‘Don’t worry about it. People can be a bit – well, it’s a small village. They don’t have much to do but talk things over until they’ve created a whole mythology about stuff.’
Hannah felt her stomach clench uncomfortably. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard mutterings about Beth, but when she’d tried to ask the women who worked alongside her in the shop, everyone had clammed up. It was awkward, and she’d felt like she used to in primary school the year when one of the popular girls had decided she was persona non grata because she had the wrong kind of shoes.
‘Honestly, don’t worry. They’ll find something else to dissect soon enough.’
Helen Bromsgrove, pinny removed and no doubt hung up neatly, made her way to the front of the village hall. A row of trestle tables had been set up as a barrier between the committee and the rest of the village, and Hannah watched as they all settled into their seats, sipping water and shuffling papers.
‘Lovely to see such a good turnout for this committee meeting, everyone. I’m sure it’s not just Margaret’s cake that’s done it . . .’ She looked down the row of committee members to a woman in her late sixties and smiled. The woman gave a little smirk of recognition and shook her head so her highlighted ash blonde hair shifted slightly, before settling back into its neat bob. ‘. . . But it must have been a significant lure. Don’t forget, you can place your orders with Margaret for cakes for all occasions – there’s a mention of her new business venture on the back page of the village newsletter, which we’ll be handing out at the end of play this evening.’
Hannah stifled a yawn. She had a suspicion this was going to be a very long evening and she was absolutely shattered. Two weeks in, she’d been relieved to discover that she wasn’t expected to get up every morning and deal with the early shift – that was shared between the volunteers – but even so, standing on her feet all day was proving to be exhausting.
‘We’ll go through the agenda first – village business to start, and then we’ll get on to the community shop and our latest plans.’ At that, a few people glanced Hannah’s way and she fiddled with the silver bracelet she always wore, twisting it round on her wrist. God, she could murder Beth for dropping this on her. She’d hated anything like this since school, and she’d never really had experience of it in a work context. It felt like the entire room was staring at her. Her hands were clammy and she could feel her face flushing.
Luckily, there was a distraction: a woman entered the hall, dark hair tied back in an untidy bun, wearing a t-shirt with a stained Iron Maiden logo on the front and a pair of cut-off jeans. She tripped on the step as she came in and fell through the door, grabbing the handle, which slammed hard against the wall. The noise reverberated through the hall.
‘Mel!’ hissed a laughing voice from behind her.
‘Sorry.’ The woman looked up and burst into fits of giggles like a teenager. ‘Sorry, everyone.’
‘It’s always you, isn’t it?’ Helen, from her position at the front, was mock-reproving, but Hannah was relieved to see that she clearly had a sense of humour. Meanwhile, a dark-haired woman – Hannah recognized her as Lucy, who she’d met in the shop over the summer – followed Mel in, holding hands with a man with untidy dark hair. They were both clearly trying not to laugh as they filed into the row of seats behind Hannah. Nicola turned round, smiling, to mouth hello.
‘Now that we’re all here,’ Helen said archly, ‘let’s get on.’
A half-hour-long waffle about paint markings outside the village hall, flower planting ideas for next year’s Britain in Bloom, and a Memories of Little Maudley celebration went over Hannah’s head as she sat there feeling increasingly queasy. Nicola shot her a sideways look at one point.
‘You okay?’
‘Just not very good at this sort of thing.’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘And now, we’ll have a quick comfort break – don’t forget your donations for the village improvement society – and then get on to the next part of the meeting.’
Helen gave a quick clap of her hands. There was a huge screech of chair legs on wooden floors as people who’d been forced to keep quiet for an unnatural period of time surged into life.
‘Hi,’ said the dark-haired girl, tapping Hannah on the shoulder. ‘It’s Hannah, right? Nice to see you again. We’ve been away on holiday, we’re just back – this is Sam.’
Sam leaned forward to shake hands at an awkward angle. ‘Hi.’
‘And I’m Mel.’ The girl with the untidy bun gave a wave. ‘But we’ve met already.’
