Four Christmases and a Secret

by Zara Stoneley

  And I think I know what it is.

  Chapter 24

  7.45 a.m., 11 March

  ‘This might seem a totally off the wall suggestion.’

  I type the words into the chat facility we use at work before I have a chance to change my mind. As it is my heart is pounding, my mouth is dry and tastes like the inside of a running shoe and I feel a bit sick. Probably because of the running shoe. Or the fact that I came in very early and have sat here chewing my nails while I waited for my boss to appear.

  Nail cuttings and sweaty feet aren’t a good start to the day.

  ‘?’ The reply is almost instantaneous. I am striking while the iron is hot, and the workload hasn’t yet built up.

  I dare to glance across the office. James lifts an eyebrow. He’s a busy man, words might be his job, but he keeps them to a minimum if they’re not going into production. He’s not one for idle chatter.

  ‘I move out of the office and work from the community, you know writer in residence style?’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Invite people to come and chat, like an MP’s clinic, but without the MP, obv.’

  He chuckles. It carries across the office and spurs me on. ‘People will feel involved and bring the real stories they want to read to us?’

  ‘And where exactly are you planning on taking up residence?’

  ‘Terence’s bookshop.’ I have thought about this long and hard. It’s only March, and Uncle T wants us to keep the shop going until Christmas at least. He asked when he was in hospital, if I’d look after it. And I want to. That bookshop is the most magical place I have ever been. To just bring in a manager who doesn’t care about the place could be disastrous.

  I have decided living the life I want to involves this bookshop.

  And it isn’t just because it is Uncle Terence’s bookshop, it is because I must not let him down. I therefore sat down and tried to write a list of the things that are most important to me, the things I am passionate about. I googled ‘passion’ first and came up with:

  - a powerful feeling, for example of sexual attraction, love, hate or anger,

  - a strong belief in something,

  - something that challenges, motivates and intrigues you.

  And then I wrote a list of everything that might be my passion.

  Books – I have loved books for as long as I can remember, largely because of Uncle T. I have never called them a passion before, but they are.

  People – writing a feature on Carrie, and supporting the fundraiser was the best thing I’ve done since starting my job at the newspaper. Features like this are exciting and fun, I just like to help people. This was a bit of a surprise, I blame mind-mapping for pointing out that although living in a village can be a pain, it can also be wonderful. Uncle T has always championed his community, and I think it’s about time I do too.

  Stanley – who needs no justification.

  Ollie – Ollie comes under many of the words used to describe a passion. In fact, probably all of them. Which is a bit worrying. He’s my friend, he’s always been my friend, and I’m still scared that by admitting to the world how much he means to me might jinx things. I don’t want to lose his friendship, the thought of us splitting up and never seeing each other (except at family gatherings and feeling awkward) is horrible. The fact that I have a secret of my own, that might change his view of me forever makes my stomach churn. Maybe I should never have let him become my passion.

  ‘As in your Uncle Terence?’ I glance up again, and James is watching me carefully. ‘His bookshop?’

  I nod, and type some more. ‘I want to start off with a feature about the shop and its history, and Terence of course, invite people to bring in photographs, memories, talk to me about books. I can rope Mark in as well to write a few snappy book reviews?’

  ‘Well, it’s a novel idea, ha-ha.’ James doesn’t often joke. He’s grinning now and looking slightly embarrassed. ‘Come and chat over a custard cream!’

  6 p.m., 11 March

  Ollie is home. It has been quite nice having the company, I think he’s got used to my soft furnishings and dog, and I’ve got used to his piles of case notes and the hours he spends staring into the distance and asking me medical questions that I clearly have as much hope of answering as I have of conducting brain surgery. He says it just helps, asking things out loud.

  But then, after the ‘Vera’ conversation he’d distanced himself a bit. I’d hardly seen him for days, though he had sent regular messages asking how I was. Like a doctor might. Which seeing as he’s a doctor, figures. He was taking care of a patient, not the girl he’d shagged senseless in the bath, under the TV and on the kitchen worktop.

