Page 45 of Book People

‘Of course.’ She turns away without another word and vanishes through a door. A few seconds later she’s back, carrying the stack of envelopes. She hands them to me, her face a mask ofpoliteness. ‘Here they are. But . . . are you sure you gave me all of them? I feel like some are missing.’

I take the stack and frown down at them. ‘How can you tell? None of them are dated.’

‘It’s just . . . some of the notes refer to earlier ones and I was trying to find one of them and it was missing, so I just wondered.’

‘Not that I know of,’ I say. ‘But I’ll see if there are any more in that box.’

‘I wonder how he got them all. I mean, he has not only her notes, but his own as well. Which means she must have returned them to him.’

‘Good question. Perhaps she was angry with him?’

She lifts a shoulder. ‘It could be. Something must have happened, I suppose, because, as you told me, he went to war and there are no notes mentioning him leaving, so he must have stopped sending them before he left.’

‘That makes sense. He married not long after he returned.’

‘And your great-grandmother definitely isn’t C?’

There’s a wistful note in her voice, as if she hopes my great-grandmother was the other correspondent, but I know it’s not the case. Dad told me that Sebastian’s marriage was unsuccessful and that my great-grandmother, Grace, did not like the villageorthe bookshop, which rules her out as a candidate for C.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Well, there goes that idea.’ She sighs. ‘I was really hoping she was and that they ended up together.’

She’s a romantic at heart; I can see it in her face, hear it in her voice. Which makes my decision about not repeating the mistake of the kiss a good one.

‘Sadly they didn’t.’ I am not a romantic. At all. ‘Will that put Lisa off?’

‘No. In fact, it’s probably better that they don’t. Lisa loves a tragedy.’ Miss Jones is looking dreamily off into space. ‘Perhaps she was married. “He” gets mentioned a lot, and how she couldn’t sneak out to meet your great-grandfather in case “he” found out. Could be her husband.’

‘Or her father,’ I point out. ‘Parental authority still mattered back then.’

‘True,’ she admits. ‘Would your great-grandfather go after a married woman?’

I want to tell her that of course he wouldn’t, but sadly I don’t know that. ‘My grandfather didn’t say much about him, but apparently he kept very much to himself after the war. There are a few village rumours that he returned from where he was stationed in North Africa a changed man. That he used to be wilder. His father wanted him to give up the bookshop and study law, but he refused.’

As I speak, I’m conscious of the similarities between my great-grandfather and me. I too refused my father’s edict to study. I too preferred working in a bookshop. And, if I’m honest, I too have an interest in a woman off limits to me.

At least Miss Jones isn’t married, though she did mention earlier today that she’d just come out of a long-term relationship.

I’m not interested in that, though. Not in the slightest.

‘Sounds like someone I know.’ She gives me a pointed look.

‘My father wanted me to study medicine,’ I say, for some completely unknown reason. ‘But I refused, so I suppose, yes, there are some similarities.’

Her eyes widen. ‘Medicine?’

‘Dan and I both applied to get into medical school. Me because my father wanted me to and Dan because he couldn’t think of anything better to do. We both got in, but I didn’t go.’

She’s staring at me in surprise. ‘Why not?’

It’s the same response most people give me. As if it’s unheard of to refuse a place in medical school. As if doing that in favour of owning a bookshop is the height of stupidity.

‘Because I wasn’t interested. Like I said, Dad pressured me into applying, but I wanted to work in the bookshop instead.’

She’s giving me an intent look. ‘Why was medical school important? Oh. It was because of your mother, wasn’t it?’

I haven’t told her about my mother, so some other kind soul, aka a fucking busybody, has let it slip. It’s not a state secret or anything, I just can’t stand the ‘oh, you poor thing’ looks I get when people find out.

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