Hannah tried to look as if she remembered. The last fortnight had been such a whirlwind of faces and new things and people. ‘You’re the dog trainer, right?’ God, please let her have got that right.
‘Got it in one.’ Mel beamed. ‘You ready for your big scene?’ She waved an arm towards the front of the village hall, where Helen was standing talking to someone, hands on hips, looking disapproving.
‘Less so when I see Helen looking like that.’
‘Her bark’s worse than her bite. Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing about this bookshop idea.’
Hannah swallowed. It had felt relatively safe and comfortable, discussing the bookshop in Helen’s sitting room over a glass of wine. Explaining her plans in front of an entire roomful of people, all of whom had a stake in the business, felt more than a little alarming.
There was enough time for her to nip to the loo – checking her phone as she dried her hands – and then when she got back, Helen was beckoning her to the front of the room. Her throat felt tight as she approached, and her tongue as if it was made of sandpaper and twice its usual size.
‘I’ll just shove along,’ said a kind-faced man with a very red nose. He shuffled his chair along the trestle table, making space for her in the middle beside Helen. What felt like the entire village looked back at her expectantly.
‘So this next part of the meeting is our Community Store AGM. And as you know, with Beth having left us, we’re in the rather unusual –’ Helen paused, and the red-nosed man looked at Hannah and then squeezed her arm, taking her by surprise – ‘situation of her having taken a unilateral decision to install Hannah as her replacement manager.’
The knot in Hannah’s stomach coiled up more tightly, filling her with a sense of growing unease. Unilateral what?
‘Anyway,’ Helen said, giving Hannah a look which she decided was supposed to be comforting, ‘the good news is that everyone seems to be on board with it, even if it is rather unorthodox, so the first thing we have to do is take a vote of approval. All in favour, raise your hand.’
For a horrible moment, Hannah wondered what would happen if there was mass dissent and everyone in the village rejected her as community shop manager.
‘Nobody else is going to do it, are they?’ said a wag from somewhere in the third row, making everyone laugh. A sea of hands went up.
‘Well, hopefully that’ll make you feel a little bit more at home,’ Helen said, scribbling something down on her expensive-looking leather notepad. ‘Accounts and things we’ll leave for the secondary meeting,’ she continued.
‘That’s because everyone falls asleep if she tries to do them here,’ said the nice man under his breath, chuckling quietly. Helen shot him a look, and he abruptly stopped laughing and adopted a serious expression.
‘So I think we’ll start by getting Hannah to do a little introduction,’ Helen concluded.
For a fleeting moment Hannah wondered what would happen if she leapt out of her chair, shot across the room and hurtled out of the door. Then she thought of Ben, sitting at home on the Xbox, having been uprooted from his life in Manchester. If he could be brave, so could she. She cleared her throat and folded her hands together, trying to look more confident than she felt.
‘Um, hello.’
Silence. A sea of expectant faces looked back at her.
‘So yes, I, um, I’m Beth’s cousin. And I have to admit, I didn’t realize that she�
�d taken me on without consulting the committee—’
‘Just as bloody well, or she’d still be here,’ said the heckler, making everyone laugh again.
Hannah felt herself going pink again. Honestly, life would be so much easier if she didn’t blush like a schoolgirl every time someone so much as breathed in her direction.
‘Anyway, it’s been a dream of mine to live in a village like this, and everyone’s made me so welcome.’
That wasn’t strictly true. In fact, a few of the sniffier villagers had been rather standoffish, and certainly not as warm and welcoming as she’d been led to believe was standard for village life. A couple of people in the audience looked slightly uncomfortable and shuffled their feet around, dropping their gaze. There was a vague murmur of approval. Hannah sighed with relief. Helen’s shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly.
‘And you’ve had rather a brilliant brainwave, haven’t you?’ God, Helen might be a bit bossy, but right then Hannah could have hugged her. She gave her a fleeting smile of thanks and took a deep breath.