  It was bloody awkward for nearly a fortnight, then he’d turned up one night looking totally knackered after a long gruelling operation, and asked if we could watch something ‘inane, romantic or just plain stupid’ on TV.

  Then he’d held me. And we’d talked about Terence, and he’d cried.

  And we’d nearly gone back to normal, except I felt that he was holding a tiny part of himself back – and as I’d known him for most of our lives it was hard to ignore.

  But Carrie told me to be patient, and I’m trying. Because, after all, I’ve held a tiny part of myself back as well, haven’t I? But when the time is right to share, I think we’ll know. ‘I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I’m going to be writer in residence at the bookshop.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘James has agreed, and it means we can keep the shop running properly and I can still do my job.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll work from there, and manage it, and we can keep Mabel on and the student that does weekends.’

  ‘But how can you do both properly?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to be a staff reporter, I’m going to be freelance.’ I feel myself flush under his scrutiny. I am throwing everything at this, at what I want to do. I am risking my nice safe job, that could become permanent if Sally decides not to come back after her maternity leave comes to an end. I am deciding once and for all that I am not going to return to ‘small ads’ or ‘reviews’. I am doing what my heart is telling me to, and my head says it’s okay too. ‘James has offered me a weekly feature slot that will concentrate on people-stories, real community stuff.’ What I’m good at, what matters to me. ‘Starting with the bookshop. I can do it.’

  He smiles. The first proper Ollie smile I’ve seen for a while, and my air comes out on a whoosh. ‘I know you can.’

  I grin at him. I can’t help myself, that smile has lifted a little sadness in my heart that I hadn’t realised I was holding. ‘Er, there’s more.’ I have to tell him the rest, because the bookshop is actually his, really. I am at his mercy. I know Uncle T wanted me to manage it until Christmas, but after that it is up to Ollie what happens. And even if that wasn’t the case, I still want to share my idea with him, I still want him to think it’s a great one, to work with me on it. If he says no to all this though then I have screwed up royally and will have to go back to James on my hands and knees, kiss his feet and beg him to reverse all his decisions.

  ‘Tell me something new.’ He gives a wry smile. ‘Go on, spit it out.’

  ‘We should sell coffee and cake!’

  ‘So you want to be a barista after all?’ He chuckles. It’s nice. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And dirty and needy. ‘Your mum will be pleased!’

  ‘I knew you’d help!’

  ‘Hang on you cheeky monkey I didn’t …’ He’s edged a little closer along the sofa.

  I grin up at Ollie. No regrets.

  ‘I guess you need me to check the deeds?’

  ‘I guess so!’ Our arms are touching, which is little bit unsettling. ‘You think it could work?’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit dodgy, selling drink where there are books?’

  ‘Not at all, people who want to buy books are careful with them.’ He gives me a look
, and I sneakily close the book that I have left upside down, pressed open, creasing the spine.

  It’s a bad habit I know. And so is my impossible-to-resist urge to read the last chapter of a book sometimes, when I’m only a quarter of the way through, just to see if I’ve guessed the twist. I tend to keep that to myself, it can really upset some people.

  ‘And it doesn’t make it more like a library, you know, people just coming in to sit and read over a coffee? It won’t stop them buying books?’

  ‘Oh no, no. No!’ I hope. ‘It just increases the time they browse, makes them more likely to actually buy.’ I cross my fingers under the cushion. I haven’t actually checked the stats on this yet, but other bookshops do it successfully, so why shouldn’t we? ‘We can only fit in a few more seats in the big nook where we have the Christmas buffet laid out, and there’s no free Wi-Fi so it will be for people who come in on their own and want to look at books, it won’t turn into a café where they come to meet friends and just chat.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And the little nooks are perfect for sitting with a drink and browsing.’

