Page 67 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

‘Yep, only a day!’

‘Shit! Bollocks! Bugger!’

‘Language, Nancy!’ Mum and Dan answered me in unison.

I plonked myself directly downwards in the pile of wet leaves at my feet and burst into snivelling tears.

‘What one earth is the matter?’ Mum crouched down next to me, wise enough not to get her own backside wet.

Through my sobs and hiccups, I managed to croak the words.

‘He’s gone!’

43

My heart felt as heavy as lead as we arrived back into Driftwood Bay and pulled up in the harbour outside our house. The lousy weather matched my mood. It was starting to sleet, the sky was grey and full of plenty more to come and it was cold. Miserable. I looked across at where Dennie’s car was usually parked but there was no sign of it.

As I got out of the car, Mum tried to lift my spirits.

‘Just because his car isn’t there, doesn’t mean that he might not be.’ Always a glass-half-full person, my mum. ‘Go on! Go and knock and see.’

Sadly, I felt like a glass-with-just-the-slops-left-at-the-bottom type of person right now as I trudged along the harbour wall to Vi’s cottage, full of doom and gloom, wondering what the point was.

I called out to her as I knocked and opened the door and she called me through.

‘You’re back. Thank goodness for that.’

‘Nice to see I’ve been missed.’

Vi wasn’t someone you could be grumpy around for too long.

‘Yes, there was a book that I wanted to get and didn’t want to order it on that Amazonian thing. Not when we have a perfectly good bookshop in the square.’ She grinned at me and then suddenly caught herself. ‘Sorry, love, I didn’t know I was having visitors or I’d have put my teeth in.’

She literally took her teeth out of a glass by her side and slid them into her mouth, immediately looking ten years younger.

‘I, err. Well, I don’t suppose he’s here, is he?’

She shook her head. I knew it.

‘He’s gone back to London. He left last night. I’m sorry, love.’

I put my head in my hands.

‘Honestly, you pair! I could bang your bloody heads together.’

‘Do you think he’ll be coming back at all?’

‘Not for a while, my darling. He spoke to someone at work and they’ve sent him over to somewhere in Canada for a few weeks. Not sure where. Special project or something. He said he was setting off early this morning so he’ll probably be…’ She peered down at her watch. ‘Somewhere over the Atlantic right about now. He didn’t see the point in sticking around after you ignored his letters. He wanted to get away from it all. Start afresh. And bury himself in work again, no doubt, knowing Dennis the way I do.’

The sigh that left my body seemed to never stop. Canada was so very far away.

‘I wish he hadn’t already gone. I’ve messed up, Vi. Didn’t give him chance to explain.’

‘So I hear. Fuckwits, the pair of you.’ She smiled as Mum walked in behind me. ‘Pop the kettle on, me darlin’, and we can all have a little chat.’

I sat on the footstool at Vi’s feet and she sat with her hand on my shoulder, while Mum sat opposite.

‘I think I thought he’d come to the lodge. Maybe I’ve been reading too many love stories. I suppose I was after my own fairy-tale ending. I think I was waiting for him to come and whisk me away. To tell me everything was going to be OK. But he never came.’

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