‘I’ve been looking for this book for YEARS! My best friend saw your post and recognised the similarities between it and what had happened to me years ago. I’m still single, I’ve never forgotten her, and like John Cusack in the film, I look in every copy of this book I find. I email sellers on Amazon to ask them if their copy has a name and number written inside. I was devastated when the old fivers were retired, knowing she’d never find mine.’ I squeeze him tightly. ‘Isn’t this the most amazing thing?’
‘Wow,’ he murmurs. ‘I did not expect that.’
I’m not sure if he means the DM or me hitting him with quite such force.
‘Hal, this is amazing.’ He draws the middle a out and spins us around, but the tree roots spidering out into the riverbank around us are an unexpected hazard, and he catches his foot on one, sending us both sprawling towards the river.
I scream and somehow have the forethought to throw the phone that’s still in my hand onto the grass to avoid drowning it, as Dimitri crashes down into the water with me on top of him, creating a splash that can probably be seen from space and is definitely going to register on the Richter scale, and earning dirty looks from the swans further up the river who swiftly scarper.
Even in spring, the water is freezing and I squeak as it soaks through every inch of my clothing. I scramble off him and stumble upright on the stony riverbed with water flowing around my ankles.
‘That went well.’ His hair is surprisingly long when it’s wet and his face is almost completely obscured by the long brown strands, dark with river water. He holds his hands out in front of him and examines them. ‘At least it washed some of the mud off.’
He always finds something positive in every situation, and the way he’s just sitting there in the water, looking completely unfazed and trying to blow away the wet hair that’s glued itself to his face is so cartoon character-esque that it sets me off giggling.
From my not-at-all-wobbly upright position, I hold my hands out, and he slips both of his into mine and lets me pull him to his feet.
Maybe it’s the shock of the cold water or the adrenalin of the fall but something is making this seem much funnier than it is.
‘Why are we laughing? I’m cold, wet, I’m standing in a river, I’ve got a bruised bum, and I don’t care about any of it.’ He’s laughing too as he takes his glasses off and tries to dry them with the bottom of his wet shirt, which only serves to make them wetter.
I go to put my foot on the shallow bank and get out, but he pulls me back, and before I know it, his arms are around me from behind and his lips are on my cheek. ‘Have dinner with me?’
I turn around in his embrace and he looks completely uninhibited and just as surprised to hear the words as I am, like his mouth has run ahead of his brain.
I reach up and brush wet hair off his forehead. ‘Did you hit your head when you landed or something? After last time?’
‘Yep.’ He grins like he physically can’t stop grinning. ‘But just you and me this time, and it’ll be me cooking. And it won’t be pizza. Or whatever the hell that thing that came out of your sister’s oven was because it certainly wasn’t pizza. It’s just … I know you know I’ve been holding back, and there’s something I want to show you. Saturday night?’ He reaches his dripping hand out like it’s asking the question on his behalf.
I slip mine into it and squeeze it in response. ‘Sounds perfect.’
And despite the fact we’ve both got too much to carry to hold hands, he doesn’t let my hand drop, and I can’t get the smile off my face as we drip back towards the shop, long after opening time, despite the fact we’re both soaked, cold, and muddy. Nothing matters beyond the smile on his face and the joyful looks he keeps giving me, and the butterflies inside me feel like they’re the size of the disgruntled swans we pass by, and I can’t help wondering how I ever got so lucky – to win the shop, to find the notes, or to meet Dimitri.
Chapter 15
I shouldn’t be nervous about having dinner with Dimitri. I’ve had lunch with him almost every day and breakfast with him regularly since I got here, but this invite feels different – special, somehow. He hasn’t specified but I assume we’re going to his house, which he never talks about, and since the river incident, he’s been asking me what my favourite savoury foods are because he’s only ever brought me sweet things until now, and quite frankly, by seven o’clock on Saturday night when he’s arranged to meet me at the shop, I’m a bit of a wreck.
