Page 30 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

‘They even do it at this time of the year?’

‘You bet! They make a special event of it on Christmas Day. It’s quite the spectacle, you know. Everyone gathers on the beach and we have hot chocolate and bacon sandwiches to start the day when those who choose to go in come out of the water.’

‘They must be mad.’

‘It’s supposed to be exhilarating.’

‘I’ll take their word for it!’

‘I go in, in the summer, but you wouldn’t catch me going in much after the middle of September.’

I laughed out loud remembering something that had just popped into my head.

‘Care to share?’

‘I was just thinking that when I was at school there was a young boy called Paul Shepherd who said he loved me. My best friend told him that if he loved me, he’d go in the sea on Christmas Day and prove it, and after that, he said he didn’t love methatmuch.’

Dennis laughed too, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

‘I can’t say I blame him!’ He laughed.

‘Me neither.’

‘Right, lady,’ he said, slapping his thighs and going to stand up. ‘You ready for some learning? And then we can talk about my latest brainwaves.’

‘As long as you weren’t trying to avoid my earlier question about what you’re doing on Sunday.’

‘Ah, you noticed. Sorry. On Sunday you can have me for the whole day if you can think of something to entertain me.’

He grinned, there was a flicker of an eyebrow raise and he tilted his head to one side. God! I was sure he was properly flirting with me.

Trying to ignore the little thoughts that might be running through my head right then, about what we could get up to with a whole day, I brought myself back to the task in hand.

‘OK, meet me here on Sunday morning at ten and I’ll promise you a few hours of fun.’

His mouth twitched.

‘Best offer I’ve had for a while, I have to say.’

I could feel the heat rise up my neck and into my face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to tease you but you look so cute when you blush. I’d be delighted to spend a few hours with you on Sunday. Shall we get to work now then? I thought we could talk about business expenses today and then maybe you can have a treat.’

Withholding the desire to groan, I forced a smile. I knew it was important stuff that could help my future so I would grinand bear it. I would listen to his words of wisdom and I would learn from him. But he seemed to also be adjusting to my way of learning and in the same way that I probably would have done with the children I used to teach, I would reward them with something nice, after they had to do something they didn’t like as much.

True to my word, I listened intently. He was actually a very good teacher, excellent at explaining things in detail, without making me feel stupid and giving me analogies to relate to. By the time lunchtime came around, and he offered to go and grab us some soup from the bistro, I was actually looking forward to him coming back.

My afternoon treat was not only a huge slab of Victoria sponge, but that he suggested doing some workshops in the bookshop. These would probably be on a Sunday, which would mean I’d be working extra hours, but when I learned his thoughts, I realised it wouldn’t be like work at all. He suggested doing a creative writing session, a making-a-bookmark workshop and we brainstormed some ideas for others, my favourite being the Christmas bauble making. He thought that by getting people who loved book-related things involved, they’d be happy to spread the word about the shop. I absolutely loved these ideas and was super happy that we could put some dates in the diary.

The only negative part of the day was when he asked me where I felt we could advertise these things.

As a teacher, social media was something I was always quite wary of. I didn’t want the children or their parents being able to get in touch with me so my profiles were very small and protected where possible. My homework for that evening was to think about what sort of posts I could be putting up and we would discuss it tomorrow. I knew that I could get a few people locally to come to these workshops but Dennis was so right whenhe said we could attract a much bigger audience if we were able to spread the word online, possibly even getting a website when I had a bit more experience and had got the technical side of things sorted. All of this planning was happening around customers coming in and I was still getting used to his upselling suggestion. That afternoon, I’d noticed that while a couple of people said no to things I suggested, the majority said yes and what was normally a quiet day turned into being quite a busy and productive one.

‘Great work today, Nance. I’ve enjoyed it.’

‘Me too, Dennie. Sorry – Dennis.’

‘No, let’s go with Dennie. I like it. I think it suits the new Driftwood Bay me.’

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