Page 71 of The Mended Hearts Bookshop

“Yes,” said Ash. “Um, it’s me. I just… I… Er, this.” She held out the box of biscuits and Amanda took it. “I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for looking after the flat and hoovering and the plants and everything. So, um, thanks.”

Christ, if this was what passed for conversation in her brain no wonder she didn’t have any friends. Amanda looked down at the box in her hand, and Ash thought that probably she’d done the wrong thing. She was so desperate for company that she wreaked of it. But when Amanda looked up, she was smiling, a smile that reached her eyes.

“How lovely,” she said. “That’s really kind.” She hesitated for a second. “Do you want to come in? For a coffee, I mean. Unless you’re busy and need to rush off or something.”

“No,” Ash said quickly. “No, um, I don’t have to rush off. A, er, a coffee would be nice.”

“Come on in then,” Amanda said, beaming.

Uncertainly, Ash walked into the flat, letting herself be shown into the living room.

“Just have a sit down, I’ve already got the machine on, it’ll just be a mo,” Amanda said.

Now that she was sitting down, Ash thought she might have made a mistake. Okay, so she wanted company, someone to talk to, but Amanda? What were they supposed to talk about? She looked around anxiously, looking for some kind of point of reference and had just picked up the book that was sitting open on the coffee table when Amanda came back in bearing two cups.

“Oh, ignore that, it’s just my silly addiction,” Amanda said.

Ash looked at the cover of the book and it was very familiar. Too familiar. “A Crown of Hearts and Desires,” she read.

“It’s really nothing, just a little something to pass the time. You must think I’m so silly.”

“No,” Ash said, putting the book down. “In fact, I’ve read it.”

“You have?” Amanda said, putting the coffees down. “The plot’s quite good, but I’m finding the romance a little stretched.”

For just a second Ash seriously considered recommending one of the lesbian romance books that George had given her. But that probably wasn’t Amanda’s problem, was it. It was morelikely that the romance plot in A Crown of Hearts and Desires was actually not very good at all. “It wasn’t my favorite,” she said instead.

“Do you read much romance?” Amanda asked, settling down in an armchair opposite her. “I wouldn’t have put you down as the type.”

“Um, I’ve just started actually,” Ash said politely, picking up her coffee.

“Then you’ve plenty to look forward to. I’ve got stacks of books if you want some,” Amanda said. She leaned forward a little. “To be honest, I just can’t get enough of them.”

Ash cocked her head to one side. “Why?” she asked. She was honestly interested. She’d wanted to ask customers at the bookshop but couldn’t bring herself to potentially offend them.

Amanda laughed. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“No,” said Ash. “Go on, try me.”

“I like them because they’re not real,” Amanda said. “Because every morning I wake up and put breakfast on the table and settle arguments and comb knots out of hair and find car keys and all the rest of it. And sometimes, sometimes, I want the life in these pages. When there’s nothing but love and sex and all the rough edges of life are smoothed over.”

“But if you want that, then, well, why are you here?” Ash asked.

Amanda laughed. “I didn’t mean that I hated my life or anything like that. I have love here, because this is what real love is. It’s lost car keys and knots in hair and being irritated but biting your tongue. It’s all the things altogether. The escape, the fantasy is nice, but it’s not real.” She smiled. “I told you it was stupid. But having a little bit of both, the reality and the fantasy, that’s what works for me.”

“Someone once told me that selling romance books was like selling dreams,” Ash said carefully.

“Sounds about right,” Amanda said. “And there’s nothing wrong with dreams. As long as you remember that when you make those dreams into reality that, well, reality will put its stamp on them.”

“Huh,” Ash said. “I never thought of it like that.”

“Tell me what you’re reading then,” Amanda said, settling back with her coffee.

So Ash did.

IT WAS NONE of her business, but that didn’t stop Ash picking up Mary’s journal. She’d spent long enough wondering about the woman, long enough mystified by her life and how she’d lived it. So it seemed sort of fitting to turn to her now that she was wondering about her own life.

The diary was a simple one, just like Pen had said. A line a day, no more, though Mary had stuck in enough post-it notes to make the book bulge at the seams.

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