‘Well, it was just an idea.’ Her voice was wobbly, but at that moment she caught Nicola’s eye. Nicola gave her an encouraging smile and did a little thumbs up, which somehow gave her the boost she needed. She cleared her throat and started speaking, clearly this time.
‘I found out that the village is trying to raise money for the kitchen here, and that the local bookshop had closed – and it’s always been another dream of mine to run a bookshop. So when I discovered that there’s a massive overspill from the telephone box library, it seemed like the perfect solution to make some space for second-hand books within the shop.’
‘Excellent idea, isn’t it?’ Helen turned to one of the other committee members, nodding in approval.
‘Are you planning to stock new books as well?’ someone asked.
‘I’m not sure yet. It’s just in the early stages; and of course –’ she was finding her feet now – ‘it’s a village bookshop, so I think that sort of thing is something we all need to agree on?’
‘Sounds like you’ve got lots of ideas,’ said Charles, the red nosed man she’d met when they first arrived. ‘Nice to have some new blood in the village making a difference.’
‘Any questions, anyone?’ Helen spoke over the hum of discussion.
‘Could we have a book club?’ Nicola half turned to look at Lucy as she asked and Sam, Lucy’s partner, leaned over and whispered something that made her giggle.
‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ Helen said.
And then there was a flurry of questions about various other village-related things, and the rest of the meeting flew past in a whirlwind of suggestions and plans and ideas. Before she knew it, Hannah was standing by the door of the village hall and Helen was patting her on the shoulder.
‘That wasn’t as bad as you thought, was it?’
Hannah shook her head. Sam, Lucy and Mel headed off, waving goodbye. Nicola was helping to gather up teacups. A small but efficient army of middle-aged women began stacking chairs, and someone was sweeping the wooden floor with a huge, wide brush.
‘I have to admit I had my heart in my mouth when you spoke up about the bookshop idea. One can never tell how things are going to land. But I think that was rather a success, don’t you?’ Helen squeezed her arm.
‘I do.’ Hannah felt suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.
‘Well, we can get together and make plans over the coming week. I think perhaps I’ll gather together a little working group, and we’ll get things underway.’
It was, Hannah reflected, walking back down towards the cottage, rather a relief to have someone like Helen taking charge. Village life seemed to thrive on people like her. And with her support, despite whatever Beth had done – she pulled out her phone to text her cousin and then thought better of it, deciding she’d wait and call her in the morning – anything seemed possible.
Chapter Fifteen
The following week flew past. Hannah found that she didn’t have time to miss Phil, who called to say that he’d been unexpectedly called up to Scotland to work at a conference. Ben was settling into school, taking advantage of the still-light evenings to go out and play football most days with his new friends. He came home exhausted and muddy, face pink with exertion, and collapsed on the sofa with vast bowls of cereal before hoovering up enormous helpings of dinner. They’d settled into a pattern over the three weeks, just the two of them. It wasn’t that different to home, she reflected – Phil had been away so much with work of late that they’d been used to just getting on with things. Nicest of all, Hannah thought, as she sorted out the till at the end of the day, was the knowledge that Katie was on her way for a visit.
She arrived the next morning, dressed for her visit to the village – jeans and colourful Converse, a striped Joules t-shirt and her hair tied back in a ponytail with a navy blue bow. Being Katie, of course, she launched straight into a line of enquiry about the missing Phil.
‘And you’re fine with this?’
‘Fine about what?’
‘Well.’ Katie waved her arm around airily. ‘You’re here in bucolic splendour, and he’s still up there ostensibly sorting out the house.’ She raised an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. The emphasis was faint, but definitely there.
‘It’s fine.’ What did fine actually mean? Hannah turned away, busying herself with putting on shoes so they could go for a walk around the village.
‘Seems a bit weird to me. Anyway, what’s the latest on the bookshop idea? Is your sitting room going to be some sort of holding area for books?’ Katie lifted up the lid of a box and took out a copy of Bleak House. ‘God, that’s grim. I loathe Dickens. Reminds me of being forced to read it at school.’