After I closed at five, Nicole pulled up in her car with a boot full of industrial-sized make-up cases and a back seat full of garment bags, and now I have a good three-quarters of Boots’ nationwide stock adhered to my face and I’m wearing one of her dresses – a silky thing with blue and green stripes that melt into each other like the dress melts against my body and makes me feel svelte and slinky when I am neither of those things. It’s the sort of thing I’d never even consider buying because it’s far too nice and I would undoubtedly ruin it.
Nicole’s already given me the name of the local dry cleaners and pointed out the tailor across the road, lest I do exactly that.
I intended to carry on checking books for written messages while waiting, but I keep opening them and putting them back on the shelf and not remembering if there was a message inside or not, so I give up and pace the floor in my ballet flats that Nicole assures me do not belong with this dress, but even I drew the line at wearing heels. No situation is that desperate.
It’s seven on the dot when there’s a knock on the shop door, and I love that someone as dishevelled as Dimitri is also such a good timekeeper.
I take a deep breath as I turn the key and open the door, wondering why I feel so nervous. It’s Dimitri, for heaven’s sake. I’ve seen him every day since I got here. I’ve stuck my head out of the window and yelled at him first thing in the morning. Nothing could be a worse sight than that.
‘Hello!’ He greets me with his usual happy greeting and holds out such a huge bunch of multicoloured tulips that I can barely see him behind them.
‘Wow. Where did you get these? They’re beautiful,’ I say because they’re so unusual and obviously handpicked. He still hasn’t learnt that I’m not good at keeping things alive. I glance at Heathcliff happily swimming around in his bowl. He must be some sort of miracle fish to still be alive a month after I got here.
I hold the flowers by their stems and turn back to look at him. Neither of us tries to hide our eyes widening in shock at the sight of each other.
‘Wow.’ He takes my hand and pulls it up to his mouth where he kisses the back of it. ‘I’m sorry, I’m here to meet Hallie. Do you know where she is?’
I wallop his hand. ‘You’re not funny.’
He is gorgeous though. He’s wearing dark suit trousers and a matching waistcoat over a shirt that’s the exact same shade as his eyes, making them look impossibly bluer. I’ve always loved a man in a waistcoat, and I love Dimitri’s odd fashion sense of wearing one with non-traditional waistcoat outfits, but tonight … If I wasn’t already overheated from nerves, I’d be overheated from the sight of him. And his aftershave, which is like a walk on the beach on a hot summer’s day with the waves lapping at your feet. Salty and orangey but still with a hint of something as dark as charcoal and as warm as wood.
‘Flipping heck, Hal. I’m leaning on the doorframe because I think my knees might go if I try to stand upright. Do you have any idea how beautiful you look?’
If Santa ever wanted a new suit, he would take my cheeks to his tailor for a colour match on the fabric, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot stop myself beaming. What girl doesn’t want to hear that?
‘Thank you,’ I mumble, my mouth suddenly as dry as particularly parched dust. ‘You too.’
His hair is neatly done up in a strong quiff, and sort of curled in at the top to make it look a bit shorter than usual. As much as I love his usual haphazard look, I’m glad that he thinks this night was worth making an effort for too, because I tho
ught all the make-up and the dress might’ve been overkill.
‘Sorry, I had to sell my car last year. We’ll have to walk.’ He goes to run a hand through his hair but stops himself before he dislodges it, and it makes me feel better that he’s nervous too.
‘That’s okay, it’s a gorgeous evening. Just let me put these in water.’
One of the vases from the last lot of flowers he brought me is still in the office, so I run upstairs to fill it with water and plonk the tulips into it, fluffing them up a bit like people do when they put flowers in water, although I haven’t the first clue what I’m doing.
He holds his arm out when I finally step out the door and lock it behind me, and I slip mine through it gratefully.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask as we cross the street and go around the burbling fountain and down a lane that leads onto the main road out of Buntingorden. Despite the wide pavement, he insists on walking on the outside like the gentleman he is.
