The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

O n Monday evening after work, Sophie left Clifton curled up on her sofa, the smell of her cheese and tomato toastie still lingering in the air, the sea a black void beyond her kitchen window, and walked to the village hall.

The days were getting colder, and today the sky had been a cloudless, washed-out blue, so even though it was just gone six o’clock, the darkness was dusted with stars and a layer of glittering frost. Sophie had pulled her woolly hat down over her ears, her gloved hands were shoved deep in her pockets, and her nose tingled with cold.

Mistingham was still bustling, with cars turning into the Blossom Bough car park, the hotel lit up like Norfolk’s most welcoming dolls’ house: windows aglow, twinkling chandeliers and elaborate Christmas trees visible through the panes.

The lights were on in the hall, and as Sophie walked across the crunchy, frost-hardened grass, she glanced up at the stately oak. Despite what Harry had told her, it looked stronger than ever, its branches waving jauntily in the light wind. She felt a fizz of excitement as she thought how good it would look draped in lights, the lower limbs adorned with handmade decorations.

When she stepped into the musty, dusty hall, Jazz was already there, standing among sleek black equipment: a microphone, amplifier and snakes of cable.

‘This is sound kit.’ She grinned at Sophie, then pressed a button on the amp so it squealed with feedback.

‘Did Harry drop it off?’ Sophie asked, disappointment settling in her gut. She took off her hat, then realized it wasn’t much warmer in here than it was outside.

‘May did,’ Jazz said, not looking up. ‘Apparently Harry had some kind of issue with Felix – big surprise …’ she rolled her eyes, ‘but she said all the equipment should be working, and it does seem to be.’

‘Is Felix OK?’ Sophie asked.

Jazz glanced up. ‘Oh. Yeah, he’s fine. He got into somewhere he wasn’t supposed to, or something. I wasn’t really listening. But he’s all right, and Harry is, too: just pissed off.’

Sophie nodded. She would message him later. She’d hardly stopped thinking about him since they’d said goodbye at the manor yesterday lunchtime, Sophie insisting she needed to collect Clifton from Fiona’s house. They’d parted with a promise to see each other again soon, to finalize what they needed to for the festival, and Harry hadn’t stopped kissing her until she’d physically extricated herself, and even then he’d come onto the gravel driveway in his bare feet, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

It had been harder to leave him than she’d expected. It wasn’t just that she was addicted to his touch – although she most definitely was – but that she wanted to sit with him for hours in front of the fire in his study, listening to him talk about his family and his favourite books, about what he wanted for the future, and the moments that had shaped him.

She wondered why he hadn’t told the whole story to Fiona, the other villagers who’d judged him: that he’d had to stay away to save the bookshop and Mistingham estate, then to pay for his dad’s care. But she was beginning to understand him, and she thought he’d simply decided it wasn’t their business. He wasn’t accountable to anyone, wasn’t going to make excuses. She realized that was one of the reasons she admired him so much.

He was so certain about what he wanted, and what other people were entitled to when it came to his personal life, and it felt almost magical that he had let her in, told her about his past, about the vulnerabilities that were still there. And his touch had been both strong and tender, sometimes commanding, sometimes hesitant, as if he wasn’t entirely sure she was real, and needed to prove it to himself.

She didn’t want him to be uncertain about them, but could she really stay here, give up the independence that was so important to her, for a chance to be with Harry? She had done that once before; she had been so sure of Trent’s love, then it had ended so suddenly. That was the worst part: she hadn’t had an inkling that he was unhappy, had thought he’d accepted that it took her longer to settle into things. It had made her feel weak, and she had decided, then, that she shouldn’t be relying on anyone but herself.

Was this thing with Harry, that was still so new and full of promise, any different?

‘That’s good,’ she said, after a gap that was far too long to make sense, but Jazz didn’t seem to notice. ‘So the open-mic equipment’s all set?’

‘Yeah, and it’s robust stuff.’ Jazz was kneeling on the hard floor, checking the settings, her jeans already dusty. ‘It should be fine on the outside stage. You’re going to have this place as a sort of refuge, during the festival?’

‘It’ll just be a bit quieter,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s where everyone will come to make their decorations, and we’ll have some games and the book club discussion.’

‘ Jane Eyre ,’ Jazz said.

Sophie nodded. Her beautiful copy had become an anchor for her, something she returned to whenever she got home, every morning when she woke up. She read a few pages whenever she could, and she was a good way through it now.

