‘No, it’s not me.’ He takes a few steps towards me, and I turn back to look out the window, trying to work this out because I get the feeling he wants me to put two and two together for myself.
‘Then why does everyone think he lives here?’
He puts his chin on my shoulder from behind and his arms slide around me, pulling my back tight against his front. ‘Because he used to.’
I think about everything he’s said over the weeks I’ve known him. ‘Your father?’
He nods against my shoulder and I can feel the tension in him like this is some awful, monumental confession. The sense of sadness that floods through me is so overwhelming that I reach back blindly until I can get my hand around his hip and hold him there, making sure he stays while he explains.
‘He moved back in after my mum died. Even though they were divorced and she’d thrown him out years before, he came back to “help” with my sister, and I let him, because I didn’t live here either and I was completely lost in grief and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or what was right. I naively believed this tragedy had ignited some sense of family in him and he actually wanted to help, but I soon realised it wasn’t about that. It was about getting his claws back into the house he’d lost in the divorce. This house is big enough that you can share it with other people and never have to cross paths with them. He spent most of his time at the office, and there were burnt rubber tyre tracks on the driveway from how quickly he sped away if we did need his help with anything. He just kind of existed in the periphery for about a year, occasionally trying to convince me that he should have a share in the house. And you know that feeling you get when you just know something isn’t right? Eventually I found the transfer papers he’d had drawn up and discovered he’d spent the past few months trying to convince Dani she was too weak and stupid to have part share of a mansion and that she should sign it over to him to “look after”. Thankfully my sister wasn’t weak or stupid and hadn’t fallen for it, and I found the courage to throw him out, and I’ve barely exchanged two words with him since.’
‘But he’s the monster of Buntingorden?’
He nods again. ‘He’s been writing those letters for as long as I can remember. Vicious, nasty letters to anyone who’ll give him a platform. The local newspaper is his favourite, and he’s got someone on the council in his pocket so any ridiculous thing he can find to complain about is taken seriously. It started when I was younger – he wanted to acquire a big chunk of land on the other side of the river, but the residents weren’t going to let it be sold and built on. They got fed up of him harassing them, so they fought back and got some sort of landmark status declared, so he lost out on it. And he swore revenge. He wanted to make everyone in Buntingorden’s life as miserable as possible. He started doing a bit of criminal damage but he got caught by the police and they wouldn’t accept his bribes, so he started doing it all from behind anonymous poison pen letters and complaints about anything that made people happy.’
‘He sounds like a lovely chap.’
My sarcasm makes Dimitri burst out laughing and his arms tighten and I feel the tension start to drip away.
‘I didn’t live here for years. I didn’t care about Buntingorden or what was happening in it. Obviously I heard stories about The Stropwomble of Buntingorden when I came back, and it still took me a long while to realise it was him. And in the year he lived here after Mum died, it somehow came out that this was his house. I’ve always suspected it was deliberate – his way of making mine and Dani’s lives that little bit more uncomfortable. And that’s it, really. That’s my terrible secret. You can hate me if you want to. There’s a lot of people around here who would if they found out.’
‘I could never hate you. You are the definition of unhateable.’ I squeeze his hip so tightly that I start wondering how long the NHS waiting lists for hip replacements are around here. ‘Why do people still think he lives here?’
‘Because I never corrected them. There’s the whole aspect that me saying something would’ve outed him, and no matter what he’s done, he’s still my father, and it’s not my place to do that. There’s a lot of anger towards him in this village and while people make jokes about monsters and use that cutesy name in front of kids, I think if the right powder kegs ignited at the same time, there’d be people who’d want to teach him a lesson. I don’t want him to get hurt because of me. And another thing is that it makes people leave this house alone. I’ve been drowning in grief for a long while. Believe me, it’s better if no one comes here.’
His chin is still on my shoulder, I can feel every movement of his jaw, and his voice is so quiet that I wouldn’t be able to hear him if he wasn’t speaking right next to my ear. His hand is on top of mine where it’s holding on to his hip, and his other hand is on the window ledge in front of me. I reach out and drag my fingers across his gently, and when he turns his palm over, I slot mine into it and squeeze as tightly as I can.
