The Bookshop on the Corner (7 page)

“It's okay,” said Nina. “Really. Someone had to get it. I'm glad it was you. I would have been hopeless heading up a multi-whatever.”

“Yeah,” said Griffin. “You would have hated it. I'm sure I'll hate it, too.”

His fingers moved furiously, and Nina realized he had already put it up on Facebook. She could hear the “like” button starting to ping.

“Listen, I'd better go,” she said quietly.

“No, don't,” said Griffin. “Come on, please. I'll buy you a drink somewhere.”

“No thanks,” said Nina. “Honestly, I'm all right. I'm fine.”

Griffin glanced down at his phone again. “Come on, a bunch of my friends are just around the corner. Join us for a pint. We'll plan your next move. I must know someone who can help.”

He was more energized than Nina had seen him in months. She desperately wanted a cup of tea and a quiet sit-down to think things over.

“Really, I have to get back,” she said. “Well done again, though.”

He stood up as she put her coat on and moved to leave. She gave him a half smile as they stood waiting for a parade of strollers to squeeze past them.

“Nina,” said Griffin, suddenly emboldened as she finally moved forward.

She turned. “Yes?”

“Now that we're not working together . . . now that we're no longer colleagues and I broke up with my girlfriend . . . will you come for a drink with me? You know. Just a drink? Please?”

She looked at his pale, anxious face and felt suddenly awkward, and slightly more determined. For just a second she hovered, thinking. Then she decided.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I have to . . . I have to call a man about a thing.”

She walked past the strollers and the shopping bags and the
steamed-up windows and the schoolchildren throwing things at one another and the crumpled bags of sugar and discarded plates and greasy cups, and she pushed open the door and walked into the wet street. Then, pulling up her hood, she pulled out her phone, knowing that if she didn't do it now, she never would.

“Alasdair,” she said as he picked up. “Thank you for your incredibly kind offer. Yes please.”

E
ven Surinder's enthusiasm for the plan had started to evaporate now that Nina had called around the authorities and been told that to get a license to sell from the van would be difficult bordering on impossible. Apparently it would be much easier if she just wanted to flog burgers and cups of tea and dodgy hot dogs.

She had pointed out to the man at the office that surely it would be much easier to accidentally kill a member of the public with a dodgy burger than with a book, and he had replied with no little snippiness in his voice that she obviously hadn't read
Das Kapital
. She had to admit that she hadn't and they didn't get much farther than that.

But still, here she was on the bus again, armed with the
Lark Rise to Candleford
trilogy as well as the entire
Outlander
series to sink into on the journey.

It turned cooler the farther north they went, but it was still clear, that astonishing eastern light making Edinburgh glimmer like Moscow as they passed through. The great bridge felt
once more like an astonishing gateway into the unknown; then farther north and north again, the cities and towns and traffic and people falling away, leaving long lazy red trains swaying alongside the twisting roads; tiny villages, endless birds soaring through valleys, and sheep everywhere in the lush green grass, under the long rays of the late-setting sun.

She ate cherry Bakewells from the service station as she lost herself in the pages of her book, and when she finally alighted at Kirrinfief, she felt like she was coming home, something absolutely reinforced by Edwin and Alasdair's smiling faces when she pushed open the door of the pub.

“The book girl!” they said, pleased, and Alasdair poured her half a lager without waiting for her order. He must have noticed her struggling with the local beer last time. “What have you brought us?”

Nina had, of course, come well prepared, and unzipped her case to bring out a selection of thrillers and crime novels, which the men fell upon happily.

“So,” said Edwin finally. “You're really going to fill this truck full of books?”

Alasdair was happily rooting around for the keys to the van. Nina had handed over the check that, when cashed, would represent, more or less, her entire severance payment.

“That's the idea.”

It hadn't been too bad going to work now that she had a plan. She had a few weeks' notice to work out, but nobody was going to care very much if she took long lunches, or came in late, or carted home trunkfuls of books every night, which she was doing. She felt as though she was rescuing orphans from destruction.

Griffin had started wearing a shirt and tie. The beard was
gone, too. He came in early and spent a lot of time in meetings, and was beginning to wear a harassed expression instead of his bored and annoyed one. One night he stopped her and said she needed a requisition form for all the books she was taking, and she'd said, “Seriously?” and he'd looked pained, and Nina had been happier than ever that she was going.

“Oh, it's going to be great,” said Edwin. “You'll have to go down to Carnie village. And over to Bonnie Banks. And Windygates. My sister lives there. They used to have a library bus, but of course that shut down. So you'll be better than nothing. You can't run it as a library?”

“Afraid not,” said Nina. “I have to eat.” She turned to face them. “You do know I'm not keeping the van here? I'm driving it back to Birmingham.”

The men's faces looked confused.

“But it's for here!” said Edwin. “That's why we bought it!”

“No, I'm taking it down south,” explained Nina patiently. “That's where I live.”

“But they don't need books down south in a city,” said Alasdair. “They're falling over themselves for bookshops and libraries and universities and all the rest of it. They've got as much as they need! It's us that needs them.”

“Yes, but I live down there,” repeated Nina. “It's my home. I have to go back.”

There was a silence.

“You could make a home up here,” said Alasdair. “Could do with some new blood around the place.”

“I couldn't move here!” said Nina. “I've never lived in the country.”

