Rules for a Successful Book Club (The Book Lovers 2)

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Have you coloured your hair, Mum?’ Bryony asked. ‘It looks really lovely in the sun.’

  ‘No, I haven’t coloured my hair. Come on, tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Nothing’s going on,’ Bryony insisted.

  ‘Bryony, love, I always know that something’s going on with you because you always try to change the subject when I’m getting close. So, I’m guessing that whatever it is that you two have got cooking is related to this Jago person. Am I right?’

  Polly heaved out a sigh. ‘You’re right,’ she said, receiving an angry glare from Bryony. Polly simple shrugged as if to say, what could I do, which made her mum smile. There was never any point in trying to hide something from her and the girls knew that.

  ‘Okay,’ Eleanor said. ‘Are you going to fill me in?’

  ‘Archie!’ Polly suddenly shouted. ‘Keep Dickens away from that big puddle. We can let him off the lead once we’re around the corner.’ She shook her head. ‘I sometimes wonder if I should still have Archie on a lead.’

  ‘Don’t you try to change the subject too,’ Eleanor said. ‘Now, what’s going on with this guitar chap?’

  ‘You might as well tell her,’ Bryony told Polly. ‘She’ll wiggle it out of us one way or another.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘There’s not much to tell, really,’ Polly said. ‘I’ve given Jago Bryony’s number and she might be going out on a date with him.’

  ‘Might be?’ Eleanor said.

  ‘He hasn’t rung yet,’ Bryony said.

  Eleanor frowned. ‘So, you’re match-making for your sister?’ she said to Polly.

  ‘I just think he’s a nice young man,’ Polly said.

  ‘And I’m fed up of dating websites,’ Bryony said.

  ‘I really do wish you’d stop using those,’ Eleanor told her daughter.

  ‘I think I will,’ she said.

  ‘But aren’t you seeing Colin the baker?’

  ‘No, Mum, I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, I thought you were.’

  ‘She isn’t officially,’ Polly said, ‘but he thinks she is.’

  ‘That’s sounds like an awful muddle,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Yes,’ Polly agreed, ‘and one she needs to sort out.’

  Bryony shook her head. ‘What is this? Beat up Bryony Day?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t, darling,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’m just trying to get an idea of what’s going on. So, tell me more about this Jago.’

  ‘Polly says he’s really cute,’ Bryony said.

  ‘I didn’t say that!’

  ‘Well, not in so many words,’ Bryony said.

  ‘You don’t mind long hair, then?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘As long as it’s not longer than mine,’ Bryony said. ‘That would just be weird.’

  ‘I remember when your father used to have his hair long in the seventies. I loved it.’

  ‘Sounds horrible, Mum!’ Bryony said.

  Eleanor laughed. ‘It was very manly.’

  ‘What was very manly?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Have you been eavesdropping on us?’

  ‘No,’ Sam said, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing that last bit.’

  ‘We were talking about your father’s long hair,’ Eleanor said, raising her voice so that Frank would hear. He did and he stopped.

  ‘I’ve never had long hair,’ he said.

  ‘You did too!’ Eleanor said. ‘You let it grow really long. I’ve got photos of that holiday in the campervan down in Cornwall.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Frank said, obviously remembering.

  ‘Dad with long hair?’ Josh said.

  ‘I’m going to grow my hair long,’ Archie said as he unclipped Dickens’s lead, ‘so it’s just like Jago’s.’

  ‘Oh, no you’re not,’ Polly said and everybody laughed just as Dickens did a flying jump over a stile and landed smack bang in the middle of a gloriously muddy puddle.

  That night in bed, Polly couldn’t help wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake in trying to match-make Bryony and Jago. Her mother had taken her to one side after they’d returned from their walk and had asked her how much she knew about the young man. Bryony, Eleanor had warned, was in a vulnerable position after all the recent let-downs and Eleanor was understandably concerned.

  Jago, though, seemed like a really decent young man. He was certainly the nicest she’d met in a long time, but how sure could you be of anyone? She was simply trying to help her sister out and, if it all went wrong, then it wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it? But, even more worrying than things going wrong was what if things went right? How would she feel about that?

  Polly couldn’t help acknowledging that there was a part of her that felt a little proprietorial when it came to Jago and she was beginning to wonder how she’d really feel if Jago and Bryony became a couple.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was Monday morning when Jago took the little slip of paper out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it. Since seeing Polly and Archie on Saturday, he’d been run off his feet with other pupils and band stuff and he’d hardly had time to think about Bryony Nightingale, but here he was now, looking down at Polly’s neatly written note with the phone numbers staring back up at him: coaxing him, teasing him.

  He had to admit to being curious about Polly’s sister and wondered what had made Polly think that Bryony was right for him, and so he’d waited for his mum to leave for work and then he’d showered, shaved and breakfasted before donning his biking gear and heading into Castle Clare.

  It was a beastly morning – just the sort of Monday that turns employees into wild exaggerators who suddenly find that their little sniffle of a cold is actually flu and they’d better go back to bed immediately, just to be on the safe side. It was also the sort of slick, wet morning in which Jago took no joy in riding his bike. Still, he thought as he put his helmet on, it was a better option than the bus which seemed to amble around every single village in a fifty-mile radius before reaching its destination.

