“It’s just a bit red and swollen,” he told her.
“Really?” she said. “I mean, I can have my hair over my face and I’ll have a veil . . .”
“Honestly,” said Dillon. “No one will notice it.”
She sighed. “You’re the only person I can trust to tell me the truth. Everyone else is just lying to make me feel better. And none of them wants the wedding to be canceled. But I know it doesn’t matter to you either way.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth, thought Dillon. If anyone wants that wedding stopped, it’s me.
“Hugh keeps telling me not to worry, and I don’t want to go on about it because it just makes him feel more guilty about the accident.”
Dillon felt so angry he almost couldn’t breathe. The bastard hadn’t felt a moment’s guilt.
“Are you okay?” asked Alice.
“Fine. It’s just a bit stuffy in here.”
“I know. It’s awful at night. I can hardly sleep. But I should be out of here soon.”
“That’s good news.”
“I’ll go mad if I have to stay in here much longer. I’d go mad if it wasn’t for your visits. Mum nips in every day, but she and Dad are so busy with Peasebrook, and Hugh’s working like a lunatic so he can get time off for the wedding and the honeymoon—”
“Please,” he interrupted her. “I don’t want to hear any more about the wedding.”
Alice looked startled.
He reached over and touched her face gently.
“You’re beautiful. You do know that?”
She was staring at him. Time stood still for a moment. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers.
“You poor little chick.”
He knew he was touching her for longer than was necessary. But she didn’t seem to mind.
“Oh, Dillon,” she said.
“What?”
Her face scrumpled with confusion. “You make me feel funny. That’s what.”
“Funny.” He smiled. “I was trying to make you feel better.”
“You do! That’s the point—you make me feel as if it doesn’t matter how I look.”
“Well, of course it doesn’t.”
She bit her lip. “Thank you . . .”
She leaned forward. She smelled of antiseptic and baby powder and chocolate. Dillon’s heart thumped. She was going to kiss him.
Then suddenly they heard Hugh’s voice in the corridor, exchanging idle banter with the nurses. Alice pulled back sharply, and Dillon got to his feet, moving away from the bed. Dillon usually left at half six, because Hugh came in at seven and he wanted to be long gone. But today, because of the bandage and the conversation about the scar, he was still there.
The door opened and there was Hugh, in his city suit, his hair slicked back, self-important. He glanced at Dillon.
“Oh,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s been reading to me,” Alice told him. Hugh raised an eyebrow.
“Isn’t there gardening to be done?”
“Don’t be so rude!” Alice was indignant.
Hugh turned to look at her.
“Jesus Christ,” he said when he saw her scar. “That’s terrible!”
“Don’t say that,” said Dillon.
Hugh looked appalled. “Darling, it’s okay. We’ll get the best people. There must be something we can do.”
He leaned forward to take a closer look.
Alice looked between Dillon and Hugh. “Dillon said it wasn’t too bad.”
“What is he—blind? He’s just told you what he thinks you want to hear. We’ll talk to the consultant. We’ve got time to sort it before the wedding.”
“I think what Alice needs is support,” said Dillon. “Not a plastic surgeon.”
Hugh stared at him. His eyes were dead, thought Dillon.
“I better be going,” he said.
“You don’t have to go,” said Alice. “Just because Hugh’s here.”
“My parking’s running out any minute.” Dillon made his way to the door. Hugh crossed the room and opened it.
“Thank you so much for coming. I’m sure Alice appreciates it,” he said, then shut the door firmly behind him.
—
When Dillon went to see Alice the next day, the nurse at the reception desk stopped him.
“I’m really sorry, it’s close relatives only for Miss Basildon.”
“But she’s expecting me.”
The nurse looked sympathetic. “I can’t let you through.”
Dillon went to push past her. “Let’s see what Miss Basildon says.”
The nurse put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. If you go any further, I’ll have to call security.”
Dillon stopped. He looked at her. “It’s that bastard, isn’t it? He’s told you not to let me in.”
“I have to obey the wishes of the family.”
“Not the patient?” The nurse sighed and Dillon knew he couldn’t push it.
“Could you tell her I came to see her? Dillon. Could you tell her Dillon came to see her?”
“Of course.”
He turned to leave, knowing full well the message wouldn’t be passed on.
17
On the day of Mick Gillespie’s book launch, Thomasina was in turmoil.
She had the perfect excuse to go to the cheese shop, but she felt hot under the armpits every time she thought about seeing Jem. Why couldn’t she just sweep in and order what she wanted with confidence? Why did she feel so awkward? Jem was kind and lovely—what on earth could he do to make her feel bad?
She stood outside the shop, looking in the window at the display, golden cheddar and creamy Stilton threaded with navy blue and bright white Brie. She kept half an eye on the queue inside until she could be sure that she would be served by Jem.
He gave a broad grin when he saw her, and her heart lifted.
“What can I get for you?”
“I’m doing some Irish-themed canapés. For the Mick Gillespie evening at the bookshop,” she told him.
“Wow. Well, we’ve got quite a selection of Irish cheese.”
