The Bookshop on the Corner (29 page)

“No,” she said. She didn't want to explain.

“Is that Ben Clark?” he said, nodding at the front of the van. “Hey, Ben, how's your mum? Hang on . . .”

He disappeared into the farmhouse and reappeared with a bowl of eggs. “Want to take these to her?”

“You knew about his mum?” said Nina, suddenly enraged.

“What, Mrs. Clark? I heard she'd been a bit poorly, but it's nothing too serious, is it?”

“She's completely bedridden!” said Nina. “Ainslee and Ben have been covering for her for months . . . maybe years. Ainslee's a child caregiver. Didn't you know?”

Lennox looked at her. “I try and keep out of people's business,” he said. “Hoped they'd keep out of mine.”

“Hmm,” said Nina.

“Are you do-gooding?”

“Well, you appear to be do-nothing, so I might as well.”

Lennox sniffed suddenly and marched off. Nina watched him go, wishing she hadn't flown off the handle with him. She didn't understand what on earth seemed to get her all riled up every time she saw him.

Ainslee complained bitterly, even when Nina took out her second bag and revealed two packets of chocolate cookies, bananas, tea, ice cream, and a large bottle of Irn-Bru.

“The harder you work, the more treats you get,” she said, smiling.

“I'm not four.”

“I know,” said Nina. “But I'll pay you your wage for this if you like.”

Ainslee immediately perked up a little, and they rolled their sleeves up and got to it.

Ainslee lifted her mum out of bed while Nina stripped the sheets and hurled everything she could find into the washing machine. Many of the clothes were badly mildewed, and she took away what couldn't be salvaged, or cut it up for rags. She'd find them other clothes somehow.

Once all the garbage was removed, the house looked much better already, and they washed, polished, and scrubbed, filling garbage bag after garbage bag that Nina would then take to the dump. Little Ben, grubbier than ever, helped pick up and put away, and was even persuaded to put his broken bits of toys into a box when Nina promised him she would get him new ones. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd be able to afford that, but she'd think of something. She got him vacuuming and washing
windows, where a few streaks here and there weren't really going to matter.

Then she set about, with Ainslee, opening the exhausting forms and official letters that had been dumped and piled up haphazardly on the kitchen table.

“Oh, Ainslee,” she said. “No wonder things are so hard. Look! They're asking for proof of all sorts of things, and they're going to cut off your money.”

She picked up one letter asking Janine Clark to attend a fitness-to-work assessment.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she said. “This is nuts.”

“I didn't know what to do,” said Ainslee. “I couldn't get her up, and it's two buses away, the assessment center. I mean, you can't get there for ten o'clock in the morning even if you could walk, and she can't walk. I didn't know . . .”

“Why on earth aren't social services more on to you?” wondered Nina. “You guys have just fallen down a crack. You don't bother anyone and they don't bother you.”

“That's how we like it,” grunted Ainslee.

“But it isn't, though, is it? It hasn't been for a long time.”

Ainslee shook her head.

“It's going to get better,” vowed Nina.

“Don't . . .” Ainslee was furiously pink. “I know you've helped us and all that, and we are grateful and everything. But don't go telling people in the village. I don't want charity. I don't want clothes from the charity shop and a school uniform from the leftovers box.”

Nina shook her head. “I understand. Okay.”

“I don't want handouts. Please.”

“Okay,” said Nina. “I'll see what I can do. But, Ainslee, you have to take your exams. You're such a bright girl and you could
do really well. If we manage to get you all set up here, you could go far. And make a much better life for your mum.”

“Without me?”

Nina had to admit she had a point.

“Well,” she said, “let's just take it as it comes.”

“It's all right for you to say. You just turned up from out of nowhere. You'll probably move on again as well, won't you?”

Nina didn't have an answer to that.

The emergency social workers were tremendous; they breezed in and assessed the situation instantly, making a special point of congratulating Ainslee on the wonderful job she'd made of being a caregiver—and telling her repeatedly that that was what she was—as well as somehow conjuring up a large box of new Legos for Ben. He sat on his mum's bed, happily putting it together with a skill and concentration Nina would not have expected of him.

