though there was no point in dressing up as she would in London. Monday to Friday she wore her casual-trendy mum uniform of Scandi chic—asymmetric jumper, black skinny jeans, and black trainers. Today, though, she had on a pretty dress, red suede boots, and an Alexander McQueen scarf. Her hair was tied in a messy knot, and she’d painstakingly painted her mouth a luscious dark pink. She knew people looked at her. She was a tiny bit vain, Bea, and she missed the attention she’d had as a single girl. Though she loved being a mother. She adored Maud, who was proudly showing off her new beaded moccasins to anyone who cared to look from the depths of her fashionable all-terrain stroller.

  Bea had done the market, her favorite café, the Icing on the Cake, for a blueberry friand, and the butcher for a French-trimmed rack of lamb. She decided to head up to Nightingale Books for something to read. She had lists of all the paperbacks she should be reading to keep in the know, but there was nothing like a good browse in a bookshop to broaden your horizons. She rolled the stroller along the pavement, relishing the autumn sunshine that turned the buildings in Peasebrook to golden treacle. She was looking forward to their first winter in the country. London was so drab and bitter once the chill wind got a grip, chasing litter along the streets and alleys. Here, the air would be rich with the scent of woodsmoke, and there would always be a pub to hunker down in, and game from the butcher to be transformed into a warming casserole. She’d already spent the happiest of days that week making damson jam and apple chutney from the windfalls in the garden, with fashionably minimalist labels she’d designed herself.