The Village Green Bookshop: A Feel-Good Escape for All Book Lovers from the Bestselling Author of The Telephone Box Library

by Rachael Lucas

  Nestled in a dip in the fields, Greenhowes looked like something from a period drama. There was a plume of smoke curling up from one of the chimneys, and the trees that encircled it were huge and imposing.

  ‘My God, if I come back in another life I’m coming back as a premier league footballer.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Hannah snorted with laughter. ‘Far too much effort.’

  ‘You can be my wife, then,’ said Katie, linking arms with her as they started to walk down the hill. ‘Can we get any closer? I want to see what it’s like inside.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a brilliant plan. Why don’t we just casually walk down his driveway and pretend we’re lost.’

  ‘You could tell him you wanted to borrow a cup of sugar. You’re neighbours, after all.’

  ‘Neighbours we might be, but I run a blooming shop. I’ve got all the sugar anyone might need.’

  Katie raised an eyebrow. ‘He might like some of your sweetness.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Hannah shook her head, laughing. ‘You are a complete disgrace.’

  ‘Just saying.’

  ‘Well, don’t. I’m a happily married woman.’

  ‘Are you?’

  A few moments later, just as they were approaching the driveway for Greenhowes, a sleek black BMW purred to a halt at the top of the drive.

  ‘Hello,’ Katie said, peering in. Hannah could see Jake sitting at the wheel. A second later her stomach gave a slight lurch as she saw a pale, extremely slender, dark-haired woman with high cheekbones sitting in the passenger seat. Of course he had a girlfriend – he was handsome, charming, loaded . . . and she was married, so it didn’t matter one bit.

  ‘Hi,’ Jake said, briefly catching Hannah’s eye and lifting one eyebrow slightly. ‘You looking for me?’

  ‘Out for a walk,’ she said simply. Why on earth was she feeling faintly sick and a bit stupid?

  ‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow for training, maybe?’ He gave a brief wave and, winding up the window, pulled away.

  ‘Okay,’ Katie said, turning to face Hannah with her hands on her hips. ‘You’re going to have to explain exactly what’s going on. You can do it now, or over a bottle.’

  ‘There’s nothing going on.’ Hannah chewed at her thumbnail. Who was the woman in the car? How hadn’t she known he had a girlfriend? God, she was turning into Beth – expecting to know everything about everyone in Little Maudley. Was this what working in the village shop did to a person?

  ‘Right, then,’ said Katie, who clearly wasn’t going to be deterred. ‘Let’s go home. It’s six o’clock somewhere, in any case. We can have wine, gossip and watch trashy TV. It’ll be like the old days.’

  Back in the shop, Katie snaffled a bottle of red from the shelf. It wasn’t one of the cheap ones, either, Hannah noticed.

  ‘Come on, there have to be some advantages to living beside the shop,’ she said, waving it merrily as she headed for the door.

  ‘I need to pay for that,’ Hannah tried to protest.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Katie shoved her through the little passageway that led to the cottage and disappeared, brandishing her bank card in the direction of the girl who was working behind the counter. ‘In fact, can we make it two?’

  Hannah collapsed on the sofa, removing the detritus of Ben’s afternoon of gaming and sticking it on the coffee table. When Katie walked in, she picked up the tube of Pringles and shook it, hopefully.

  ‘No chance of him leaving any food that isn’t nailed down, is there?’

  ‘Nope.’ Hannah pulled off her shoes, throwing them across the room.

  ‘You’re quite enjoying this student life with no Phil around, aren’t you?’

  She couldn’t quite imagine how it would feel to have Phil there all the time. All he’d managed so far was one night and a flying visit on his way to a client in Oxford, where he’d popped in, taken her out for lunch to the village pub and apologized for being so busy. He’d been perfectly charming, but oddly distant. Living miles away from someone who worked the hours he did was hard.

  ‘You okay?’ Katie touched her arm, nudging her out of her reverie.

  ‘Sorry, yeah. I was just thinking it’ll be weird, him being here.’