She avoided Lennox when she got home, utterly exhausted, grubby to the bone but with a feeling of pleasant exhaustion, of deserving her hot bath. She wasn't going to consider him a bit, she decided. The man had been so wrapped up in his own problems, he hadn't even noticed those on his doorstep.

T
he summer stretched on. There were great heaving stormy days, when the clouds lay on the very top of the van, and the rain poured down, leaving the meadow grass bent low under its weight. But equally there were glorious, bursting days, when the sun rose golden and pink ahead, and the wind blew soft and warm, tiny clouds scudding across the sky, rabbits everywhere, and the vast scent of hay rising from the fields and perfuming the air made the whole world feel fresh and washed clean. Most important, there wasn't a day when Nina could imagine being anywhere else.

The ax had not fallen yet. Because what had seemed an easy thing to say—of course I'll keep moving, of course I'll go to Orkney—was, she realized, in fact not at all easy. As she tracked down people's favorites, coped with the overspill of the now incredibly well-attended toddler story sessions (she could have done ten a week had she been so inclined)—and struggled to get down the main street without saying hello to about sixty people, in a way that made her think this must be a little like
what being famous was, it struck her that it would be very hard to give this place up.

Because despite everything, she couldn't deny it. She was happy.

Ainslee was turning up regularly to work, amazed that social services had been so kind, so understanding and helpful, had actually sent someone around who could help them with the cleaning. Ainslee was so close to her sixteenth birthday, and her mum had made such an effort to be engaged and make sure Ben went to school—she had fervently promised to stop keeping them off and tucking them up in bed with her, although it did mean, Nina had noticed inadently, that Ben had the most tremendous in-depth knowledge of 1980s teen movies—that although there was a case conference coming up, it was highly likely that the whole family would be allowed to stay at home together.

Ben now was attending the local summer camp every day, more or less; occasionally, on a particularly beautiful day, Nina would notice him heading Tom Sawyer–like for the river and would tip Ainslee off, with a slight tinge of regret at having to curtail his freedom.

He had also caused her to break her most adamant rule, the one she had sworn never to be moved on: to never, ever lend a book. Occasionally she would offer to buy back particularly lovely editions if they were in great condition, but no, she was not a library service. She had to live and eat and pay people. Edwin and Hugh got preferential rates, and Ainslee her staff discount, but everyone else absolutely had to pay, otherwise she couldn't get by.

Except Ben. The child, once unleashed, could not be held back. He tore through the Faraway Tree books, Harry Potter,
the adventure series
Swallows and Amazons
; he read like a dam bursting, and Nina couldn't find it in her to deny him a word. He was an endlessly familiar sight that summer when summer camp was out, running errands for his mum, then settling himself in the sun on the step like a cat.

With the help of the overworked local headmistress, who was just desperately relieved to be on her break and filling it with a selection of books called things like
Breaking Out of Teaching
and
My Life as an Astronaut
, Nina was gently and discreetly talking to Ben about how much fun Primary 4 was, and how many people had moved into the village, so there'd be lots of new kids there who really didn't know who anyone was. She told him about the trips they would be going on, and how they did all sorts of amazing things like growing frog spawn into tadpoles and frogs. And when the book bus was quiet—which wasn't often that summer, as the village filled up with walkers and hikers and people who wanted local maps and local history and simply something to enjoy in the sunshine with a pint of local ale, or to keep them company while the rain hosed sideways on their tents all night and they decided to spend their next vacation in the Gobi Desert—she made Ainslee take out her geography and history textbooks, and work away quietly in the corner of the bus, just a little bit.

Her effort was partly for the family, Nina knew, but more selfishly, and deep down, it was something for her. So that even if her romantic life was a disaster, even if her hopes of staying here turned to dust and she had to move to the islands, even with all of those things, she hadn't done nothing.

N
ina spent less and less time at the farm as the Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After became ever busier. After her first disastrous attempt, which involved quite a lot of thrown raisins and Akela hitting the roof, Reading Cubs had become intensely popular; the toddler group never went out of fashion; and book groups were springing up all over the place. Nina would try and find the best of the absolute best for the groups, rather than suggesting something new and expensive, while the little ones liked absolutely anything by Maurice Sendak.

