Page 49 of The Battle of the Bookshops
“What about you and Simon, do you have children?” Jules asked.
“We, um... no, but maybe one day. Hopefully,” Genny replied.
Jules caught the ineffably sad look in the woman’s eyes. Oh God, what had she said now? Even by her own standards this seemed to be turning into a serial faux pas night.
Genny, banishing gloom, smiled brightly and added, “But we borrow Ruth quite a bit, don’t we, darling?” She waggled the little girl’s hand as Gabriel went past.
Simon slipped his arm around Genny’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “We do,” he said, with a gentle, intimate smile, just for his wife.
Ouch,thought Jules.Me and my big mouth.She looked around the room, wondering how else she could put her foot in it.
It was still a little alienating, seeing the bevy of men who had been so “other,” when she was a teenager, with their in-jokes, their boarding school veneer of easy confidence, their cool clothes and floppy hair, now all grown up. It was Gabriel and Roman in particular, Jules remembered, who had been altogether more sophisticated than the average spotty Portneath youth. She felt thetwo men had known about their superiority instinctively too, in that brutal, teenage, survival-of-the-fittest world.
And now, here they all were, settled down with their partners in this totally domestic setting—and it was interesting that both Imogen and Jess were blow-ins, Jules noted. Perhaps only women from elsewhere were ever going to be good enough for these men. Humble local girls need not apply. Girls like her. Of course she was bound to make a tit of herself tonight. That was a given. Thankfully they were all sitting now, so the one thing she wouldn’t do again is nearly pass out.
Around the table, the crowd was now tucking into divine homemade pizza, with lashings of olives, red onion, and goat cheese. There was sourdough garlic bread too, for anyone craving more carbohydrates, and a huge salad filled with marigolds, pea shoots, and arugula from Imogen’s greenhouse. As they ate, the conversational ball bounced easily along. By unspoken consent, the women ganged up on the men just a little. Imogen and Jess were quick to tease Roman, inviting Jules to join in, which she absolutely did, making them laugh with stories of the combat between the two shops and, to her mind, the obvious superiority of Capelthorne’s endeavors over anything that Portneath Books might attempt.
“May the best shop win,” declared Jess, raising her glass in a toast.
“Hear, hear,” said the rest of them as they raised their glasses in reply.
“Thank you,” jumped in Jules, shooting a cheeky look at Roman, but he avoided her gaze, and her heart skipped a beat at the dead-eyed, utterly bleak expression on his face.
Clearly, the others had seen it too, and the conversation stuttered to a halt. Jules, dragging her eyes away from Roman’s obvious utter despair, looked down into her glass, her heart pounding.
“Jules has got me doing an artist-in-residence stint in the shoplater this year,” said Imogen, in an obvious attempt to fill the awkward silence.
“Fabulous,” said Aiden with entirely confected enthusiasm. “So, Roman, doyouhave an artist in residence by any chance?” he teased.
Roman started visibly at hearing his name, but it appeared to break the spell. “I don’t,” he replied in a fake jocular tone. “You got me,” he told Jules, not quite meeting her eye. “That was a smooth move, I wish I’d thought of it.”
“Go Capelthorne’s!” cheered Genny, and then, to the obvious relief of all present, the conversation moved on to the difficulty of obtaining good childcare—Imogen—and the impossibility of getting special needs funding from the local education authority—Jess.
“So, you don’t live in Middlemass Hall anymore?” Jules asked Gabriel. That was probably as tactless as asking Genny and Simon about babies, she thought immediately after she had said it. “But Storybook Cottage is so beautiful,” she hurried on, before he had a chance to answer. “I know where I’d prefer to live.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The Hall’s really not family friendly. We much prefer it here.”
“Such an unusual name,” Jules went on, “Storybook Cottage...?”
“That was me, actually,” Gabriel admitted. “My grandmother lived here when I was a child. I was living at the Hall, and this was called the Dower House then, but I loved coming here to see her, and there would always be lots of brilliant bedtime stories, so ‘Storybook Cottage’ was my name for the house. I was always asking to come here—and then the name kind of stuck.”
“That’s so sweet,” said Jules, utterly charmed. “I bet you were a lovely little boy.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Gabriel answered, but his cheeks went a little pink.
“Guys, guys!” Jess announced, tapping her glass with her fork.“I have exciting news. Gabe and Imo are hosting a ball this autumn to raise funds for my literacy foundation.”
“Excellent! I love a ball,” Genny jumped in. “How about you, Jules, are black-tie dinners your thing?”
Jules tried to arrange her face into one of enthusiasm but then stopped. Who was she kidding? Posh dos in fancy clothes were her personal worst nightmare. Her Room 101. She shook her head. “I’m all for literacy fundraising, but I honestly don’t know why people have balls,” she admitted.
“Lots of us do, though,” deadpanned Roman, still looking bleak. “I’m rather attached to mine.”
“Har, har,” said Jess. “Well, I need everyone to come. With us lot, plus Finn and Freya, we’ve got our table of ten, then there’s just fourteen further tables to sell at two thousand pounds each.”
“Yikes,” said Jules, but Jess was upbeat.
“I know, I know... it sounds like a lot,” she admitted, “but Gabe’s got lots of rich clients from his artisan blacksmith business, and we reckon to persuade at least ten of the biggest local companies to commit to buying a table each. They get to bring along their work contacts, clients—whoever they want to impress. We hope they’re going to use it as a corporate hospitality event—there’s so much money in it, if you can tap into all that,” said Jess, her eyes shining with zeal.