‘We became recluses. The garden overgrew, hiding us from the view of the world, and Dani was afraid of seeing people so when we had to go out, I’d pull the car round to the side gate and we’d sneak out that way. No one even seemed to notice that we were here. We were forgotten. Living ghosts. And that was fine.’
There must be finger-shaped indents in his hip from how tight I’m holding on to him. What I want to do is turn around and pull him into the tightest hug that mankind has ever experienced, but I also know that if I do that, one or both of us will break down in tears, and more than anything, I want him to keep talking.
‘I never really grieved after Mum died. It was so fast, so sudden. Within the space of a morning, I’d left my life in Oxford and was back here, taking care of my sister because my dad and brother weren’t interested. Dani didn’t cope well with Mum’s death and I had to be strong for her. And when she died last year, I was so alone. The grief completely crushed me. I needed to be alone to cope with it. I didn’t want well-meaning neighbours popping round and people gossiping about me in the street. I was glad of the privacy that overgrown garden gave me, and if the price is a few kids throwing eggs at my house on Halloween and talking about the “monster” who lives here, then so be it.’
In my head, I do a calculation between that and the burn marks on the door when we came in. ‘Why is the door burnt?’
‘Because people are cruel. When my father got the fireworks display cancelled, one of the angry villagers chucked lit fireworks into the garden. A few patches of greenery burnt, but there was a doormat outside the door and one landed on it and set it alight.’
My hand must tighten around his hard enough to hurt, because he laughs and gently loosens it. ‘Don’t worry, I put it out before it did any real damage.’
Judging by the charred scars on his front door, I think he’s being generous there.
‘But that’s why there are so many locks on the gate. I thought if they can do that kind of damage from outside, what would they do if they could get in? I didn’t feel safe here and worried about someone uncovering my hidden gate. That’s why it’s locked. Nothing untoward, I promise. I should have told you about my father earlier, but I didn’t want you to hate me, and I felt something in that river the other day that made me realise I had to tell you and I thought it might be best to show you first. I wanted to share every part of my life with you, even the bad parts.’
I don’t know how he ever thinks I could hate him for anything he’s just shared. All it does is show me how much he’s been through, how much he’s struggled, and how alone he’s been, and how through it all, he’s still come out the other side with an enviably positive outlook and a smile that never fails to brighten other people’s days. How, even though he clearly has a fractured relationship with his father, he’s still protecting him, even if it means putting himself in danger sometimes.
So this is what he was hiding. At least this explains the vague feeling I’ve been getting that he’s holding something back. Nothing nefarious. Maybe it�
�s time I let myself believe in real-life happy endings after all.
Without letting go of either hand, I do some twisty thing and turn around to look up into his blue eyes and the only thing I can think of to express the whirlwind of emotions swirling inside me is to kiss him.
He must feel it too because he lowers his head before I’ve even realised I’m going to reach up and pull him down, and I’m not sure which one of us moans louder as our mouths crash together. My hand slides into his hair, destroying the neat style it was in, and he backs me up until my bum hits the edge of the window ledge and there’s no further to go. His arms are caging me in as my fingers wind in his hair and pull him closer, until our mouths, tongues, lips, are tangled in a frenzied mass of kissing and nothing is enough, and there are moans and grabbing, and panting, and somewhere in the depths of my mind, I know this isn’t going to end at kissing if we don’t slow it down. I force myself to loosen my grip on his shirt and start stroking through his hair rather than grabbing it, and I feel the way his mouth turns up into a smile against mine as he feels it too.
I feel him relax, letting out a sigh against my lips, and I get so lost in the kiss that I forget the hazards of kissing while both wearing glasses until our frames crash together with a plasticky crack.
‘Well, it wouldn’t have been us if a kiss didn’t end with something breaking, would it?’ He sounds breathless and his shivery voice makes me tingle all over.