  ‘Ben seems quite happy without him.’ Katie had located a couple of glasses and unscrewed the bottle.

  ‘He’s fifteen. He lives half the time in FIFA-land and the other half on a real football field. I swear if I didn’t cook him dinner and hand over his washing, he wouldn’t even notice I exist.’

  ‘You’re doing yourself down.’

  As if summoned, Ben appeared out of his bedroom, hair standing up on end, and Katie gave him an affectionate high five.

  ‘How’s village life?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Not missing your mates too much?’

  ‘I’m on Xbox Live with them, so no.’ Ben perched on the arm of the chair. He’d always had a lot of time for Katie, who’d been like an aunty to him. It helped that she was a pretty hot gamer (‘for a girl’, he’d tease her) and talked to him as if he was an adult rather than a child.

  ‘Well, that’s something. And I hear you’re going to be taking the world of football by storm?’

  His face became animated. ‘Yeah, did you hear? Can you believe we’ve got Jake Lovatt as a coach? It’s insane.’

  ‘Totally insane.’ Katie took a mouthful of wine. ‘Mmm, that’s nice. I’m glad I decided to stay overnight. So what’s he like? Besides absolutely gorgeous, I mean . . .’

  ‘Katie!’

  ‘Oh come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘He came in the shop the other day and was talking to Mum for ages,’ Ben said, reaching across and lifting his own tub of crisps. ‘Thought I finished these. Can I nick some more from the shop?’

  ‘You may not.’ Hannah gave him a stern look. ‘There’s leftover pasta in the fridge from last night.’

  ‘Take this,’ Katie said, handing him her bank card, ‘and get a couple of tubes. And some of those nice cashew nuts in the posh bag.’

  ‘You’re such a soft touch,’ Hannah chided her as Ben disappeared out of the room.

  ‘He’s a good lad. And I want crisps. You’re telling me you don’t?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Hannah wrinkled her nose and laughed. She curled her feet up underneath herself and turned to look at Katie, who was checking her phone.

  ‘Sorry, work stuff.’

  ‘You’re as bad as Phil.’

  ‘Nobody’s as bad as Phil.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Okay, come on. If he works that hard, why aren’t you two millionaires?’

  Hannah chewed the inside of her cheek and thought. It was something that had nagged at her before. She’d been working her backside off in the time since she got to the shop, and already she’d changed round the shelving (triggering consternation and a mild scandal on the village Facebook group). She and Helen were drawing up plans for the little bookshop. Meanwhile, the state of her and Phil’s finances remained fair to moderate, at best. They definitely weren’t going to be taking an anniversary trip to the Maldives any time soon.

  ‘We’re not really anniversary trip people,’ she said, thinking out loud.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Just musing. Anyway, when you’ve been together as long as we have, you can’t exactly expect it to be all hearts and flowers.’

  ‘The occasional heart or flower might be nice, though?’ Katie took one of the tubes of crisps from Ben as he reappeared, handed her the bank card and disappeared back into his room. A moment later his music blared out. Rather than yelling, Hannah picked up her phone to message him to turn it down.

  ‘More chance of him actually paying attention that way,’ she explained.

  ‘So when’s the last time Phil bought you flowers?’

  ‘Ugh, leave it, Katie. Can we talk about your online dating adventures instead? They’re far more i
nteresting.’

  ‘No hearts or flowers there, either,’ Katie said, smirking. ‘But on the other hand, who needs hearts and flowers when you’re in bed with a red-hot twenty-five-year-old?’

  ‘Twenty-five?’ Hannah felt ancient all of a sudden.

  ‘That’s only eleven years younger than us.’

  Hannah laughed, shaking her head as she stood up to go to the loo. When she was washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. Thirty-five wasn’t old – in fact, Nicola was the same age, and trying for her first baby. Maybe it was being the mother of a teenager that did it? She felt ancient and worn out and unattractive. And there was a wrinkly line in the middle of her forehead that seemed to be getting deeper by the day. She pulled her eyebrows up and tried to imagine how she’d look with Botox. Then she remembered the love yourself mantra and let her face drop back down again.

