Page 10 of The Battle of the Bookshops
“Hence Capelthorne’s Books is here,” said Jules, “on the west side, like you say.”
“Exactly,” Flo agreed. “And after that—a disastrous turn of a card—the Capelthornes had to hand over the deeds to half the street. So, here we are today.” Flo sighed, sounding tired. “The Capelthorne family isn’t the slightest bit grand anymore. We have no land, no fortune, and I’m not saying it’s all the fault of the Montbeaus, but at each juncture there has been just enough involvement from them to keep the feud between the families simmering... history repeating itself, on and on... such needless conflict... and now this,” she finished sadly.
“Well, what we’ve seen today is aplentybig enough grievance to keep the feud boiling over for another generation,” said Jules with finality, draining her hot chocolate and holding out her hand for Flo’s empty mug. “And I’m totally up for it.”
“But is it a battle worth fighting?” the old woman asked, hanging on to her mug as Jules gently tugged, determinedly meeting her eye.
“Yes,” retorted Jules. “Capelthorne’s means everything to me.And if wearegoing to lose it, after all these years, it won’t be because a Montbeau has seen fit to take us on. The past will be avenged.”
“You know what they say about revenge?” Flo told her. “Before you start, you’d better digtwograves.”
Even after the hot chocolate, Jules was too restless to sleep. Untangling herself from hot, damp sheets that seemed to want to trap her in the bed, she went over to the window and pressed her nose to it. Stuck in Portneath as a child and then as a stroppy teen, Jules had felt she was being buried alive in the little seaside town. But things were different now, weren’t they? And it wasn’t as if her life in London was much to write home about, with her toxic boss who only had to mention sacking (the stick) or promotion (the carrot) to get Jules and all her other minions scuttling to obey. She had worked late every evening, and any editing work she might actually enjoy, she had to do in her own time on top of that. Her salary had been utterly dire too, with Jules and, to be fair, most of her contemporaries permanently in overdrive and overdraft, slaving through their twenties for a reward that barely covered rent and travel to work. Nearly nine years in, and Jules was still making her lunchtime sandwiches at home every morning to save a bit of money. A tiny part of her had dared to think she might be lunching with her favorite authors at the Groucho Club by now, or at least, being allowed to acquire any gems that crossed her desk. Instead, she had occasionally hoicked promising work out of the slush pile for a more senior person on the team to read, but she had never had them take up any of her recommendations, which made her feel like crap about her own talents.
She didn’t have what it took to be an editor. She might as well accept that now, so losing her job—as awful as it felt to be sacked—was no loss at all. But maybe there was more than one way to dedicate your life to books. Crazily, it had never occurred to her to talk to Flo about the bookshop. Portneath had continued to feel like the place she had needed to escape from so her life could start. But these last few days... ? The panicky text, the journey down, seeing how always indomitable Aunt Flo had become older—fragile—and now this? It felt like dominoes falling, an inevitable sequence of events leading to this moment. Here. Now. And maybe that was okay. Perhaps it was part of growing up that people had to leave, just so they could choose to come back. Despite Aunt Flo’s desperate position, despite the opening of The Portneath Bookshop, despite absence definitely not making the heart grow fonder as far as her mother was concerned... maybe it was good to be home.
If it wasn’t for the doom-laden scenario with Roman and the already failing business that poor Aunt Flo had been presiding over alone for years, Jules would even be a tiny bit excited at the challenge the next few months were promising.
Wiping away the mist where her breath had fogged the glass, she pried open the window, shivering a little at the chill of the late-winter night air. The North Star was burning bright, and she could smell the salt on the breeze blowing in from the sea.
There was a crisp sharpness in the air down here in Devon, she thought, breathing deeply. Being here felt like waking up after a long, torrid dream. A nightmare. That was what all those years in London had been: a stressful, grubby, futile little nightmare.
And now she was back. Maybe, even, she was back where she truly belonged.
Plus, it was totally amazing hooking up with Freya again.
Aunt Flo gasped. “Bugger,” she said, making Jules’s head snap around. Her aunt never swore.
“What?”
“Oh, I’ve just looked at the damned schedule for this week—I didn’t remember to check yesterday—and it’s World Book Day on Thursday.”
“So?”
“So, there are things to do—things I would have done weeks ago if it wasn’t for this,” she tutted, waving her good arm at her broken leg.
“Not a problem,” said Jules, putting down the duster she was using to remove what was really a remarkable amount of dust from the books in the thrillers and police procedurals section. “I can do whatever, just say...”
“Well, we’ve got groups of children from three local primaries coming in for story time and to spend their book vouchers,” Flo listed, ticking things off on her fingers. “We’ve got the one-pound special offer books—most of the children go for that, so we are going to need loads, and I don’t even have the stock, or at least I don’t think I do...”
There it was again. By the time Jules had made them both a cup of tea and Aunt Flo had gone back through her paperwork, it appeared that plans for Thursday were not irreversibly off-track after all. It transpired that Aunt Flohadremembered to order stock, and the books they needed were in a pile of unopened boxes at the back of the shop. Jules consciously put aside her wider concern that Aunt Flo seemed to actually be forgetting what she had and hadn’t done quite a lot these days. But it was reasonable enough, wasn’t it? For a lady in her eighties? Jules didn’t know, but even if it was something less ominous than what Jules was fearing, it was yet more evidence that Aunt Flo badly needed more help with the business. Jules turned back to the issue of World Book Day.
There was an area at the front of the shop that was usually used for storytelling, and it just needed Jules to hump a few books and move a couple of display units to clear enough carpetfor the children to sit cross-legged on the floor. The children’s book section was looking a little tired, but Jules gave it all a good dust and polish and piled the special selection books high on a table in the corner. That would have to do.
“Thankfully they don’t send us a whole class of thirty in one go,” explained Aunt Flo, looking less stressed when they reconvened later. “Fifteen’s the maximum we can fit in, really. So that’s six lots of story time over the course of a school day. EvenI’ma little tired of it after that,” she admitted.
“Okay, so who reads the story?”
“Me,” said Aunt Flo.
“Respect! And you’re okay to do it again this year despite everything?”
Flo nodded, and Jules breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t do kids. And shedefinitelydidn’t do storytelling to kids.
Looking at Jules’s face, Flo laughed. “It’s fun,” she said. “And I’ll dress in character, of course. From what I remember, it’s about a witch, so I can wear a witch’s hat if you could find me one?”
“Of course! And you can have Merlin as your familiar. He’s so splendidly black, he looks like he ought to be a witch’s cat, especially with that name.”
Chapter 5