He pulls back and I love how he has to lean against the shelf for support as he takes his glasses off and checks them for damage, and I turn away and do the same, and take a moment to compose myself because after that kiss, I’m feeling very uncomposed.
‘Nothing broken?’ he asks gently.
‘No. You?’
He shakes his head when I turn back to look at him.
‘I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I met you,’ I tell him honestly.
‘It was the giant flea that did it, wasn’t it?’
The unexpected joke makes me giggle, and I reach up again and brush my thumb over his smooth jaw. ‘Yeah. Between the giant flea and the crushed daffodils, you were irresistible.’
He turns into my touch and leans down to rest his forehead against mine. ‘Thank you for listening. If I’d known this would be the reaction, I’d have told you weeks ago.’ His whole face brightens and for the first time tonight, he looks like himself.
His hair flops forward and he’s still so close that I can feel the weight of it against mine. I reach up and tuck it back, loving how his hair corresponds to his mood – when he’s nervous, it’s stiff as a board; when he’s relaxed, it goes all floppy; and when he’s being his usual clumsy, adorable self, it sticks out in all directions.
I can’t hold back the hug any longer. There’s something about Dimitri that makes me want to hug him, but it’s different this time – this time, I need to hug him more desperately than I need to take my next breath. I feel like there aren’t any words to get across how much he matters to me and how much it means that he’s shared this part of his life.
I get one arm around his back and clutch him to me, and the other slides around his shoulders, caressing the shortish darker hair at the nape of his neck as I pull his head down to rest against my shoulder and squeeze him as snugly as I can without breaking any bones.
He cuddles me back so tightly. His whole body folds around me, and I can feel him sagging with the relief of telling someone. We stand there in silence for the longest time, just breathing, holding, letting my fingers card through his hair.
‘And just so you know, I am trying to undo some of my father’s damage.’ His voice sounds blissful and far away. ‘I’ve been in touch with the council and paid for the most spectacular Christmas tree to go up near the fountain this year. I’ve got the fireworks display reinstated for November. The bunting hasn’t gone anywhere because I put an anonymous petition online about living in a village called Buntingorden without any bunting and enough people signed it. And at the end of October, I’m going to carve a load of pumpkins and go out one night and place them all over town with battery-operated tea lights in them. They won’t be a fire hazard, and if I do it right before Halloween, it will already be over by the time he starts complaining.’
‘So you’re anonymously fighting your anonymous father?’ I never thought the word anonymous could be so overused. I pull back and reach up to tuck his hair back, my hand staying on his neck and my fingers playing in his hair so he knows I don’t want him to pull away. ‘Why now?’
He closes his eyes. ‘Because I feel like living again this year. Until now, I’ve been okay with hiding away, letting him get on with spreading his vitriol and telling myself it didn’t matter, but since I started coming to the bookshop, I’ve realised how much I love this village. I was away for years. I associated the place with bad memories – I resented it because I’d been sent away. When I came back after Mum died, my focus was on Dani, and I got through each day on autopilot, from doctors to hospital appointments interspersed with trips to the library and the supermarket to collect groceries I’d ordered online. We spoke to as few people as possible. After Dani died, Robert literally pushed me back into life. I was sitting here one day and I heard a noise, and looked up to see him outside banging on this window.’ He nods towards it, physically moving both of us. ‘Somehow he knew about the side gate and he’d let himself in and come looking for me. He knew I needed to get out of the house, so he physically dragged me down to the shop, shoved me onto the sofa and poked tea and biscuits down my throat until I broke down and told him everything.’
I pull him down into another hug and my arms get impossibly tighter around him and if I didn’t pull out a few handfuls of his hair during the kiss, I definitely do now. ‘And let me guess, he found reasons for you to go there every day and made sure you stayed occupied and got out of your own head?’ I say, because I know the kind of man Robert is. I know how concerned he was if I didn’t seem as chirpy as usual, how encouraging he’d be if I went in there when I’d just lost a job or went in on the way back from my mum’s endless lecturing about finding a husband. How he’d try to find me a book that fitted the situation and always offered me a cuppa and a biscuit.