“Yes, but you've never run a book bus either,” said Edwin with stubborn logic.

“Aw, I thought we were helping you out so that you could stay around,” said Alasdair. “I've told all my regulars.”

“I thought Edwin and Hugh were all your regulars,” said Nina.

“Aye, well, shows what you know. Everyone was delighted.”

“I'd love to,” said Nina. “But truly, I can't. I have to get back and set up and start earning a living.”

There was a silence in the bar. Nina felt terrible for having misled them; she genuinely hadn't meant to.

“But—” said Edwin.

“I'm sorry,” said Nina firmly. Her plan was to pick up the van and drive back to Birmingham that night. She couldn't really afford to stay, even somewhere as cheap and cheerful as the pub. Plus Surinder had been very clear that if she didn't find a home for the books without delay, either the floor was going to collapse or Nina was. So that was that organized.

“I have to go,” she said sadly. They all looked at the keys lying on the bar.

“It was very kind what you did for me,” she said again. “Thank you.”

The two men grunted and turned away.

Outside, it had finally gotten dark, the final rays of pink fading away over the western hills. As soon as the sun went, it turned instantly cold, and Nina shivered as she stepped toward the van. She pulled her coat around her and looked up at it, huge now in the quiet little cobbled square. She took a deep breath. She couldn't remember feeling lonelier. Still, this was what she had to do. She was committed now. She was going to find a way.

She glanced down at her phone. She had obviously managed to pick up some kind of signal while she was in the pub, and her e-mail had come through. At the top was one from the district council.

Dear Ms. Redmond

We wish to inform you that your application for a parking permit Class 2(b) (Vending and Trading, Non-Catering) has been turned down, due to height restrictions in the area. There is no appeal to this decision.

Nina swore. Loudly.

There was more in an official vein, but she couldn't read it through her tears. It seemed that whatever she did, she couldn't get a break. The one thing she had never thought there would be a problem with was parking the van outside her house. Now, looking at it in the rapidly fading light of day, she realized how enormous it was. It would block out the light from the downstairs windows, and their neighbors', too. What had she been thinking?

She'd spent all her severance money—she couldn't imagine for a second going back to the men in the pub and saying she'd changed her mind. She was out of a job, and she knew she hadn't prepared as well as she might have for the interview because she'd been so distracted thinking about other possibilities. And now she'd failed at the most basic, obvious hurdle.

She'd have to move. Somewhere she could park the van. She'd have to tell Surinder. But what if she couldn't afford to move? Who'd let her rent a property without a job? Oh my God, she'd end up living in the van.

Her tears dripped down and she felt very panicky. She glanced around. Nobody there, of course. The village was completely deserted, and very cold. Nina felt completely and utterly alone.

She tried to think of what Nancy Drew would do. Or Elizabeth Bennet, or Moll Flanders. But none of them seemed quite prepared for such a moment. No heroine she could think of had ever found herself crouching beside a gigantic unsaleable van in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where she was going to live, shivering in the bitter cold.

She straightened up carefully and painfully. Her hands were shaking. She simply didn't know where to go. She tried to think of places where she could park the van, and wondered if she'd be safe there or whether she could just abandon it.

In the absence of a better idea, she got into the cab and turned the key.

There are plenty of warnings about driving when you are tired, and Nina was normally a careful driver who paid attention to all of them. Normally.

But now, shocked and worried to the core, and driving a huge vehicle she wasn't used to, she felt very frightened indeed. She knew she should come off the road, but where? She couldn't afford to waste money on a hotel, even if she knew where there was one up here in this wilderness.

She didn't have satnav and her phone wasn't getting a signal and in any case was running out of charge. She put her headlights on full beam and carried on along endless country roads, none of which seemed to be taking her anywhere useful. She
had fuel in the tank, which for now seemed to be enough, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks with her right hand and tried not to panic. She'd find somewhere. She'd find somewhere.

She spotted the lights of the train crossing ahead but drove on; the barriers weren't coming down yet so she'd have plenty of time to get through. She didn't see the deer until it was too late. It was hopping and bouncing away from the red lights and ran straight into her path. She saw the huge black eyes flash in front of her face, startled, beautiful and terrified, and without even thinking, she slammed on the brakes. The van skidded and juddered to an immediate halt on the crossing, at a sideways angle to the road.

The deer jumped away from the vehicle, its hooves tapping on the side, then vanished into the trees, unscathed. As Nina caught her breath, she heard the dinging of a bell and looked up, horrified, to see the barrier coming down across the road in front of her.

Unable to think straight, she turned the key in the ignition, panicking, forgetting to put her foot on the clutch, unable to understand why she couldn't start the engine.

The lights of the train were clearly visible, looming closer and closer and stronger and stronger. She knew she should get out, but somehow, although she tried, the door seemed to be locked. She scrabbled around with the ignition, trying to start the van again, and again she failed.

The radio wouldn't stop playing. Her hands wouldn't work. Her fight-or-flight instinct had let her down completely. She stared at the train again as a great screeching noise filled the air, and was struck by the oddest, most ridiculous thought: how embarrassed her mother would be having to tell people that her university-educated daughter had done something as stupid as
getting herself trapped on a train crossing and being killed by a train.

By a train.

Her mouth slowly opened in what she realized was a scream, and as the ground shook and the train thundered and shrieked toward her, she closed her eyes and awaited the awful inevitable.