The Bookshop on the Corner (33 page)

“Why don't you ask him for the barn? I bet you could sell that, or rent it, and then you could live wherever you liked.”

Kate frowned. “But if he said no to that, I really would be losing.”

“He wouldn't,” protested Nina. Lennox was, it was becoming increasingly clear to her, taciturn, stubborn, bloody-minded . . . but more than anything, underneath his crusty exterior, he was kind. Fundamentally and deeply. She believed that. She liked it more than anything else about him.

Kate looked at her. “Do you think?”

I think you two need your heads knocked together, Nina thought but thankfully managed not to say.

She went back outside to where Lennox was pacing the yard furiously, Parsley trying to get his attention to cheer him up, but failing.

Lennox looked at her gloomily. “Do you think I should just give her the farm?” he said. “I know I can do something else . . . probably.”

“Don't be silly! She doesn't want the farm. She was just starting from that standpoint to negotiate.”

“That's why Ranald said to play hardball.”

“Well, you've been playing stupidball. Why don't you just offer her the barn?”

Lennox frowned. “I don't want her living next door.”

“She isn't going to live next door, you moron. She'll sell it or rent it as a vacation cottage for loads of money.”

Lennox looked at her. “But where will you go?”

“Can we manage one problem at a time, please?”

Lennox sighed. “Seriously? You think that might work?”

“Go into the van and sort it out,” said Nina. “Now. Quickly, before those evil lawyers ruin everything.”

Nina sat on top of a low sun-warmed stone wall in the courtyard. Parsley came over and put his head in her lap.

“I know,” she said, stroking his ears. “Me too, Parse. Me too.”

Everything inside the van was quiet, and they were in there for a long time. Nina let out a great sigh. What on earth were they doing? Getting back together? Talking about their future? Had Lennox just signed everything over to her the second he saw her? Oh Lord. It was getting cold, too.

Eventually, Lennox emerged, pale-faced. He glanced at Nina and nodded.

“Well?” said Nina.

“I said . . . I hope you don't mind, but I said she could have the barn. I'm so sorry, Nina.”

Nina sighed. She left a little space for him to say, “So would you like to move into the farmhouse?” but of course he didn't, and why would he? They'd only been together a few weeks, and they hadn't even managed to have a conversation about what they were doing. So. Of course not. She thought once again of the Orkneys, and felt her throat go dry.

“Oh,” said Lennox casually. “Also, there was one of your books she wanted.”

She looked up at him, startled. “Did you give it to her?”

He looked at her. There was a long pause.

“Of course not,” he said shortly. “I told her she'd have to kill me to get one of your books.”

She gazed at him, and then smiled, the tension broken.

“Um . . . tea?”

At that exact instant, her lovely last remaining copy of
Up on the Rooftops
came soaring through the air, thrown with tremen
dous force, hit the damp wall and fell straight into the muddy horse trough. Lennox and Nina turned in shock to look at it as Kate came storming out of the van, a malicious look on her face.

“You don't get everything you want. Not bloody everything.”

And she jumped into her car and drove away.

They tried to retrieve the book, but it was irredeemably ruined.

“I'm so sorry,” Lennox said. “I'll get you another.”

“They're like hen's teeth,” said Nina. “Oh well. Maybe it was better in my memory anyway.”

They looked at each other.

“Can you come in?”

Lennox shook his head. “I'm not finished. There's something else I have to do today; I promised Nige. His chainsaw's broken.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “You won't like it. It was thinking about the job that made me . . . made me want to see you.”

“Can I come with you?”

“If you like.”

They sat in silence on the way. Parsley rested his head on Nina's knees, his big eyes looking up at her. Nina didn't know where they were going until they turned down a familiar wildflower-lined lane.

“What?” she said, her heart beating dangerously fast.

“It's . . . it's that tree,” said Lennox, looking at her carefully. “It's diseased. It has to come down. It's a hazard. I did warn you.”

Nina bit her lip. “I see,” she said. She prodded her heart to see how she felt. Sad, she realized, but not heartbroken.

While Lennox took an ax and a chainsaw from the back of the Land Rover, Nina walked down the track toward the tree. Marek's books were piled up against the trunk, but as she got closer, she noticed something else. Little plastic models of books; book key rings; book icons hanging from every branch, with names on them: Elspeth and Jim forever. Callie loves Donal. Kyle+Pete 4EVA.

“Where did all these come from?” she said, amazed.

Lennox stared at it, shaking his head. “People are crazy,” he said. “Honestly. Who does this?”

But Nina was walking around the tree, exclaiming in delight.

“It's . . . Lovers come here,” she said. “Like the bridge of padlocks in Paris. Look! They leave little books! And models of books! And poems! But how did they even hear about it?”

The tree jangled gently in the wind.

“Someone must have spread it around. Oh, wow . . .” She smiled. “I think Marek would have liked it.”

“Do you think about him a lot?” Lennox said gruffly.

“No,” said Nina. “And I won't talk about it anymore. But no.”

Lennox was standing there with his chainsaw.

“You can't!” she said. “You can't cut it down now! Look at it!”

“I have to. It's sick.”

“But it's beautiful.”

“Nina,” said Lennox. “This tree is dying. It needs to be removed. It's eaten itself up from the inside. It could fall on the road. It could fall on the tracks. It has to go.”

“But . . .”

He shook his head. “Not everything in the countryside is lovely. Beautiful things can be dangerous, too.”

Nina nodded. “But all the books . . .”

“I swear you think books are alive,” said Lennox.

“Because they are,” said Nina.

Lennox strode forward and grasped her around the waist. He pushed her against the side of the tree and kissed her fiercely and deeply.

“As real as this?” he said.