  ‘True.’ His arm has somehow sneaked along the back of the settee and rests on my shoulders. His fingers are stroking the top of my arm and it is very distracting. ‘You don’t need to persuade me, Dais. You’ve sold it.’

  ‘I don’t? I have?’ I make the mistake then of looking up. Which is totally, completely distracting, but not really a mistake at all. He’s dipped his head and his nose is now so close to mine we’re practically Eskimo snogging.

  ‘You don’t need to persuade me of anything at all. Christ, I fancy you, you know.’

  ‘I do—’ I don’t get to finish what I do and don’t know, because his mouth covers mine. He tastes delicious, forbidden, forgotten fruit. It’s like I’ve been on a diet and been doing my best to ignore my cravings, but now I’m faced with a big bar of chocolate and I want, I need, to wolf the lot down in one go.

  ‘Easy tiger.’ He chuckles and swings me off my seat so that I’m on his lap, straddling his strong thighs. ‘Take it slow or this is going to be over before it’s started.’

  ‘Don’t care. We can do it again.’ I’m breathless, tugging his sweater over his head, then his top. ‘Bloody hell, how many layers have you got? It’s like pass the parcel.’

  ‘Nothing like high expectations eh?’ He chuckles, it’s muffled under the layers that are still half over his head.

  ‘I won’t set the bar too high seeing as it’s you!’ I poke his ribs while he can’t protect himself.

  ‘You think you’re funny eh?’ He throws the clothes free and stares at me. Eyes twinkling. ‘You’ll pay for that.’ His grin suddenly slips. ‘God, Daisy, I’m sorry, about …’

  ‘Shh.’ I put a finger on his lips. ‘Not the right time, buster.’

  You know that bit about living the life I want? Well it includes this. Him. Ollie.

  Carrie had told me that maybe he’d hit out at me because he’d felt vulnerable, because he’d felt grief right there in that pub. She’d said it hits you when you least expect it, with the daftest of triggers, and for somebody like Ollie – and her – it’s that point when you are scared to admit it, to let somebody in, because they’ll be closer than anybody has ever been before. Because grief strips you of normality, grief takes you to your lowest. You’re naked. Exposed. So you push them away.

  Carrie said she’d let me in, when the whole world was knocking at the door, because I’d been genuine. I’d really cared, about the things she did. And I’d not said it would get better, and I’d not told her it would pass. I’d just held her hand, shovelled up dog shit (though not both at the same time) and waited.

  ‘Didn’t you say that Terence told you Ollie was protecting his heart by picking women he knew he wasn’t truly in love with?’ She’d said. ‘Well maybe he’s protecting it now from you.’

  And then I knew why it hurt so much that he’d backed off. And I knew what I really wanted. And I knew why Terence had told me everything he had.

  I strip my own top off while Ollie is fiddling about with a belt that seems completely beyond my fumbling fingers right now.

  It’s the most natural thing in the world, when he suddenly pulls me close and kisses my stomach. A little shiver of anticipation filters through my body, then he looks up and the look in his eyes make me sink lower onto his lap and cradle his head in my hands.

  He kisses his way up my body, between my breasts, my collar bone, that sensitive spot on my neck that always sends a shiver through me. And then his lips take mine again.

  His tongue circles inside my mouth, teasing, playing, and then it skates over my teeth and every nerve ending seems to jar with expectation. His thumb rubs gently over my nipple and I gasp into his mouth.

  And then he’s rolled me beneath him on the couch. His hard hipbones against mine, the warm heaviness of his body covering me, the heat of his lips making my heart beat race, and I know.

  Deep in my heart I know that this is really what I want and if I lost everything else right now it wouldn’t matter.

  And I understand.

  Chapter 25

  10.30 a.m., 18 May

  ‘Oh shit. You’re kidding me?’ I think my face has fallen, it feels that way. It feels like I’m an emoticon sad face. ‘They can’t!’ I’m an angry face with horns now. And I want to stamp my foot like a toddler and say it isn’t fair.