‘You’ll see.’
One thing I never appreciated about Buntingorden before I moved here was how pretty it is. Even the main roads have a cosy shut-in feel with wide verges full of greenery interspersed with patches of wildflowers, and tall trees with weeping branches that overhang the spacious pavements. There are road signs to watch out for wild deer, and each road we turn down looks like the kind of fairy-tale street where you might find Snow White living in a cottage at the end of it or Cinderella doing housework with the help of some friendly birds.
He’s quiet as we walk, and I get the feeling he’s nervous, but I can’t work out why.
It’s only when we turn into a quiet road with nothing but the occasional mansion set back from the pavements that I notice the name on the sign. ‘Bodmin Lane?’ I say in surprise. ‘Do you live around here? Do you know The Stropwomble? Oh God, is he one of your neighbours and all the time people have been slagging him off in the shop, you actually know him?’
‘Something like that.’
We come to what is undoubtedly the house that everyone’s been talking about with black iron railings that must be at least ten foot high, with spikes on top and barbwire wrapped throughout them. The front gate looks rusted shut, and I try to see through the gaps between the railings to get a glimpse of the house, but the garden is overgrown with welcoming things like stinging nettles and brambles. Dimitri extracts his arm from mine and reaches out to take my hand instead, his palm clammy when I slip mine into it. He tugs me around the side of The Stropwomble of Bodmin Lane’s house.
‘Where are we going? Are you, like, on his staff or something?’ I get the feeling that my questioning is making him more nervous, so I decide to be quiet and trust him, wherever he’s taking us.
Past the thick railings is a crumbling red-brick wall covered in ivy leaves, scrambling from the pavement to the top, sending its roots into every crack in the brickwork, and Dimitri leads me around the curved wall, off the main pavement and onto a tiny, unworn path that even the bravest of dog walkers wouldn’t venture down. I keep trying to see into the garden, but the wall is as high as the spiked railing tops, and although there are holes in the deteriorating brickwork, none of them are big enough to see through.
Dimitri doesn’t let go of my hand as I follow him down the narrow path, overgrown on either side by yet more brambles that threaten to snag Nicole’s dress if I’m not careful.
We walk around another curve in the broken wall surrounding what must be an absolutely immense garden, and eventually he stops and moves aside what can only be described as a sheet of ivy, uncovering a battered wooden gate set back in the brickwork, completely obscured from view. It looks damp and is mouse-chewed at the bottom, but the four shiny padlocks look almost new and leave me in no doubt about how welcome visitors are.
Until he lets go of my hand, fishes a jangly keyring from his pocket, and starts undoing the locks.
‘We’re going in?’ I say in surprise as adrenalin floods my body. Of all places I expected Dimitri to be taking us, this wasn’t one of them, and from what I’ve heard of The Stropwomble of Bodmin Lane, he’s right at the bottom of my list of people I want to meet. ‘We’re sneaking in? He’s not even going to know we’re here, is he? I didn’t take you for an adrenalin junkie. Where are we going for our next date – bungee jumping?’
I realise in that instant that it is a date. That’s where all the extra nerves have come from, probably for both of us.
He crouches down to undo the last lock, and I start frantically trying to make myself look presentable. If I’m about to meet the most hated man in Buntingorden, the least I can do is smooth my dress down and de-frizzle my hair.
He gathers all the padlocks in one hand and pushes the gate, holding it open for me to go through, and then turns around and starts attaching the padlocks to a matching four locks on the inside of the gate. He must sense me watching him because he looks up from what he’s doing. ‘This isn’t as bad as it looks. It’s to stop anyone getting in, not you getting out. You can have the keys if you want, but I don’t feel safe here without the gate locked.’
I trust Dimitri, I tell myself. He’s lovely and kind and thoughtful. He’s not up to anything nefarious. I look around the garden instead to distract myself from why we’re coming into a place so obviously keen to keep us out and clearly not very hot on the idea of us leaving either. Inside the gate is a wide concrete path leading to a huge Gothic mansion, complete with gargoyles, broken turrets, blackened windows, and metal door hangers that I half-expect Jacob Marley’s face to appear in.
