She was quite the country mouse.
Nightingale Books was like stepping back in time. She loved its bay windows, the ting of the bell as she walked in, and the smell—a rather masculine smell, a combination of wood and parchment and pipe tobacco and sandalwood and polish that had accumulated over the years.
She hadn’t been in for a while, because there hadn’t been much time to read over the summer. She remembered seeing in the local paper the owner had died. Nevertheless, the shop was busy. Someone must have taken it over. They’d made a few changes: the displays were a little less haphazard, and it definitely looked less dusty, although the dust had been part of the charm.
Her eyes were immediately drawn to a display at the front of the shop. It was a huge coffee-table book of photographs by the iconic Riley. It was lavish, beautiful, and at a hundred and thirty pounds, eye-wateringly expensive. She picked up the display copy—all the others were shrink-wrapped to protect them—and leafed through the pictures.
An assistant passed by her and smiled.
“Stunning, isn’t it?”
Bea sighed. “It’s gorgeous. I love his work.”
“Who doesn’t? He’s a genius. You should treat yourself.” Then she colored. “Sorry—I’m not trying to do a hard sell. Well, I suppose I am. It’s a limited edition.”
Bea shook her head. “I can’t afford it.” She smiled. “It’s a lot of jars of organic baby food.” She put her hand on the handle of the stroller by her side. Maud was gazing up at them as if fascinated by their exchange.
“She’s adorable,” said the assistant.
“She’s taking up all my money.”
“Oh my goodness. I love the shoes. Teeny little moccasins.”
Bea wasn’t going to tell the girl how much they had cost. It was embarrassing.
“Me and Maud are going to choose a book together. You can’t start them too young.”
“Absolutely. Get them a book habit. We’ve got lots of lovely new stock. I’m trying to build up the children’s section.”
Bea was curious.
“Is this your shop, then?”
“It was my father’s.”
“I heard he’d passed away. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s great that you’ve taken it over. I love it in here.”
“Good. Just let me know if there’s anything you want. I’m Emilia.”
“I’m Bea.” They exchanged smiles, then Emilia walked away.
Bea looked down at the pile of Rileys.
In a trice, she took the top one off the pile. Then she pushed Maud over to the children’s section, and they spent the next ten minutes browsing through any number of board books until they chose just the right one.
“I Love You to the Moon and Back,” said Bea. “It’s true, darling Maud. I do.”
She pushed Maud over to the counter.
Maud stared up at Emilia, the board book clutched in her hands.
“Ah—that book’s lovely. She’ll adore it.”
“If she doesn’t eat it first.” Bea smiled. “Everything goes straight in her mouth at the moment.”
“Is that all?”
“For today. Yes. Thank you.”
Emilia watched Bea go. She was just the kind of customer she needed. Young and vibrant, with a disposable income. What else could she do to attract people like her? Cards and wrapping paper? Women like Bea were always buying cards and wrapping paper, because they had friends galore. She made a note on a pad, and turned to her next customer.
—
Bea walked briskly up the high street, her heart pounding. She didn’t stop until she came to the church, where she swung into the churchyard. She strode on until she reached a bench and sat down. She put her head in her hands momentarily, then looked up. She reached over and pulled up the hood of the stroller.
There, nestled in the folds, was the copy of Riley’s book, still in its shrink-wrap.
She picked it up and sat with it in her lap, staring at it.
What the hell was happening to her? What on earth had she become? What was she doing?
It had seemed the logical thing to do at the time. She’d wanted the book and she couldn’t afford it. It had taken her two seconds to lift one off the pile and slide it into the hood of the stroller.
A single tear trickled down one cheek. She wanted the book, yes. She wanted to sit at home and leaf through the photographs, studying them, analyzing them, wondering at the skill and the talent and the artistry. She could have afforded it if she’d really wanted it. Bill wouldn’t have minded if she’d put it on their credit card.
But more than the book, she’d wanted a thrill. She’d wanted to feel alive. She’d loved the adrenaline the feat gave her. It had been the most exciting thing to happen to her in months.
Bea sat back on the bench and looked up at the sky. A few swallows were circling overhead, and the breeze rustled the last of the leaves in the trees that lined the path. The church reminded her of her own wedding only three years ago. She remembered the vintage Dior dress she’d had shipped over from the States, pale blue silk taffeta, with its tight bodice and covered buttons and full skirt. She’d been a perfect bride at their perfect wedding.
They had thought they were so clever, she and Bill. Selling up their trendy warehouse flat to start a life in the countryside. They’d agreed they didn’t want to bring up their kids in London. Peasebrook had been the answer, with its brilliant commuter service, cute shops, and gorgeous houses. They had felt very pleased with themselves when they bought the gingerbread cottage in one of the backstreets, with its tiny walled garden. It was idyllic, the ideal place to start a family. Bill carried on commuting to his ludicrously well-paid job as a digital guru, and Bea did up the house and garden. And popped out Maud. Their friends all exclaimed in wonder and envy at how cunning and brave they had been, and came down in droves to stay in their spare bedroom with its white floorboards and chalky walls and silk curtains and the high bed with mounds and mounds of featherlight bedding.
