Page 76 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
Sophie closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I felt like he’d betrayed me. I thought that, even if I gave up my flat and moved in with him, I couldn’t trust him any more: not if that was what he really thought about me. It was as if, while things were good between us, he hadn’t bothered to say anything, almost as if he was humouring me. But how could I be with someone who thought the way I lived my life wasn’t worthwhile? I couldn’t trust him, he didn’t believe in me, so it was over.’ She shrugged and wrapped her arms around her knees.
‘I get that,’ Jazz said. ‘All the people who say they can get you things, provide this or that, who offer false promises and give you hope, only to take it away again. I guess what you have to decide is …’ Jazz drew a pattern in the dust with the end of a cable. ‘You have to decide to let go of thatdistrust. If you’re happy, you can’t sit around waiting for people to let you down. You have to … I guess you have to let yourself believe that they won’t. You have to be braver, otherwise you’ll never feel settled. You’ll always keep running.’
That, in a nutshell, was how Sophie had lived her life. She was a few years off forty, and she still acted as if nobody was trustworthy, as if everyone would let her down in the end. It was, she conceded, a ridiculous way to exist.
She tipped her head back and groaned, then stood up and took the mic off its stand, turned the amp on. ‘Jazz …?’ she said, her voice booming.
‘Ambrose,’ Jazz said, grinning. ‘My surname is Ambrose.’
‘Great surname,’ Sophie said into the mic, her words echoing off the walls. ‘Jazz Ambrose, you are half my age and twice as wise. From now on, I am going to be more like you: I’m going to take chances and be braver. I’m going to live, rather than exist.’ What she’d been doing recently – with the festival, with Harry – felt like living, and she wanted more of it.
Jazz smiled up at her, wincing whenever feedback whined through the amplifier like a petulant child.
‘I won’t just think about myself any more,’ Sophie went on, then had to swallow. ‘Mistingham is … it’s my home, I suppose.’ Her words faded, uncertain, at the end, but Jazz either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it.
‘You’re really staying?’ she asked.
Sophie closed her eyes. She remembered Harry leaning in to kiss her, laughing in bed while they ate cold toast together; she pictured the way the summer sea faded from blue-green close to the shore, out to a deep navy on thehorizon, the gunmetal grey and ferocious white horses of winter; she thought of the chunky flint houses with hollyhocks outside on hot, dusty days, the twinkling decorations adorning windows and roofs right now. Dexter and Lucy, Fiona and Ermin, May and Jazz.
She opened her eyes, returned Jazz’s infectious grin and said, ‘Yes. I’m really staying.’
She waited for the panic, for her heart to try and beat out of its chest, leading the way to the exit, but there was only a gentle thrumming, a sizzle in her blood and a skip in her pulse that wasn’t terror, but anticipation. She was here, in Mistingham, and it was time for her to stop running.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harry appeared in Hartley Country Apparel at five to five on Tuesday afternoon, and was greeted by Sophie’s warm smile and Fiona’s raised eyebrows.
Sophie was already buoyed up, because a customer had come in earlier and bought ten notebooks, then spent half an hour with her, commissioning three bespoke designs that she would have to squeeze in somehow, but was adamant she could get done in time. The drip of Christmas enthusiasm was turning into a flood, and Fiona’s sales of hats, scarves and gloves had been near record-breaking for a Tuesday.
‘Hi, Fiona,’ Harry said. ‘Sophie.’
‘Hey,’ Sophie said. ‘Your place or mine?’
Harry’s smile widened. ‘Yours. Ready to go?’
‘More than.’ Sophie put on her coat and joined him at the door. They said goodbye to Fiona, and Clifton gave her a farewell bark as Sophie slipped her arm through Harry’s and they walked to her flat.
‘I was thinking we could have bacon sandwiches,’ shesaid, hurrying into the living room ahead of him, tidying the coffee table, moving her notebook and the copy ofJane Eyreto a low bookshelf.
‘You don’t have to do anything, you know.’ Harry took off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door. ‘But it’s very hard for me to turn down a bacon sandwich.’
‘We need fuel while we work.’ She busied herself in the kitchen, getting out a pan, bacon, bread. With only the oven light on, she could see a couple of twinkling lights on the dark sea, tankers or fishing boats, just as Harry had talked about.
‘Are you OK?’ He slipped his arms around her waist, pressing up against her back. ‘IsthisOK?’
Sophie swallowed. Now would be the perfect time to tell him she was staying. But instead, she said, ‘We’ve got all the decoration materials ready for the hall, and Jazz and I checked the mic and amplifier yesterday. We should go through our checklist, see what’s left.’
She turned in his arms, and when his lips found hers, when he pushed her gently against the counter, so she could feel him, strong and solid against her, it seemed as if there were more important things than checking they had enough bunting or working out how to run their Scrabble tournament.
‘I don’t think we need to spend the entire evening on it,’ Harry whispered. ‘We’re sensible enough to sort it out.’
‘Sensible?’ Sophie echoed. ‘Is that how you’re selling yourself to me?’
‘I thought I’d already sold myself to you quite well,’ he said against her throat, and Sophie tipped her head back and agreed that yes, he had done that quite well already, actually.
The following day, she met Harry and Dexter on the village green in her lunch break. The sun was attempting to peek through the clouds, and the green looked welcoming despite the whorls of muddy ground visible through the grass, the recent rain having had an impact. She’d brought her larger handbag, the copy ofJane Eyrestowed safely inside.
‘Are we going to need some kind of flooring?’ she asked, after her foot had skidded in the mud.