Nina looked up into his eyes and smiled wickedly.

“In a different way,” she said.

Lennox kissed her again.

“What about now?”

“You know, I think people can love more than one thing.”

Lennox pulled back.

“What did you say?”

Nina realized instantly what she had said. Her hand flew to her mouth and she went bright pink.

“Oh, I didn't . . .”

Lennox looked at her seriously underneath the book tree.

“Do you mean that?”

Nina felt so embarrassed she could hardly speak.

“I don't . . . I mean . . .”

He paused.

“I mean . . . could you?”

Nina looked up into his deep blue eyes.

“I . . . I'd like to,” she whispered softly, and he leaned down and kissed her again, and his soul was in it.

Later, she moved away from the tree.

“You're not going to cut it down now, are you?”

He grinned. “Yes! Do you never listen?”

“I never listen.”

“Okay, well, it's a good thing I don't talk much then, isn't it?”

Nina turned to look at the tree.

“I'll be in the car. I can't watch.”

“It'll burn nicely for us. In the wintertime,” said Lennox. Nina glanced up inquiringly, but he didn't elaborate.

As the chainsaw roared, she hugged Parsley in the car, rocking him back and forth and occasionally going “oh my God, oh my God” in his ears. She watched Lennox's broad back as he worked, content to do nothing but look at him, even if her heart was saddened when she saw the beautiful tree come down.

Lennox loaded the Land Rover up with logs as the day faded.

“It looks all bare there now,” she said.

“Yeah, but they'll have the new one there in a couple of days.”

“The what?”

“The new tree . . . You didn't think we'd just leave a hole in the earth?”

“I don't know,” said Nina, whose head felt jumbled up like a washing machine.

“Well, you don't know much about farming, then. There'll be a new tree planted, a sapling probably. Or maybe a bit older. Anyway. Something nice that isn't utterly riddled with disease.”

“Wow.”

“Maybe your idiots can come and stick their books on that.”

“Maybe they will.” Nina smiled.

“You look happy,” said Lennox.

“I am, very,” said Nina, looking at him. “Are you all right?”

Lennox nodded. “I'm happy, too.” Then he said something very surprising. “I was thinking of taking some time off.”

“You?” said Nina in utter surprise.

“Aye. I never do normally. And it hasn't worked out very well
for me.” He looked awkward. “Anyway. Ruaridh can run this place just as well as I can; it's time he stepped up a bit more. And I was thinking, well. I've always wanted to take a look at Orkney.”

Nina shot him a sharp look.

“Or. I mean. Doesn't have to be Orkney. Just a little trip. But if you were going to be in Orkney, well. I might come up. Because . . . Christ, Nina. I . . . I don't think I can do without you.”

Nina smiled. “I don't necessarily have to go.”

He looked at her. “I thought you said you had an offer of work there.”

She shook her head. “I was hoping . . . I was hoping for a last-minute reprieve.”

“But I let Kate take the barn . . . your home.”

“If only there was somewhere else I could live,” said Nina.

He looked at her. “You mean the farmhouse?”

“It's a bit early . . . I mean, we barely know each other.”

Lennox frowned. “Aye, we do.”

Nina laughed.

As they pulled into the driveway, chickens scattered everywhere. Lennox parked carefully and they both got out of the car.

“What do you think?” he said cautiously.

Parsley jumped down, ran to Nina and then to Lennox. Nina glanced at the van.

“I'd need to bring it down. Park it outside the house.”

T
he winters were colder and darker than Nina could ever have imagined. Out here there were no streetlights, nothing between her and the thick dark blanket of sky that had rolled in during October and showed no signs of going anywhere until the springtime. Some days it barely got light at all; the trees were hung with sharp fingers of frost, the roads thick with snow, impassable to all but the Land Rover; the livestock blew out thick puffs of steam; the storms drove the hail hard against the windows. There was almost nothing to do except hunker down, conserve your energy, wait for the darkest months to pass.

She absolutely loved it.

She lay in front of the wood-burning stove, soup warming on the Aga, thinking happily of Ainslee, who had rushed in to work for an hour that morning, then rushed off again, explaining that she was earning extra money tutoring in her spare time and it paid a lot better than Nina did, which was true. Nina was waiting for Lennox's tread in the hallway, the careful way he took off his boots.

They had indeed gone to Orkney and had the most wonderful time stuffing themselves with scallops and black pudding and oysters, and sleeping in a creaking fisherman's cottage and sailing in the great bays and making love through the night. There wasn't a day when Nina didn't want to know this quiet, thoughtful man more and more, and when they finally decided to return to the home they both loved so much, it was the easiest thing in the world to move into the lovely austere farmhouse, start to make it cozier and softer, as Kate put the barn on the market. Nina sent Surinder the prospectus every day. Just in case. She was coming up to have a look on the weekend. Just in case.

There was a different tread to Lennox coming in tonight; she and Parsley both sat up in anticipation. He came in looking slightly shamefaced.

“What?” said Nina, watching him with a smile on her lips as he came over and kissed her.

“Nothing,” he said guiltily.

“What?!”

“I've been thinking . . . well, if there's maybe something in all this reading business.” And he unpacked an absolutely pristine copy of
Up on the Rooftops
.

“Where on earth did you get that?” said Nina in delight.

Lennox grinned. “I have my methods,” he said.

They ate supper and he poured them both a peaty-tasting whiskey, then she sat in front of the fire and he lay on the floor with his curly head in her lap and smiled up at her, and Parsley came and lay alongside, and Nina felt the warmth and contentment and happiness roll up and crest over her like a wave.

“Well,” she said. “Once upon a time there were three children. And their names were Wallace, Francis, and Delphine . . .”