Thank you for your rather forward note. I continue on to quite the largest bookshop in the country, the better to fulfil my quest. It was most bracing to meet you.
Mirren Sutherland, Miss
She addressed it to Theodore Palliser Esq, Poste Restante, and handed it back to the receptionist, who laughed and shook her head.
‘You could just swap phone numbers, you know. Is this some new way of dating?’
‘Not officially,’ said Mirren. ‘But I think it ought to be.’
The receptionist smiled. ‘I do too.’
The following morning, Mirren set her course northwards. She was running out of money, but had the bit between her teeth now, and set off in the complaining little Fiat. It began to snow as soon as she passed Leeds, and as she ascended the glorious Yorkshire Dales, conditions carried on deteriorating. Her Fiat felt very thin and fragile as she crept, lights on full beam, past vistas that in better weather would be exceptionally beautiful. Animals were huddled together, vague outlines in the whitening fields by the ancient old stone walls that had stood beyond memory in the harsh upland farms, the hills looming behind them. Blinking, Mirren carefully followed the red lights of the cars picking their way along the road in front of her, windscreen wipers squeaking as they attempted to keep the view of the way ahead clear despite the huge flakes fluttering in front of her eyes. Finally coasting downhill and on to the beach, even as it was darkening, was a huge relief.
The first bookshop in this little town was an absolute beauty, even by bookshop standards; a former factory that had been completely subsumed by books. There was a huge travel section, an ice cream parlour, a large display board full of leaflets for B&Bs and, high up, a vast mural filledwith pictures of writers from down the years. Mirren stood grinning, trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to identify them.
There was memorabilia everywhere; old framed photographs of writers covered every part of the wall. Huge, mobbed sections on old trains and buses and planes; beautiful fiction and treatises on every topic under the sun.
Although she started feeling buoyed by the fresh town, her first day digging through the stacks yielded absolutely nothing. She left and went to every other bookshop in the town. They were charming, all of them. But not a sniff. She found a cheap B&B, which was more or less all she could afford, and carried on with the search. The next day she did the same thing, until it grew late and the shops emptied of customers, the roads filled up with snow, and Mirren had a headache under strip fluorescent lights in back stacks, and could barely make out individual titles at all.
This was pointless, Mirren started to think by the fifth day. She wasn’t looking for a needle in a haystack. She was looking for a piece of hay in a haystack. There was no chance this was going to work out. Even if she did now know the Dewey decimal system back to front, rather a lot about engraved frontises, and couldn’t believe she had ever mixed up italic ‘f’s and ‘S’s. She tried not to get distracted, although that proved impossible when she came upon a pristine LadybirdCinderellawith painted illustrations and couldn’t resist spending time with the glorious dresses in pink, blue and gold. Having come away without her straighteners, her hair had settled into heavy curls, and she twisted it up and out of the way, often with a pencil. Booksellers no longer looked surprised when she walked in the door. She looked like one of their tribe.
The B&B she was staying in was full that night, now it was the weekend. Maybe she’d just take the other line drawingedition home and that would have to do. Give it up. Spend the last couple of weeks with Violet – if that was all it was – in peace. Her mother kept sending her worrying messages about bruising, and Violet not wanting to eat. She should go home. She should. She called her mother.
‘So!’ said Nora, who always dived straight into conversations as if there had been no intervening pause. ‘Now I have Hayley saying SHE’s going to bring cranberry sauce, if you please! To MY house at CHRISTMAS TIME!! I have never heard the like.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘I mean, what’s wrong with my cranberry sauce?’
‘Well, nothing’s wrong with it,’ said Mirren. ‘You buy it from Sainsbury’s.’
‘MIRREN! You know what I mean! I add orange juice and cloves to it! Makes it special!’
‘Maybe Hayley is just trying to help out.’
‘Ease me out, more likely. Would she walk on my grave as quick?’
Possibly, thought Mirren,the way you’re going. ‘Mum, it will be fine.’
‘Yes, it will. When I’ve done EVERYTHING, as EVER. Where are you?’
‘Uhm ...’ Mirren couldn’t quite face getting into it. ‘Out and about.’
‘You’ve really upset Violet.’
A cold claw clutched at Mirren’s chest. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She keeps going on and on about you. Apparently you’re bringing her something? And it’s going to make everything all right? Some book? She’s worried you’re taking too long.’
‘Mmm,’ said Mirren.
‘Honestly, you two and your books. When are you bringing it? Could you make it sooner? She’s being a pest and I have a lot to do.’
Mirren swallowed and she swore to herself she would do whatever she could to save Violet from the cold comfort she was getting back down south.
‘I’m looking,’ she said. ‘Back soon.’
‘I’ll just carry on getting everything done,’ sniffed her mum. ‘Also, what do you want for Christmas?’