  Luckily, it’s Monday morning, which is always quiet, so there’s no one else here to see my amateur dramatics. Apart from Stanley, who whines and goes to hide under the desk.

  ‘We did know this was a possibility.’ Ollie puts the coffee, cream cake and letter on the table and hugs me. It’s an official looking letter, which I could tell was going to be bad news even before he opened his mouth to tell me. Well, maybe my sixth sense isn’t that well developed, it was probably the anxious look on his face and the fact he was bearing gifts that really gave it away.

  ‘I know, but …’ I had decided to look on the positive side, and trust that the village would be behind me, would see this as a positive. It would appear that certain elements of the village were not.

  ‘The planning officer we chatted to at the start was right, the café up the road objected straight away.’ He waves the letter.

  ‘But we’re not taking their business away!’

  ‘Their argument is that they’re paying the same rates and only have food and drink as their livelihood, we’ve got books as well.’ He holds up a hand to stop the objection that’s on the tip of my tongue from spilling out. ‘I know. I know, it’s different. But the town council voted to object to the application.’

  ‘But they can’t! That’s only one person who’s objected!’

  ‘They can.’ He grimaces.

  ‘So that’s it? Everybody who comes in is so excited at the idea, and one person can ruin it?’

  ‘Don’t give up yet, it’ll have to go to the county meeting.’

  ‘But, isn’t that the same?’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he sits down, points at the coffee he’s bought for me and takes a bite out of the cake. ‘Hopefully not.’

  ‘I thought that was for me!’

  ‘Share and share alike.’ He grins. ‘Hey, cheer up, we’ve still got hope. And it is going well without the coffee, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, but.’ I sit down next to him and grab the cake before it disappears all together. Stanley clambers up onto Ollie’s knee and stares at it. ‘Stop it! Honestly, you men are all alike!’

  Things are going well.

  Uncle Terence, and his shop, were popular and people flocked back when we re-opened the doors. And soon they tentatively started mentioning stories that I might be interested in. They’d chat, then stay for a while and browse the shelves. Delighted when they discovered that we didn’t just stock old favourites and new chart toppers – we stocked all kinds of treasures.

  Mark is brilliant as well, James came up trumps with him. He truly loves boo
ks and the review column took on new life after he took over from me. I do love to read, and I am addicted to the smell of old leather bindings, and fresh off the press new books, but Mark has a way of analysing and questioning that I don’t have at all. He can ask a question that makes you read a book in a totally different way. Which is what he’s been doing. The column, which also goes onto his blog, now features a complete mix of old and new. Rediscovered treasures he calls them, and they’re all books he’s discovered in our book shop. And we get a credit each week, which has been amazing for business.

  The new part-timer I took on has been busy labelling the shelves so that people can find ‘Mark’s favourites!’ and her recommendations, and ‘If you like that, you’ll like this’. I also think there might be something starting up between them, after she’d nervously suggested that maybe he might like to look at a book she’d found hidden away, I found them both hidden in a corner. Heads together, with a lot of giggling and whispering going on.

  I would have used it for publicity if I’d found them in the ‘Romance’ section, but unfortunately they were between ‘Horror’ and ‘Self-help’.

  And I’ve had no trouble at all finding new interesting stories each week for my column (I like saying that – ‘my column’) and passed lots on to the other guys on the ‘paper. James seems quite pleased with the results in such a short time. He said that after the merger, he’d been worried that we’d start to get more distanced from the actual communities we were supposed to be supporting. In fact, he’s so chuffed he’s thinking about sending other journalists out to be ‘writer’s in residence’ in the other villages that we cover.

  I love working here.

  But happy as I am, I really wanted to open up a little cake and coffee corner in the bookshop.

  ‘We’ll sort it.’ Ollie squeezes my knee. I like the squeeze, and I like the ‘we’. I honestly do feel that it’s a joint venture. Ollie is the first person who has actually supported me however mad my ideas seem and has had total faith in me.