Page 8 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
She took a first, tentative step, and then, with her phonetorch guiding her, she made her way carefully back along the cliff path, trying to ignore the dark void to her left, the crashing, thrumming beat of the waves. Her pulse refused to settle until she was safely back under the signpost, with concrete beneath her feet and the row of neat holiday homes ahead of her. She let out a long, slow breath, into a night that was, now, completely dark, and decided that she’d never been so pleased to see streetlights in her life.
For a second, she let herself imagine what would have happened if she’d taken Harry’s hand; if she’d let him lift her over the fence and drive her home. But the way he had extended the offer – he hadn’t even attempted to be polite, so if he was feeling guilty, and maybe a little bit worried about her; well, that was good. She’d survived by herself long enough: she didn’t need to start relying on a man – and a rude one at that – to keep her safe.
Chapter Four
Sophie was woken on Thursday morning by Clifton snuffling on the pillow next to her head. She had long given up trying to keep him out of the bedroom, but he was an intelligent dog, and she knew he’d sensed her unease at their precarious walk home along the clifftop path the night before.
‘OK, buddy?’
He crawled towards her and pressed his damp nose against her cheek, then followed it with a lick.
It was still early, and while Fiona let her keep her own hours at the shop, she liked to be there from opening until close whenever possible, to maximize her selling opportunities. But instead of pulling the duvet off, Sophie stared at the ceiling. There was hardly any light filtering under her soft blue curtains, suggesting another grey November day where the sea, clouds and sky merged into one.
Once she’d got safely home last night, she had cooked stir fry veg and chicken for dinner, ignoring the tantalizingsmells from Batter Days. She’d foundPretty Womanon the TV, a film she loved, but she’d been distracted; she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her strange encounter with Harry Anderly. He was a puzzle, mostly cold and disinterested, but desperate to drive her home. He’d admitted naming his dogs Darkness and Terror, and told her about being labelled the Dark Demon Lord of Mistingham, so he was aware of his reputation in the village, but he didn’t seem bothered by it, certainly not to the extent of trying to change it. And yet he dressed his pet goat in knitted jumpers, and he’d been almost aggressively concerned for her safety. It was confusing, to say the least.
He shunned the village and its inhabitants, wasn’t even trying to meet them halfway when it came to using Mistingham Green for their traditional events. He didn’t seem particularly close to anyone except for May, and from what she’d heard he was working single-handedly to make repairs on his estate. Why had he come back to the village when everything about it seemed like such hard work: the state of the manor, interacting with the locals? He could sell up and move anywhere he wanted to.
These thoughts were still pinging around in her head as she got up and made breakfast for herself and Clifton, as she stood at her kitchen window, eating toast and Marmite and gazing at the sea. It was a flat grey tableau, the only spark of interest a tanker moving slowly across the horizon.
Fiona greeted them warmly when they arrived at Hartley Country Apparel, Clifton bustling over to his padded bed at the base of Sophie’s display shelves. ‘Did you have a nice evening?’ she asked.
‘It was fine, thanks.’ Sophie logged into her till and gave her display a critical once-over. She liked having the brightest notebooks at eye level, the cloth- or leatherbound ones just below, so customers could take them down and feel how smooth and soft they were. Once they were holding them, they didn’t usually want to give them back.
She realized Fiona was watching her, and wondered if news of her encounter with Harry had somehow made its way round the village, even though there had been nobody else there. The current of gossip in Mistingham was strong and constant, and she wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if someone had found out somehow.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.
Fiona held her gaze for another moment, then said, ‘Fancy a coffee?’
‘I’d love one.’ She breathed a sigh of relief when Fiona went to the back of the shop and the kettle burbled to life.
‘I was thinking,’ she said, returning minutes later with Sophie’s milky coffee, ‘we could put up the Christmas lights sooner rather than later.’
‘Inside the shop?’ Sophie thanked her and sipped her drink, the caffeine perking her up instantly.
‘Our twinkly gold lights aren’t too over the top, and if the days are going to carry on like this, with no hint of sunshine, we need to add our own sparkle.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Sophie loved that the huge cherry tree outside the Blossom Bough was wound through with lights that Natasha kept on all year round, their silver-white bulbs spotlighting the delicate flowers in spring, brightening bare branches in winter, but she wasn’t sure they’d have such a romantic effect interspersed with waxed jackets and deerstalkers.
‘Is something wrong?’ Fiona asked.
Sophie looked up from the pot of jewelled ballpoints she was rearranging. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘You’re awfully distracted. And the other day I noticed you were looking up rental places in Cornwall on your phone.’
Sophie felt as if she’d had a bucket of seawater thrown over her. ‘You saw that?’
‘You left the screen unlocked when you helped Sian bring her buggy over the step,’ Fiona explained. ‘Your cup of tea was too close to the edge so I went to rescue it, and there they were. Tiny flats; nothing more enticing than your current place over Batter Days. Cornwall is ridiculously expensive.’
‘They were holiday homes,’ Sophie rasped out.
Fiona scoffed. ‘They were not. Are you seriously thinking about leaving?’ She sounded like she was trying to keep her outrage in check, as if Sophie’s decision was equal to setting the entire village on fire.
‘I don’t …’ she started, but what could she say? This was why she preferred to leave without warning – so people couldn’t try and change her mind. She didn’t often have a problem – excluding Bristol, which had been nothingbuta problem – but that was because she stayed in places for such a short amount of time that usually nobody cared. Fiona, it seemed, was going to be the exception.
‘Are you unhappy here?’ Her friend sounded pained.
‘I’m not unhappy,’ Sophie rushed out. Fiona had been a good friend from the moment she’d arrived, but it was too complicated – inexplicable to anyone but her – why she had to do this. She thought of their conversation with Dexterthe other day, about the importance of physical shops, how they were dying out. ‘It’s just that I need more space.’