  She still had nice eyes, and her hair was definitely a good point. But. She’d been standing in the shop, covered in dust from clearing out the bookshop space the other day when Jake had walked in. Ben, who’d been helping her, had been shaken out of his habitual cool and was genuinely excited and happy to see him, chatting away about the team’s plans for the new season. Hannah had tried to wipe a cobweb off her nose and, unbeknownst to her, had smeared a dirty smudge across her face that she hadn’t noticed until afterwards.

  Not – of course – that she’d been looking, because she was happily married to Phil. Well, married. Were they happy? She pulled her phone out of her pocket and went to send him a message on WhatsApp.

  Online, his status said.

  Hi darling, she typed, can’t wait to see you and show you what’s been happening here at the shop.

  She waited a moment. He was still online, but he hadn’t seen her message. She waited, wiping the bathroom sink absent-mindedly with a cloth. Still online, still hadn’t seen her message.

  That’s weird, she thought, shoving her phone back in the pocket of her jeans. Phil had been loath to install WhatsApp, saying it was just another way of wasting time. He’d insisted he only had it because she wanted to have a family group chat. Hannah shook herself. She was being stupid. It was probably some sort of technical error.

  Have you heard from Dad? she couldn’t help asking Ben by message, when she returned to the sitting room and pulled out her phone.

  Nope

  Oh okay.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Katie looked at her quizzically. She’d filled up their glasses and passed Hannah’s over.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Just trying to get hold of Phil and ask him about something. It said he was online but he didn’t see my message. It’s probably some WhatsApp glitch.’

  Katie looked at her and raised an eyebrow. ‘You want me to check in on him when I get back? I can do. And I can break some kneecaps if I need to.’ She looked half-serious.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Hannah said, taking a large mouthful of wine. It was fine, wasn’t it?

  Later that night, though, with Katie fast asleep in the single bed in the tiny spare room and Ben staying up too late playing online, she found herself lying in bed looking at her phone. There were two blue ticks beside the message she’d sent, meaning they’d been read. And yet there was no reply. Strangest of all, it said that Phil Blake had last seen the thread at ten thirty p.m. But something stopped her from picking up the phone and ringing him. Maybe she’d get Katie to stop by the house tomorrow on her way back and see what was going on. She fell asleep with a weird, nagging sense of unease.

  The next morning she didn’t have time to think about it – the morning shift was her responsibility and she was up and organizing papers and deliveries before the inevitable red wine hangover had time to hit. Katie, showered and ready to go, was standing in the shop eating a slice of toast. Ben was fast asleep, and would be for hours yet.

  ‘Katie?’ Hannah waited until her friend was almost out of the door before she spoke.

  ‘Hannah?’ Katie pulled a red lipstick out of her bag, flipped open a mirror and applied it perfectly.

  ‘Would you mind popping by the house? I know it’s weird, but I feel like something’s going on.’

  ‘Course.’ She blew Hannah a kiss, careful not to dislodge her lipstick. ‘I’ll do a reconnaissance mission on my way back. Do a detour. You want photos?’ She gave a half-joking smile.

  ‘I just want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ Katie said, squeezing her on the arm. ‘You know what Phil’s like, he’s probably fallen asleep with his phone in his hand or something. Maybe he’s been looking at—’ Her eyes widened suggestively, and she snorted with laughter.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hannah, forcing out a laugh. But she felt weird all morning.

  Later on, once the morning rush was over and just before Ben was heading off to training, she took a walk along the road to clear her head. For a second she hesitated – should she call him?

  Might as well take the bull by the horns.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, you are alive.’ She could hear the edge in her tone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I sent you a message last night. You saw it but didn’t reply?’

  ‘Oh, my phone was playing up.’

  ‘I thought it was probably something like that.’

  ‘You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve been packing some stuff up.’

  ‘Miracles will never cease.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I thought maybe I’d better get some of the eight billion books you own off the shelves and into boxes. It’s going to take forever.’