But now Bea thought she was going mad. She missed work. She had been exhausted when she left. As the art director for a women’s magazine, she had lived on black coffee and deadlines, working right up to the wire on each issue, dealing with a crazed editor who changed her mind every two minutes and expected Bea to be psychic. When she left, she never wanted to lift another finger.
Now she was psychotic with boredom. She adored Maud, of course she did, but once she’d pureed some organic carrots and free-range chicken breasts and frozen them into portion-sized blobs, and hand-washed Maud’s little cashmere cardigans in lavender-scented washing powder, and taken them for a walk in the flower-filled meadow down by the riverbank on the outskirts of Peasebrook—what more was there? Apart from cooking a Mongolian fish curry for when Bill cycled back from the train station at seven o’clock at night.
She was living the life she had depicted so many times in the magazine. She thought of all the spreads she’d done outlining bucolic bliss: girls in tea dresses and wellies pegging out washing. Wicker baskets and picnic rugs and muddy vegetables and homemade bloody jam. She had pots of it. Pots and pots and pots.
From the outside, she was living the dream. Inside, she felt bored and empty and meaningless. How on earth had she thought that full-time motherhood was going to be enough for her? She stroked Maud’s fat little hand and felt her heart shrivel with the ugliness she was feeling. She was an ungrateful cow. How could this little bundle not be enough?
Maud had fallen asleep, one hand clutching her little toweling blankie with the rabbit in one corner. What would her daughter think, having a kleptomaniac as a mother? Bea knew she’d always been impulsive, but she’d never put her impulsiveness to bad use until now.
What would Bill think if he knew what she’d done? He was under enough pressure, wi
th the traveling and the job. He could barely speak in the evenings when he came home. He just ate and went to bed, then got up at six to set off again. He wasn’t much fun on the weekend, either. For the past two months he’d refused to let them have guests down. He didn’t do much. Slept. Watched a bit of telly. Opened his first bottle of beer at midday and drank steadily until he fell asleep again at about nine. If she complained, he snapped at her.
“You’re living the dream, remember?”
Okay, so it had been she who had orchestrated the massive change. She’d found the house, sold theirs, organized the move. Taken voluntary redundancy so she had a lump sum to live on. Arranged their finances so they could manage the drop in salary. Found ways to make savings so their weekly outgoings were halved but without lowering their standards. She’d saved them two hundred pounds a week by stopping them from going out to eat or getting takeaways and getting a more economic car and not having a cleaner. Saving money had become her hobby, a point of pride.
She thought now that she would do anything to be standing in a crowded train, with a takeaway latte in one hand and her iPhone in the other, brainstorming for a breakfast meeting. She would kill for an impossible brief or a draconian deadline or a crisis. These days, a crisis constituted running out of milk or nappies. Neither of which she ever did, because she had infinite amounts of time on her hands and so was the most efficient housekeeper on the planet.
But was she really so bored that she’d resorted to shoplifting?
She walked back home through the winding streets, and by the time she got there, Maud had fallen asleep. She pushed the stroller into the living room, then sat on the pale gray velvet sofa that exactly matched the one opposite. In between was an antique mirrored coffee table that bore nothing but the occasional fingerprint. She spent most of her life polishing them off, and didn’t want to think about the day when Maud began to cruise around the furniture.
She put the copy of the Riley in the middle of the table. It was the perfect book to have on display. She admired the black-and-white graphic on the front cover. She itched to take off the wrapping and look inside, to feast on the images and imagine herself to be one of his models.
Before she had a chance to remove the wrapping, she heard Bill come in the front door. He’d been to the garden center, to get some posts and some wire for some fruit trees he was planning to espalier in the garden. It was a serious business, espaliering. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was . . .
She jumped up and grabbed the book. She slid it under the cushions of the sofa just as Bill came in.
“Hey!” She smiled at him, trying her best not to look like a thieving lunatic. “How are you? Me and Maud have had a lovely morning.”
“Good.”
“We bought a book. Didn’t we, darling?” But Maud was still fast asleep, the book on her lap.
“Great.”
“How about you?”
“I bought a chain saw.”
“How much was that?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Good. Because we need one. I’m going to hack down that old pear tree by the back gate. It’s blocking the light into the kitchen.”
“Great. We can have a gorgeous pile of logs. Make sure you chop them up evenly, so we can stack them by the fire.” She held her hands eight inches apart. “About this long would be perfect.”
Even as she said it, she knew she sounded like a control freak.
Bill looked at her. “Does everything have to be a fucking design statement?”
Bea opened her mouth to reply but couldn’t think of a good answer. She was puzzled, though. It wasn’t like Bill to be so grumpy and sweary. What on earth was eating him?
She had to take the book back. She couldn’t live with herself otherwise. She would confess all to the girl in the bookshop. That was the only way to shock herself back to normality.