Imagine
, she texted to Griffin one night,
going into a publishers these days and saying, “I'm drawing this picture book of a young naked boy with his knob out getting baked into a cake—yes, sugar for breakfast—by four Oliver Hardys.”

You sound weird
, Griffin had replied.

I'm working a lot of overtime
, she typed back.
I only think in books. So I'm working too hard and it's like
Hard Times
, then I go home and it's
Cold Comfort Farm
.

I wish I could think in books
, typed back Griffin glumly.
We're
not allowed to think about books at all. It's all about social media presence.

Microserfs
?

Oh God, they're all too young even to have heard of it. Everyone is 23 and they keep trying to get me to come nightclubbing.

I thought you were loving all that.

I'm EXHAUSTED
, he typed back.
And at risk of alcoholic liver disease. All they do is shout AWESOME at everything. I hope it keeps up till my review. Of course you don't have anything like that to worry about anymore.

No
, typed Nina.
No vacation pay either. Or sick days. Or days off.

Boo hoo hoo, James Herriot. I've got a ten-page confluence scheduling report to do. And I don't even know what that means!!!!

They'd logged off and Nina had sighed and tried to go back to reading and feel better that way, but all she could find were romantic heroes that reminded her of Lennox if they were gruff and uncommunicative, or Marek if they were sweet and cheerful, until she thought she was going completely mad. She was restless, not sleepy, and decided she could take a walk—she could, she could—down her old paths without getting too maudlin about it. He wouldn't be there, he wouldn't stop, and even if he did, there was nothing more to say. But the exercise might help her sleep; might even give her hope that one day there would be somebody else; that not all romance was dead; that sometimes, maybe, it was just bad timing.

Parsley barked hopefully as she left, but she passed him by and scattered the chickens to wander the lanes by herself. The hawthorn was in full bloom, its scent heavy on the fresh night air.
Nina pulled her coat tighter around her and walked on. It was better, she felt, better to be out and about, pondering her future, than sitting indoors in a beautiful home that did not belong to her and soon wouldn't belong to Lennox either; that would be snatched away by a woman who did not want it; who did not want lovely Kirrinfief or the farm or the little market cross, or the banners that festooned the town square in midsummer; who didn't want any of it; who would turn it into money and fritter it away.

Crossly she dug her hands into her pockets. She could look for somewhere else around here, she supposed. But nobody had anywhere apart from a spare room above the pub, which she really didn't want, and certainly it would be nothing like as nice. Meanwhile Orkney had said there was a lovely vacant farmhouse she could rent, all modern fixtures, super-cheap rent, and by the way, if she could bring twenty to thirty thousand other young people to help repopulate the islands while she was at it, that would be great, thanks.

She sighed at the dilemma and stomped on. Before she knew it, she was approaching the train crossing, her heart full of regrets.

When she saw the tree, she stopped and gasped.

It was completely covered in books, all tied to the branches with shoelaces, cascading down like low-hanging fruit. It was strange and oddly beautiful, a tree full of books on a deep blue summer's night, in the back end of absolutely nowhere at all.

Nina stared at it. Oh, Marek, what on earth have you done? she thought. There was history, fiction, poetry, many of the
books in Russian or Latvian, but some in English; several were waterlogged, which meant they had been there for a little while, and some pages had come loose and plastered themselves to the trunk, which had the added effect of turning the tree itself into a huge book made of papier mâché.

As Nina stood back and gazed, entranced, a breeze passed by and the books spun and danced in the wind, paper back to pulp, back to the wood where it had once begun.

“Oh my,” she breathed to herself, and pulled out her phone.

Then she put it away again. No. No, she wouldn't. She couldn't.

She glanced at her watch. It wasn't long. Not long until the train was due. Maybe it couldn't hurt to see him once more before she left. Just to say thank you, maybe? His feelings, she saw now, were much stronger than she'd realized.

But weren't they too just the yearnings of a lonely, romantic heart? And shouldn't two hearts like that be together?

No, absolutely not. There was a little boy involved. There was a family. She wouldn't do that to anyone else's family, she couldn't.

She swallowed hard. SO. She would turn around. She would walk away.

In the distance, she heard the quiet note of the low whistle, the delicate rattling she'd come to know so well, and her heart started to beat in time with the rhythm of the rails.