  The ride into town wasn’t too bad and Jago parked his bike outside the children’s bookshop and took off his helmet. He hadn’t ever really looked at the shop properly before, but he did now, admiring its bow window and pretty door painted in a jolly yellow. It was like something out of a Beatrix Potter illustration and must be a magnet for children, he thought.

  Leaving his bike, he walked to the door, the shop bell tinkling above his head as he opened it, giving him just enough of a warning to miss crashing into it.

  ‘Hi,’ he said as he entered the shop. A dark-haired woman was standing on a stool reaching up to the top shelf, but it was obvious that, even on the stool, she was struggling.

  ‘You want a hand with that?’ he asked, coming forward and taking the book from her. ‘Where do you want it?’

  ‘Oh, in between Mermaid Cove and Oscar’s Night.’ She turned to face him and almost toppled off the little stool. ‘Jago?’

  He caught hold of her shoulders as she steadied herself. She pushed her dark curls away from her face revealing the fact that she was beautiful.

  ‘Hi,’ he said again. ‘Bryony?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, shaking the hand he offered her as she jumped off the stool. ‘Sorry, I don’t usually make a habit of falling onto customers.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ he said, ‘only I’m not really a customer, am I?’

  ‘No,’ she said, her face flooding with colour. ‘I don’t suppose you are unless you have a secret love of children’s books. Many adults do you know. I think a lot of my customers choose the books that they want to read and simply use their children as an excuse.’

  Jago smiled at this.

  ‘Sorry, I’m gabbling, aren’t I? I always gabble when I’m nervous. Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said and watched as she scuttled into a room at the back of the shop. ‘Can I help?

  ‘How do you like it?’

  ‘My tea?’ he asked, fo
llowing her into the stock room where there was a tiny sink and a kettle. ‘Black, no sugar.’

  ‘That’s a serious cup of tea.’

  ‘I guess,’ he said.

  ‘You’re going to make me nervous if you watch me.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Yes. Go and poke around the books or something,’ she told him.

  ‘Okay,’ Jago said, amused at how very honest and direct this woman was.

  He turned and walked back into the shop, his eyes scanning the shelves of candy-coloured books. Why were children’s books so much more beautiful than adult books, he wondered? They were all so lovely to look at and very enticing, making the fingers itch to reach out and pull them down from the shelves.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Bryony asked a moment later as she came out with the two teas.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘Seen anything you like?’

  Jago smiled, ‘I think so,’ he said and watched as Bryony blushed. ‘Sorry,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Look, I hope you don’t feel awkward about this,’ she said.

  ‘Why should I feel awkward?’

  ‘This whole business of being set up.’

  ‘People have to meet somehow,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a good way of looking at it.’

  ‘And your sister’s as good a judge of character as any, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Bryony said.

  ‘Then at least we’re not likely to bore each other to death.’

  ‘She told you about the baked beans guy, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Bryony said, shaking her head and taking a sip of tea.

  Jago took a sip of his own, wondering what to say next as he took in the vivid green and red striped dress Bryony was wearing, hung with a metal belt and teamed with a pair of bulky biker-style boots. She was wearing large gold hoops in her ears and a scarlet ribbon in her hair. He could honestly say that he’d never seen anyone quite as striking as Bryony before.

  ‘So,’ he said at last, ‘what do you want to do about this?’

  ‘I suppose we should go out,’ she said.

  Again, he liked her directness. That always made things so much easier in life, didn’t it?

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘You’re musical, right?’

  ‘Right. You want to do something musical?’

  She nodded. ‘Well, not a guitar lesson or anything obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ he said with a grin. ‘Listen, my band’s playing at a pub near Sudbury on Friday night if you’re interested.

  ‘You’ll be playing?’

  ‘And singing.’

  ‘Oh, wow,’ Bryony said.

  ‘You’re up for it?’

  She nodded. ‘I’d love to see you. It. The band.’

  ‘Great!’ he said. ‘The only thing is, I don’t have a car.’

  ‘Oh, well, I do,’ Bryony said. ‘Do you need a lift?’

  ‘I’ve got my bike,’ he said.

  ‘But isn’t that silly us both travelling there separately?’

  ‘Well, you probably won’t want to hang around whilst we set up and pack away.’

  ‘Won’t I?’ she said.

  ‘Will you?’ Jago asked, surprised.

  She nodded again and he laughed.

  ‘All right. Do you want to pick me up at six on Friday? That’ll give us time to get there, have a bite to eat and set up. I’m opposite Polly’s house – 7 Church Green.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t mind driving?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Great.’

  They smiled at each other and Jago raised a hand as he made to leave the shop. ‘I’ll see you then.’

  ‘See you,’ Bryony said.

  As soon as Jago had left, Bryony turned round the hand-painted sign on the yellow shop door which read Back in a mo and locked it. She crossed the road and opened the green door into Sam’s shop.