11
After a busy week, Emilia was looking forward to her first rehearsal the next Sunday with the Peasebrook Quartet, although she was nervous, too.
Marlowe had been round earlier in the week to drop off some sheet music. She had been surprised at how pleased she was to see him—there was something reassuring about his presence. And he brought her a bag of windfall apples.
“They’re all over my garden. I won’t have time to do anything with them—I always gave them to Julius. But tell me if you don’t want them. Nothing worse than an unwanted gift of autumn fruits!”
“Yum,” said Emilia. “I can make a load of applesauce.”
“I always mean to do something useful with them. There’s plums, too. But I never seem to be at home long enough. And Delph’s not interested. Sometimes I think she’s not really French at all.”
Emilia stiffened at the mention of Delphine. Was this his way of reminding her he was spoken for? He was pulling sheet music out of his bag, sorting through it, putting it in a pile on the kitchen table for her. She could smell that Tobacco Vanille again—it filled the kitchen. He didn’t seem to notice the effect it had on her.
“Work your way through this lot. Practice as much as you can. We can iron out everything at the rehearsal, so don’t get into a panic. We’ve got loads of time.”
“But it’s taken me hours just to get one piece of music fit for human consumption.”
“But you did it. And you did it well. I’ve got absolute faith in you.” He put a reassuring hand on her arm and she felt a tingle of warmth.
“Have you got time to give me another lesson before Sunday?”
“I’m sorry—I’ve got to go up to London to sit in on a mix. I’m not back till Friday evening.” Marlowe always had a hectic schedule, whether he was recording or arranging or producing or editing.
“Never mind,” said Emilia, but she did.
She knew she would have to get up to speed on dozens of new pieces, and she was terrible at sight-reading: it had always been her weakness. No doubt she would know some of the music, but there would be plenty that was new to her. She went through as much of the music as she could in the evenings. She was pleased no one could hear her as she stumbled through, and when Sunday came she wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing, agreeing. She wasn’t nearly as confident in her ability as Marlowe seemed to be.
They were rehearsing in the old church hall at the back of St. Nick’s. She walked down with Julius’s cello on her back, not sure whether she was relieved to have something completely different from the bookshop to focus her energy on, or whether she should be catching up on all the things she didn’t get a chance to do when the shop was open. Dave had jumped at the chance to man the shop on Sundays for the interim: she’d left him in sole charge, with instructions to phone if it got too hectic.
They’d been really busy. Autumn seemed to bring with it a hunkering-down feeling that drew people back to reading, and the town was filled with visitors indulging in a weekend break in the countryside. With its Cotswold charm and inviting inns and welcoming shops, Peasebrook wore the colder months well and had become quite a hot spot, and Emilia and her team were working hard to raise the shop’s profile. Dave had started them a Facebook page and a Twitter account, she’d been talking to several reps about supplementary merchandise, and June was starting a monthly book club sponsored by the local wine merchants. For ten pounds you would get a copy of whichever paperback was going to be discussed over two glasses of specially chosen wine.
Of course, the main issue was cash flow. Andrea was still uncovering the extent of the shop’s debts, they were waiting for probate, and in the meantime, the bills and the staff still needed to be paid. There was no shortage of ideas for making Nightingale Books the best bookshop in the world, but to do that Emilia needed money. And there were plenty of boring things that needed to be done before the exciting things: the computer system badly needed updating, security was
nonexistent, and the roof was only held on by a wing and a prayer. The autumn winds were gathering strength, and Emilia fully expected to find it no longer there one morning, the contents of the attic exposed for all to see.
In the church hall, four chairs were laid out in a semicircle in front of four music stands. There was much discussion as to the best seating order, but in the end Marlowe dictated that Emilia and he were best at either end, so that she could see him and vice versa.
Any nerves Emilia had were doubled the moment she saw Delphine. She was wearing satin drainpipes, brothel creepers, and a frilly white blouse. She had Paris written all over her, with her asymmetric bob and red lips. Emilia felt dowdy in her jeans, her hair in plaits, and another of Julius’s old jumpers.
She panicked even more when she heard Delphine play. She picked up her violin and played a snippet of Vivaldi’s “Autumn,” in honor of the leaves turning to orange outside the window and the fact the sun had had little warmth in it that day.
It was the musical equivalent of a sketch. Her bow barely touched the strings, just danced over them, picking out the few notes she wanted to give an approximation of the piece. The notes were pure and perfect and stunning in their simplicity. Delphine was a player at the top of her game.
Was she showing off? Or did she just feel the need to send Emilia a warning shot? A message to her that said you can never be as good as me, as long as you live, as often as you practice.
She finished the piece with a flourish. Petra clapped in delight. Emilia knew she would look churlish if she didn’t join in. Her face ached as she smiled. Delphine gave a tiny self-deprecating shake of her head and a shrug as if to say, It was nothing. But Emilia knew Delphine knew how good she was.
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