Far from Snow White or Cinderella, of all the fairy-tale characters I expected to find at the end of this walk, this looks more like somewhere Jafar or Rasputin would live.
Beside me, the outside wall continues inside, closing off a piece of the overgrown garden with a well-worn path around it, and while Dimitri’s still doing up the last lock, I follow it round to an open doorway and peek inside.
‘A walled garden!’ I say in surprise. And not just a walled garden, but a walled garden filled with the most beautiful beds of flowers. Roses, daffodils, and every colour of tulip you can imagine. There are pansies and giant snowdrops, and baskets hanging from a wooden frame that criss-crosses the open ceiling. ‘This is where you got the tulips from. And the daffodils.’
He appears next to me, takes a key from his keyring and hands it to me. ‘Here. You take it. I don’t mean to make you feel uneasy. You’re free to go anytime you want.’
I don’t know what’s going on, but I do trust him, and the fact he’s willing to give me the key to the gate is touching. It means he’s aware of my feelings and of how a man locking a gate behind a woman could be perceived. Instead of taking it, I take hold of his hand and close his fingers around it, trying to let him know I trust him without saying the words.
He smiles, but instead of putting it back on his keyring, he goes back to the gate, lifts a stone from the path and slips it underneath, making sure I’m watching exactly where he puts it.
I walk back to the concrete path that leads up a ramp towards the doorway, like a yellow brick road to the entrance of this sad old castle, and this time when he holds his hand out, his fingers are shaking. I slip my hand into his again, wondering what this is all about.
At the woodworm-ridden wooden door, scarred by what look like burn marks licking up from the bottom, he pulls his keyring back out and undoes a heavy-duty set of three locks and uses his shoulder to shove the gigantic wooden door open.
‘Come in.’ It sounds for all the world like he’s inviting me into his own house.
I stand in the grand entranceway and look up at the ceiling in awe because it’s so far up that I have to tilt my head back to see it, and it looks like it should’ve been painted by Michelangelo. Or possibly was.
But awe doesn’t feel like the right description for this place. It’s awe-inspiring to look at, but a sense of sadness permeates every inch of the building. There’s a wide double stairway to one side, but the tall ceilings abo
ve it are decorated with spider’s webs, and dust motes float through the air as the evening sun glints across the building. There are stone pillars with cracks circling around them like a pattern, and the tiled floor beneath my feet has got corners of tiles missing, others with chips out of them, jagged broken lines running through them, and blackened grouting.
‘The living room’s better,’ he says. ‘This way.’
I should probably push him, but I also feel that there’s a fragile peace between us, and my pushing him will break some part of it, and I get the sense that he needs to explain in his own time.
I follow him down a cold hallway until he pushes open the creaky door of what must be the living room. Inside, it looks like the scene of a forgotten film set from the 1920s. There’s a threadbare damask carpet covering scratchy concrete floors, and big leather sofas and armchairs from more than one mismatched furniture suite. There’s an unlit coal fire in a hearth on one wall and a cracked chimney breast extending into the room. A wide bay window beckons from the opposite side, and I walk across to it, dodging varnish-peeling coffee tables and footstalls that I half-expect to turn back into a dog when the curse is lifted from the castle.
I stand at the grand window and look out through streaked glass, taking in the immense garden, the sharp iron railings that we saw from the road that looks miles away with the amount of stinging nettles, brambles, and other unidentifiable weeds that have taken over the huge plot of land between here and the gate.
‘You live here?’ I look back at him and he nods. ‘But this is where the monster of Buntingorden lives, right?’
He nods again.
‘So what are you trying to tell me? It’s not you, is it?’ I say jokingly, and the unexpected chuckle that bursts out of him seems to make him relax.
The Little Bookshop of Love Stories Page 25