  ‘Sam?’ she called. There weren’t any customers in the front room and so she took a chance that there weren’t any in the back room either. ‘Get in here – quickly!’

  ‘Bry?’ His voice reached her before he did. ‘What if I’d had someone in the back there?’ he said as he appeared.

  ‘What, like Callie?’ Bryony said with a teasing grin.

  ‘No, like a customer.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I wanted to tell you who’s just been in my shop.’

  ‘Go on then,’ he said. She paused, loving the look of rapt attention on Sam’s face. ‘Come on – I haven’t got all day!’

  ‘Yes you have,’ she said. ‘It’s a cold wet day in January and nobody’s got any money to spend after Christmas.’

  ‘Great – rub it in, why don’t you?’

  ‘So there’s nothing to do but make your sister a cup of tea and settle down for a gossip, eh?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be manning your own shop?’

  ‘No I shouldn’t,’ she said, turning Sam around by the shoulders and pushing him into the back room.

  A couple of minutes later, tea served with a plate of coconut cookies, they sat down on the sofa together.

  ‘I drink too much tea,’ Bryony said, remembering the cup she’d just had with Jago.

  ‘Occupational hazard,’ Sam said. ‘We get through gallons of the stuff here especially in winter. Staves off the cold.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘You didn’t come here to talk about tea, did you?’

  Bryony shook her head. ‘You know Jago?’

  ‘Jago Solomon?’

  ‘I don’t think there are any more Jagos near Castle Clare, are there?’

  ‘I know him,’ Sam said. ‘He’s part of the book club.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Which, as a Nightingale, you really should be a part of too, by the way.’

  ‘You don’t need me – you’ve got Polly.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Sam said. ‘You should make an effort and come and support it instead of spending all your evenings surfing internet sites for weirdos.’

  ‘Is that what Mum’s been saying?’

  ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘It’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘Well, maybe I won’t need to go out with any weirdos anymore.’

  ‘You’re seeing Jago?’

  ‘We might be going out,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised! I’m not a completely hopeless case yet.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Sam said. ‘It’s just–’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s funny.’

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I thought there was something going on between him and Polly. They kept swapping these little glances at book club.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, she told me she’s not even remotely interested in seeing anyone. You know how she feels.’

  Sam nodded. ‘So how did this happen between you and Jago?’

  ‘Polly set it up actually.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Sisters are doing it for themselves,’ Bryony said.

  ‘They certainly are. You’ll have to set up your own dating website.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about those,’ she said. ‘I’ve had my fill of them over the past few months.’

  ‘Good,’ Sam said. ‘I’d be happier if I knew you’d stopped using them altogether although I’d miss your stories about your bizarre dates, I have to say.’

  ‘Not everyone’s as lucky as you, Sam.’

  ‘Me – lucky?’

  ‘Yes, you! To have someone as wonderful as Callie just walk right into your shop and fall in love with you.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Yes, that was pretty lucky,’ he said, ‘but I had to get through an Emma before I got to a Callie.’

  ‘True,’ Bryony said. ‘And I’ve had to get through a Ben–’ she stopped and cleared her
throat. She wasn’t going to go there. She wasn’t even going to give him headspace. ‘Anyway, Jago–’

  ‘Yes,’ Sam said, equally up for a change of subject, it seemed.

  ‘Could be good,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll let me know how it goes?’

  ‘We’re going out on Friday night. His band’s playing at a pub.’

  ‘Make sure you’ve got me on speed dial if you need rescuing.’

  ‘Oh, Sam! I don’t need rescuing anymore, okay? I’m a big girl now.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ll always be my little sister.’ He gave her a smile which warmed her heart. One thing you could always count on was Sam to look out for you.

  ‘Listen, I’d better get back to the shop,’ she said, grabbing a coconut cookie.

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said, getting up from the sofa with her. ‘Back to the grind.’

  ‘Yes, the grind of an empty shop on a wet winter’s day.’

  ‘I don’t mind an empty shop,’ he confessed.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’d be quite happy to have the shop all to yourself, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Until I remember the bills stacking up.’

  ‘Whenever I think of bills, I pick up a novel immediately and stick my nose right in it,’ Bryony said.

  ‘Isn’t that like burying your head in the sand?’

  ‘A bit, but it’s a much more pleasant experience.’

  Polly was parking the Land Rover when Archie cried out.

  ‘Jago!’

  She turned to see Jago on his motorbike turning into the road and watched as he pulled over and took his helmet off to say hello.

  ‘Careful of the road, Archie,’ she said as her son unbuckled his belt quickly.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said as they both got out of the car together.

  ‘Hello there, Arch,’ Jago said as he came across the road to greet them. ‘How are you getting on with that little tune we were learning?’

  ‘Okay,’ Archie said, ‘but my fingers keep tripping over each other.’

  Jago and Polly exchanged a smile.

  ‘My fingers never stop tripping over each other,’ Jago said.

  ‘You don’t make mistakes,’ Archie said. ‘You can’t. You’re a teacher.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m a musician first,’ he said, ‘and musicians make mistakes all the time. It’s part of how we learn.’