She still wanted to know who had given it to her, who had written that message – even more so because the note accompanying Winnie’s book had been so much more straightforward – but her motives had changed. She didn’t want to unearth The Secret Bookshop so she could put the mystery to bed and move on, she wanted to do it so she could ask them why they had chosen her; so she could thank them.

‘Have you read it?’ she asked Jazz.

‘Fiona’s given me a copy, and I’ve started it, but I’ve never been a big reader. Besides, the hotel is keeping me busy.’

‘You’re enjoying it?’

Jazz grinned. ‘Yeah, I am. I can’t quite believe it, you know? That Fiona and Ermin, Winnie and Mary, have given me this chance. I didn’t believe it for a while.’

Sophie remembered how frustrated Fiona had been when Jazz was holed up in her room, refusing to talk or come down for meals. ‘It’s hard to accept it,’ she said, ‘when you’re always braced for the worst, but then things start to pick up – it’s like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.’

‘Exactly.’ Jazz swivelled on her bum, ignoring the sound system for a moment. ‘When I got here, after that crazy long bus ride, I thought this place would be boring, full of ancient people who followed the same routines every day: that it’d be one of those places where people came to die, you know?’

Sophie laughed. ‘I do know.’

‘But it’s not, is it? The hotel’s popular with all sorts of guests, not just doddery old folk, and the pub’s definitely got a younger vibe.’ A smile slipped onto her lips, and Sophie wondered if Jazz was thinking about Indigo, Natasha’s son.

‘Not to mention that the older people are still pretty spirited,’ Sophie pointed out. ‘Have you met Mr Carsdale?’

‘Not yet. Fiona’s told me about him, though.’ Jazz returned to her work, untangling the microphone lead, and Sophie went to see if the pile of tatty board games had any hidden gems they could use for their festival tournament. ‘She also told me that you really are leaving,’ Jazz called over. ‘That you weren’t joking when we talked about it before.’

Sophie turned around. ‘I was going to leave. In January. I prefer staying nimble, being—’

‘Being able to move on at a moment’s notice,’ Jazz finished. ‘When things don’t feel good any more.’

Sophie nodded, but the lump in her throat stopped her from replying.

‘What about Mistingham doesn’t feel good?’ Jazz spread her arms wide, her laugh incredulous.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Sophie said haltingly. ‘I was going to leave.’

‘You mean you’re not now? You’re staying?’

Sophie swallowed. She hadn’t said it aloud to anyone yet, had perhaps only decided properly a few minutes ago. But over the last few weeks, the questioning voice in her head had got louder. What, exactly, was she going for?

She sat next to Jazz on the dusty floor, resting her elbows on her knees. ‘I was in Bristol for three whole years.’

‘Wow.’ Jazz’s eyes widened. ‘A lifetime!’

Sophie laughed. ‘I know. I was with this guy, Trent, for just over two of them, and I thought that was it – that I was staying. We had a good life together: he was a teacher at the local secondary school, I was working in a trendy, arty café, making my notebooks on the side, selling them at craft fairs and markets. I thought we were happy.’

‘Uh oh,’ Jazz said ominously.

‘Then he asked me to move in with him,’ Sophie said, ‘and I felt instantly claustrophobic. Even though I’d have been giving up a grotty little flat to move into his beautiful town house. He’d been saving for a house deposit since university – talk about being prepared.’ She shook her head.

Jazz laughed, then said, ‘But the flat was your safety net?’

Sophie nodded, the lump back in her throat as she remembered how it had fallen apart. Slowly, at first, with Trent’s frustration showing as snippy remarks and periods of silence, everything awkward when before it had been so comfortable between them. And then, how quickly the momentum had gathered; that race downhill to rock bottom. ‘I told him I needed more time, and he said that I was never going to be ready, so what was the point?’

‘He had no patience?’ Jazz asked.

‘He had been so patient with me – really, more than I deserved. I knew it was my fault, that we’d been together long enough, so I decided I could do it; that I could be braver. But then he told me I couldn’t make notebooks and work in cafés for the rest of my life, that I was always going to be treading water, that I was incapable of committing to anything important.’

‘Shit,’ Jazz murmured.

Sophie rubbed her hands together. ‘We need to make sure the heating’s put on early on festival days – and that it’s also on the week before, when people come to make decorations. This place needs time to heat up.’

Jazz nodded. ‘What happened next? With Trent?’

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 that distrust. 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 the horizon, 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.