“I want some Cashel Blue, for some baby tartlets,” she told him. “And some Gubbeen, so I can make little cheesy choux puffs.”
“Sounds great.” Jem lifted a wheel of Cashel Blue out of the refrigerator and grabbed the end of the cheese wire. “What else are you doing?”
“Potato cakes with smoked salmon. And Clonakilty black pudding with panfried apple on skewers. And miniature chocolate and Guinness cakes.”
“Wonderful.” Jem handed her the two cheeses, wrapped in wax paper with the shop’s logo printed on it.
There was a silence. The ticket was burning a hole in her pocket. Emilia had given it to her. She wanted desperately to give it to him, but there were too many customers. She couldn’t summon up the courage.
“Twelve pounds seventy,” Jem said eventually.
She paid him quickly and scurried off, scolding herself for her cowardice. Maybe she should go back? Order some more cheese? It was too late. It would look too obvious. He would know she didn’t have the nerve the first time. Why oh why was she so wretchedly wet?
She got back home and started to instruct Lauren on how to prepare the canapés.
“I’m going to teach you how to make flaky pastry,” she told her. “It’s time-consuming, but it’s worth it.”
The two of them spent the afternoon rubbing butter into flour, kneading the dough, rolling it out, cutting up cubes of butter, folding the dough, and rolling it out again. The mixture was smooth and soothing beneath Thomasina’s fingers, and Lauren was a natural pastry maker with an innate understanding of the process: her results were as neat and professional as Thomasina’s. As she looked at the results of their afternoon’s
work, Thomasina felt slightly better about herself.
Thank God for cooking, she thought. Cooking never let her down. It was what she did best, so she should focus on that and forget about Jem. She didn’t have to risk making a fool of herself.
—
“You look fantastic,” Jackson told Mia, and it was true. She did. She was only in jeans and a silk paisley top, but she looked much better than she did in all the fitness gear she wore these days, which just made her look like a shiny stick insect.
She’d been wary when Jackson had flourished the tickets. She had looked at him as if it was some sort of trap. He’d hoped she couldn’t resist, especially as he had arranged for his mother to come and babysit for Finn. He was pretty sure that, except for her ridiculous training sessions, Mia hadn’t been out for a long time.
“Are you guys going on a date?” asked Finn. He was in his pajamas, all ready for Cilla to put him to bed.
Jackson didn’t know what to reply. Mia put him straight.
“No. We just happen to be going to the same thing. So we’re going together.”
“Cool.”
Outside, on the way to the bookshop, Jackson turned to her.
“So this isn’t a date, then?”
Mia made a face. “No. That would be weird.”
“Oh.” Jackson was a bit stung by her vehemence.
“We’re going to a thing together,” Mia reiterated. “But not together together.”
Funny, thought Jackson, I thought I’d bought tickets for something I thought you’d like and invited you out. It was typical of Mia to completely recalibrate the gesture and throw out the original intention. But then that was partly what he loved about her. Her relentless goalpost moving.
“You’d be annoyed if I buggered off to the pub, though, wouldn’t you?”
Mia sighed. “Go if you want. When has what annoys me stopped you from doing anything?”
“I don’t want to go to the pub.”
“Then don’t!” She looked exasperated.
Jackson kept quiet. They were going round in circles, like they always had done toward the end. He wished they could go back to the beginning, when they couldn’t get enough of each other, when he made her laugh and she made him weak with longing. Maybe that kind of passion never lasted?
They arrived at the bookshop. Inside, it was heaving. There were silver moons hanging from the ceiling. And behind a table, a figure with white hair behind a stack of books.
“Mick Gillespie,” breathed Mia. “Actual Mick Gillespie.”
“He’s about ninety-seven!” Honestly, thought Jackson. There was no accounting for women, or pleasing them.
—
The window of Nightingale Books took June’s breath away. She’d seen it in progress, but now that it was all lit up from the inside, it looked incredible. She pulled her coat around her, standing in the chill air. The window display was crammed with shots from his most famous films. Fifty years of Mick Gillespie playing heroes and villains and sex symbols and icons. He was an icon himself. And amid them hung silver moons, the symbol from the film that had made his name. The Silver Moon . . .
It was almost a shrine.
There were thirty-seven of them in the window. She counted. Thirty-seven Mick Gillespies. And she shivered. He could still do that to her.
Just before she stepped over the threshold, she stood and measured how she felt. It still hurt, even now. That dull tug deep inside her, the one that never left. She imagined it as a tangle of scar tissue that would never be allowed to heal.
She was here tonight as a guest, not a member of staff, because she still wasn’t technically a member of staff—she just did what she could to help as she was needed. She refused to take payment, so Emilia had insisted tonight was for her enjoyment. Mel and Dave were manning the till, and Thomasina and Lauren were passing round the food and drinks.
