Page 13 of Christmas at the Borrow a Bookshop

Chapter Six

Cake is Required

In spite of the buffeting winds, there was a crowd outside Jowan’s cottage at the foot of the slope when Magnús left the Siren’s Tail. They were talking in low voices amongst themselves and the sight was enough to make him change his mind about knocking on the door to ask how the woman was doing. He’d thought Reykjavík was a whispering place, but Clove Lore evidently surpassed it for news-spreading.

‘There he is!’ one elderly man in the crowd said, as Magnús tried to squeeze by on his way back to the bookshop. ‘The one that lifted her out.’

Many faces peeping out from under hoods followed him. Magnús was sure he heard a slightly leery whisper about not realising there was a Viking in town, but when he looked around crossly, all eyes were innocently averted.

‘Save her life, did you?’ a woman piped up.

‘Nei.’ Magnús waved his hands in protest. ‘No, it was… Monty? I think, and his brother.’

‘Tom’s in there now, with her,’ another woman told him, and the words set off an instinct within him that Magnús didn’t like.

Tom was laying claim to the shipwrecked woman like she was some kind of beach treasure, when it had beenhimshe’d gazed at with astonished eyes. Or, perhaps she had. He couldn’t be sure. She’d been afraid and wishing herself miles away, that much he understood. She must be desperate to get away from prying eyes and grasping hands. And yet, deep down, he still wanted to be the one in there talking with her, not Tom Bickleigh.

He’d stepped up and knocked on Jowan’s door before he knew what he was doing. The realisation made his blood heat in an uncomfortable way, as did the fact that his impulsiveness had an audience of overexcited locals.

‘S’no good. They won’t answer,’ the oldest of the men, Jowan’s neighbour, told him, just as the lace curtain at the upstairs window was pulled aside then immediately replaced.

Jowan seemed a sensible man, Magnús thought. Of course he’d know the woman’s sudden appearance would rouse salacious interest in the village. He was protecting her by keeping the busybodies away, and Magnús had no desire to be included in their number.

With shoulders set against the wind at his back, he strode up the slope, annoyed and amazed he’d been rash enough to knock. He prized his own privacy above anything else. Why on earth had he tried to intrude upon the mermaid’s? The realisation stilled his hand as he put the key in the bookshop lock.

‘Nei, hættu þessu.’ He’d stop himself thinking about her right now. Nip it in the bud. Whatever it was; this yearning wish to look at her one more time, to see if he could feel again the same electric jolt her eyes had sent through him. There was only one thing for it. He must occupy his mind. He had to open up this phoney bookshop and do some work.

Only it felt exactly how he remembered. Very real indeed, and not at all like make-believe.

No matter how much he set his mind to not falling for it, there was a familiar rhythm to pricing up the books which had been left for him in a crate by the till. He had taken his time and found it wasn’t entirely awful.

Almost all of the books were second-hand, some positively antiquated and nicely bound in leather, some with beautifully faded gilt edges.

He lifted each title at a time, consulted the pricing websites on his phone and, based on its condition, took an educated guess at how much a holidaymaker might be willing to pay for it. Tourists spent more on holiday than they would when shopping at home, he knew, but even so, the bookshop seemed to have a policy of keeping its prices low.

He’d then found a cloth and made his way round the shelves but soon realised he was simply moving dust from place to place as opposed to eradicating it. So he vacuumed, using the droning old device he’d found in the tiny kitchen by the stairs when he’d made himself a cup of instant coffee. Someone had kindly left some milk in the fridge. Jowan, most likely.

The vacuuming and coffee had at least warmed him up, but he still swept out the ashes in the grate and set a new fire.

The glow from the hearth brought back the same comforting heat of last night. There was something about staring into flames and listening to crackles and sparks that soothed him, even if the furthest corners of the shop remained frigidly cold.

As he slipped the books onto the shelves, mixing up new and second-hand stock – which seemed to be the shop’s way – he took time to familiarise himself with the shop’s offering.

There were thousands upon thousands of books – some tatty, some treasures; Clove Lore picture postcards in a rotating rack, miscellaneous stationery that looked a bit dated, and in pride of place on the front desk were multiple copies of a bakery cookbook authored by ‘Crawley and Son, Bakers’.

He turned down the corners of his mouth as he read the back of the book, which was more of a pamphlet, really. He wasn’t at all sure why it was there, and he didn’t give it any more thought, carrying on with his walk around the shop.

He shook his head at a first edition ofThe Velveteen Rabbiton the children’s shelves priced at ten pounds, slightly foxed and missing half its spine. They could easily ask for ten times that amount, he complained aloud to the empty shop. Would anyone passing by be willing to pay that? He guessed not.

Although there was a newish-looking laptop on the desk by the till, he was surprised to find there was no shop website; no distance-selling of any kind. Even his dismally failed bookshop back home had had its own online storefront – not that it had attracted much business, but still. He’d met the market head on. This place was stuck in the nineties.

By eleven, he paused by the front door, at a loss for what to do next. It was dark outside but he knew it wasn’t supposed to be. It was the grey clouds. The wind still beat strongly on the windows and not a single customer had yet set foot inside his shop. They were probably all waiting for gossip down at Jowan’s cottage, if they hadn’t all blown into the harbour by now.

Perhaps the locals would be more in need of coffee than books today? His eyes fell upon the low door at the far side of the shop, so low he had to stoop to pass through it.

The café was small and cosy. He was glad to find it had modern appliances and plumbing, including a scalding hot radiator. The oven was small and housed inside a little cubby behind a beaded curtain with shelves above stocked with homemade strawberry jam, its red colour jewel-like and vibrant in the white café. There were fresh eggs in the fridge and something called ‘clotted cream’ which, when he lifted off the lid, smelled sweet and inviting. There was a pack of salted butter, flour, sugar, and jars of fat sultanas. He didn’t know they were for baking the cream tea scones the tourists came to Devon in their droves for year round.

He scratched at his beard, thinking.

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