‘Exactly. Like the Peter Pan mural and refitting the children’s section. He encouraged me to work on Pentamerone.’ He smiles into my shoulder and lifts me up, turning us around until he can sit me on the shelf. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d let me do that again after the river incident.’
‘Hah. You’re okay as long as there are no bodies of water around. And no swans. They weren’t too impressed.’
He presses his lips to my cheek. ‘Hal … thank you. You’re the best thing that’s happened in my life for a very long time. I want this, I want you, but I’m so scared of messing it up. I mess everything up.’
‘So do I.’ I slide my hand up his jaw and lock eyes with him. ‘But I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment you landed on my floor. I’ve found every possible excuse to hold your hand, and every day has been a constant battle of wills not to inappropriately hug you. Nothing ever goes right for me, and if it looks like things are going right then I’ve obviously overlooked something and karma will catch up shortly. But I look forward to seeing you every day, Dimitri. My life is better because you came into it, and now we’ve done that, I don’t want to go back to not doing that.’
Even as I speak, I wonder where I’m getting this confidence from. Nothing has ever worked out for me for long, from jobs to friendships, and especially relationships. ‘So maybe we can try to not mess it up together?’
‘I’d like that.’ He steals another kiss and then grins again. ‘Who knew going arse-over-tit could lead to this, eh?’
‘Do you know how jealous Heathcliff’s going to be? He’s head-over-heels in love with you.’
‘He’s also head-over-heels in love with that little brown Cockapoo that walks past every morning, so I don’t think the bar’s set too high.’
‘Well
, it is a very handsome Cockapoo.’
He laughs, his usual laugh now, complete with twinkling eyes and smile that could light up the night. He leans in for a kiss, angling his head carefully to avoid another glasses crash, and I get lost in kissing him once again. My hands run over his shoulders, into his hair and back down his neck, constantly trying to pull him impossibly closer, to quell the butterflies that are zipping through me, the sheer excitement at being more than friends with this beautiful man who, honestly, I’ve felt more than friends with for a while now.
We’re gasping against each other’s mouths when we eventually pull back and his stomach lets out a huge growl of hunger.
‘It wouldn’t be a kiss if my body didn’t betray me in some way.’ He slips his hands around my waist and helps me down. ‘We should eat. Come and see my kitchen.’
I follow him down the wide dark hallway, taking in the reminders of his sister at every turn – a wheelchair-sized stairlift on the huge staircase, wide hallways and enlarged doorframes, a shallow ramp that we go down into the kitchen. It’s a huge room, bigger than the entire bookshop and flat upstairs put together, with a red-tiled floor, low-level wooden cupboards and low units at a height for someone in a wheelchair to reach. There are dusty vases of artificial flower arrangements, the kind that look like they were put there by his mum and have stood there ever since, and shelves lined with recipe books that I again guess didn’t always belong to him.
In every flat I’ve lived in, I’ve always had tiny, cramped kitchens, and I can’t imagine ever cooking – well, heating up microwave meals – in a place the size of this, and he loves baking. It should be a happy room, but once again, it isn’t. This house is so overwhelmingly sad. Everything about it is the reverse of Dimitri’s sunny, smiley, gorgeously positive personality.
I watch the way he bends over the sink to wash his hands, and then starts chopping vegetables, almost bent double to reach the countertops that are far too low for him. I can’t shake the feeling of crushing sadness again. When I’ve imagined Dimitri cooking, I’ve imagined a warm and cosy kitchen, full of the music he hums in the shop when he forgets he’s not alone, sizzling pans and beeping timers, and happiness, but actually seeing it … It’s like he’s living in someone else’s house. Seeing him hunched over a unit that doesn’t fit him, he looks like he’s bowed under the weight of this house and everything that’s happened in it.
The Little Bookshop of Love Stories Page 26