They’d sold seventy tickets—the shop wouldn’t fit many more—and Mick was sitting behind a wide table, surrounded by copies of his book. Bea had made a throne for him to sit on: a golden high-backed chair that was to be the shop’s special signing chair for visiting authors. At the back of the shop, Marlowe was playing Irish tunes on his violin, adding to the atmosphere. “I used to spend my summers in Dingle,” he told Emilia when she’d asked him if he would play. “Dick Mack’s and Foxy John’s. Not that I can remember much about it. I lived on Guinness and salt-and-vinegar crisps.”
His playing reminded June of the tiny pub in the village they’d filmed in where the locals had often taken over in the evening, entertaining them with their fiddles and whistles and drums.
June took a Silver Moon cocktail: she wasn’t sure what was in it, but it tasted delicious and there was a glittery moon perched on the side of each glass. She needed a drink to take the edge off her jitters, although she wasn’t quite sure how to identify what she was feeling, or even what she was expecting from the evening. Just to be breathing the same air as him felt momentous.
She picked up a copy of the autobiography and joined the queue for it to be signed. June never usually queued for anything . . . The shop was buzzing, and she felt pleased. Julius would be so proud of what Emilia had done. She’d rolled up her sleeves and got on with making the bookshop work. She was there, behind the counter, smiling and laughing with the customers he had built up over the years, but also the new ones who’d been drawn in by the lure of a legend. June hoped more than anything that things would fall into place and the shop would be a success.
It was her turn. Mick Gillespie looked up at her, his eyes as dazzling as they ever had been, his smile making you feel special. June knew that smile well enough. And as she smiled back and handed him her book open at the flyleaf for him to sign, there was no recognition. Not a flicker that he had any memory of her.
“Who will I sign it to?” he asked.
“To June,” she said, waiting for a moment, but there was no reaction. He wrote her name and signed his with a flourish before handing it back to her with another smile. He was so practiced. She managed a smile back, although inside she felt fury. How could she still be furious? It was a lifetime ago.
She joined the till to pay.
“Don’t be daft,” said Emilia. “There’s no way I’m going to make you pay after everything you’ve done for me.”
At the back of the shop, Mick Gillespie turned to Marlowe with a glint in his eye.
“Do you know ‘Whiskey in the Jar’?”
“Of course.”
“Come on, then, boy. Let’s show them how it’s done.” And he stood up, and as Marlowe struck up the tune on his violin, Mick began to sing. And the delighted crowd gathered round and clapped their hands.
“As I was goin’ over the far-famed Kerry mountains . . .”
June abruptly turned and left the shop. After all, she’d heard him sing that song herself, all those years ago in a tiny pub with a dirt floor and an equally appreciative audience.
—
Jem stood aside to let the woman out of the bookshop. She hurried past him, her head down. The door shut behind her, and instead of pushing it open again he stood for a moment, then stepped to one side to look in through the window. The shop was crammed full of people, and even through the closed door he could hear the hubbub and the sound of a fiddle playing. His eyes raked through the throng until he saw her. She was moving through the crowd with a large white plate, proffering it with a shy smile. His mouth watered as he remembered the food she had described. Within moments everything on the plate had gone, and she disappeared, only to reappear with another.
Jem felt for the ticket in his pocket. He’d gone to buy one after Thomasina had been into the shop that morning. At the time it had seemed the perfect opportunity to bump into her again and strike up a conversation, but now that he was here, he could see it was far from ideal. There were too many peopl
e. She was busy. He would feel awkward and out of place. It was a terrible idea. He turned and walked back along the high street, the mischievous strains of the fiddle taunting him as if to say, Cowardy custard.
—
June walked back to her cottage. She wanted the fresh air. And there, in the sky above, was a full moon, as if it had known about the evening and made a special appearance. She got home, slipped off her high-heeled boots, and put on the slouchy cashmere bed socks she used for padding over the flagstones. She threw some logs on the wood burner, poured a glass of wine, and sat with her legs curled up on the sofa in her living room.
She leafed through his book until she reached the section about The Silver Moon. It had been his turning point, and was a historic film, so there was a hefty chapter.
There was no mention of her. Not a word about the blond-haired extra who’d played the barmaid and his affair with her. Not a hint of the passion he had professed to feel at the time. She was insignificant. The scenery was discussed at length, the genius writer, the visionary director—even Mrs. Malone, the landlady of the cottage they’d stayed in during the shoot, was given a name check. But as far as the rest of the world was concerned, June didn’t exist and had made no contribution.
She went upstairs. In her sparest spare bedroom she had stored a box in the wardrobe.
She pulled it out. Inside was his Aran sweater and the script from The Silver Moon. Beer mats from the pub they drank in. Shells and pressed flowers. She could smell the air if she breathed in deeply enough. She was there, in the drizzle, the scent of damp wool, the taste of his mouth, tinged with whiskey . . .
And the photographs. Faded and curling now, but here was her evidence. Irrefutable evidence. The two of them, arms around each other, laughing into the camera. You could see the chemistry between them, crackling and fizzing, evident even in yellowing black and white. She remembered the little old man with the donkey and cart looking at the camera in consternation but taking the pictures nonetheless. Not exactly David Bailey, but it had been a memory, not a work of art.
How to Find Love in a Bookshop Page 23