‘Someone else must feel the same way – we’ve been given a complete set of his works, brand new. D’you reckon they’ll sell?’ Hannah asked.
‘You’re the bookish one. How do you feel about Dickens?’
Hannah picked up a copy of A Christmas Carol. ‘Well, I quite like this,’ she said, turning it over and looking at the cover art. ‘I mean, it’s very . . . All right, I’m not exactly a fan.’
‘You need to think about what you want to sell in this little bookshop thing of yours. You can’t have boring old classics taking up space on the shelves. You need stuff people are actually going to want to buy.’
‘Oh God, don’t you start. I’ve had a meeting over coffee this week with Helen and Nicola and a couple of others. Everyone’s got an opinion on what we should be selling and how.’
‘Nicola? She helps in the shop, doesn’t she?’
‘Yeah, she’s lovely.’
Nicola had appeared in the shop the day after the AGM, keen to help with plans for the bookshop. She was married and worked part-time at a nursery school in Bletchingham, but seemed to be at a loose end.
‘Is she going to be your new BFF? Do I have competition?’
‘Shut up, you,’ Hannah laughed.
‘I’m only teasing. So what’s the deal with her? Is she a local?’
‘No, they’ve not been in the village long.’
‘Ah,’ Katie nodded. ‘That’s quite nice, then. You’re newbies together.’
They headed out, leaving the shop in the capable hands of one of the volunteers. It was lovely to be able to take time off to spend with Katie – and even nicer that the village looked so gorgeous on a day like today. They walked along in silence for a while, just taking in the scenery. Two riders on sleek brown horses trotted past, nodding hello as the sound of the metal horseshoes rang out in the quiet of the village street. George was outside his cottage, pruning some roses, and waved hello. They walked up and Hannah pointed out Helen’s huge, beautiful house, set back from the road with a neatly tended gravel drive.
‘This is beautiful.’
‘I know. You can see why I wanted to move, can’t you?’
‘Well yes, it’s hardly suburban Manchester, is it?’ Katie cocked her head in the directio
n of a heavy wooden gate that stood open, revealing two extremely expensive cars. ‘There’s a lot of money here, isn’t there? There must be people who could just put their hand in their pocket and pay for a brand new kitchen for the village hall.’
‘Probably, yes.’ Hannah had thought the same, several times. It never ceased to surprise her how much money people would spend in the village shop, nipping in and buying six bottles of wine and not even checking the cost. She and Phil hadn’t ever got out of the habit of buying bog standard supermarket stuff, so watching people happily blowing fifteen pounds a bottle just for a weeknight was a revelation. Not that she was complaining – the village shop was doing wonderfully, with profits week on week already rising, which was a nice surprise.
‘How far d’you want to go?’ Katie was super-fit and routinely ran for miles. Hannah thought quickly, knowing that if she didn’t come up with a route they’d end up walking a half marathon round the country lanes.
‘Let’s walk up here. You can have a look at Jake Lovatt’s place from the top of the hill.’
‘Ooh, d’you reckon we might bump into him?’
‘I dunno.’ Hannah tried to look unenthusiastic. The truth was she’d seen him in the shop yesterday afternoon and the second he’d walked in – dark hair ruffled from the wind, a thick navy jumper over a checked shirt – she’d been flustered. He’d stood chatting for ten minutes, asking about her plans for the bookshop, surprising her with his interest, until a group of schoolgirls had come in and she’d had to turn her attention to serving them.
They walked out of the village and up the hill, Katie striding along and Hannah trying not to sound puffed as they chatted.
‘So what’s the deal with Phil?’
‘He says he’ll be here next weekend. I’m flat out to be honest – I had no idea how tired I’d be. I haven’t really had time to mind that he’s not here.’
Katie shot her a sideways look.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
They carried on in silence for a bit, and then as the road twisted round and the hill dropped away, Hannah grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘There, look. That’s his place.’
The Village Green Bookshop: A Feel-Good Escape for All Book Lovers from the Bestselling Author of The Telephone Box Library Page 11