  She hung up after a brief goodbye and turned back to look at the newly cleared-out window where the bookshop would be very soon – she’d managed to transform the shop in just a few weeks’ time from a space that felt very much Beth’s territory into her own. Soon, with Phil at home, she could stop feeling like she was living in limbo.

  ‘Morning,’ said George, walking by with his little border terrier.

  ‘Lovely day,’ she beamed, shoving her phone back into her pocket and turning back towards the shop. If Phil was coming next week, she wanted the place looking amazing. She decided that after seeing Jake with his girlfriend yesterday, the last thing she wanted to do was bump into him again. Instead, she’d spend some more time getting the alcove all sorted. Sam, the treehouse designer who was Lucy’s partner, had promised to come in and put up some shelves – he’d popped by yesterday and taken some measurements. Soon they’d have a little village bookshop, and all the books that were waiting in boxes would have new homes to go to – and the funds for the village hall kitchen would be through the roof.

  That was the theory, anyway. She felt a bit sick with nerves when she thought about it – what if nobody bought anything?

  Chapter Sixteen

  She’d reached the point where organizing the volunteer shop workers into their shifts was going to send her insane – Beth had definitely undersold that part, with her casual comment in passing that Hannah ‘just’ had to swap one Excel spreadsheet for another. In fact, when she went to set it up, she found a tranche of emails from people who couldn’t make this month because . . . and who would be more than happy to do a double shift the following month if they could just . . .

  Shutting the laptop rather harder than she meant to and making Lily, an elderly woman who was dusting the bookshelves, jump in surprise, she stood up and straightened her back with an alarming crack.

  ‘Right. I’m going to get some fresh air, because I think I’m going to go mad if I have to stare at a screen for much longer.’

  ‘Very good idea, my love.’ Lily paused, feather duster in mid-air. ‘You’ll give yourself a headache, spending all that time looking at a computer.’

  ‘One of the afternoon girls will be here in about quarter of an hour.’ Hannah scrunched up her face, then gave a huge yawn. ‘Will you manage?’

  ‘I should think so,’ Lily said. ‘I used to run the department store in Bletchingham back in the day
.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Years back, before everyone hopped on the bus to Oxford or Milton Keynes to do their shopping. I was the manageress. We closed down in the early nineties, when the big shopping centres were at their peak. It’s a shame, really – Bletchingham could do with somewhere like that where you could pick up bits and bobs without having to go to town. I miss Woolies, too. But anyway . . .’ She tailed off, shaking her head. ‘No point living in the past. So don’t you worry about me, I’ll be just fine.’

  ‘Thanks, Lily.’ Hannah grabbed her phone and bag and headed out of the door.

  Outside, the sky was a pale, uncertain grey. It was still just warm enough to go out for a walk in just a cardigan and a top, and Hannah looped her bag across her body to keep it from sliding over her shoulder. Perhaps she’d take a wander up to the community gardens and sit for a moment in the sensory garden.

  Little Maudley was just as pretty in early autumn as it had been at the height of summer. The Cotswold stone glowed against the grey sky, and the well-tended gardens were still overflowing with the last of the summer blooms. A row of sunflowers stood against the whitewashed wall of Bunty’s thatched cottage opposite the telephone box library, their petals beginning to curl and brown. As she walked further up Church Lane, Hannah paused to admire a swathe of bright dahlias growing outside one of the little stone houses by the old school.

  ‘Morning,’ said Jim, the owner of the cottage, emerging from the front door with a pair of secateurs in hand. ‘Admiring my dahlias?’

  ‘They’re gorgeous.’

  ‘They’ve done well this year. Now, how’s it going up at the shop? You settling in?’

  ‘I am, yes, thank you.’

  ‘And your boy?’

  She thought of Ben, who had disappeared out the door to catch the school bus that morning, grabbing a piece of toast as he shouldered his rucksack.

  ‘Really well.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘I must get on,’ she said, hoping it wasn’t rude to disappear in the midst of a conversation. Or was it passing the time of day? She still hadn’t quite figured out the mysterious rules of village interaction – all she knew was it was a far cry from the vague nod hello she’d have given her neighbours back in Salford.