Page 74 of The Battle of the Bookshops
“But the grimoire!” insisted Diana. “All I’m saying is come and have a look. I mean, what’s the harm?”
“You’ve booked a viewing already, haven’t you?” Flo sighed.
“Three thirty this Friday,” admitted Diana, not even bothering to look ashamed.
Chapter 33
Inevitably, the housemates from London texted, at the worst possible time, to say their tenancy was coming to an end, and please could Jules collect her stuff, which was still stored in the attic.
“I’ll drive you,” Roman had declared, when Jules wondered aloud what to do. “We can go tomorrow.”
“You’re too busy,” Jules insisted. “The building work, the insurance company...”
“I’m not actually doing it myself,” Roman pointed out. “They can cope for one day. It’ll be fun. Can’t remember the last time I was in London...”
Jules and Roman set off at dawn in Henry’s station wagon, because it had the most space, not that Jules’s possessions amounted to much, as Jules had insisted to Roman. She was loathe to put Henry out, for fear of annoying him.
“It’s not Dad’s only car,” insisted Roman. “Believe me, he’s got garages full to choose from.”
Jules couldn’t bring herself to answer, but Roman quickly noticed.
“I’m not my father,” he said quietly, turning briefly from the road to look at her.
“I know, I know... But I just can’t understand why—with all that money—it issoimportant for your dad to take Capelthorne’s just because he can. For the money. I mean, now it looks as if there will benobookshops in Portneath. Who could have imagined that a few weeks ago?”
“We can’t change our families,” Roman reasoned.
“Butwecan be better,” insisted Jules, clenching her fists and turning her whole body to face Roman in the driving seat.
“We will be. We are,” he replied. “It’ll be different now. We’ll show them.”
Even hitting the city at rush hour didn’t delay them for too long, due to Roman’s skill maneuvering the car in and out of the lanes of traffic. Soon, with the autumn sun now high in the sky, they were pulling into the narrow Oppingham Road, filled with mean, Victorian, terraced houses. Jules’s house, with its peeling blue door and rotten window frames, was weirdly unfamiliar-looking to Jules. She supposed she had rarely seen it in daylight, working such long days.
The stale cooking smells in the narrow hallway were familiar enough, but it didn’t feel like home. Jules realized with a gasp of dismay they had not thought to bring a stepladder to get into the loft. She wondered what on earth they would do, but Roman stood on a chair to push the hatch out of the way and then effortlessly pulled himself up into the darkness. Soon he was handing down bulging bin bags and boxes of books to Jules down on the landing.
There seemed no point hanging around, so once the car was loaded, Jules left a little note on the kitchen table with her keys, and they left.
“What’s it like being back?” asked Roman, as he took them, without the benefit of satnav, back to the motorway.
“Depressing,” Jules replied.
“As in, depressing you don’t live here anymore?”
“Ah, no... relieved about that, I think,” said Jules, realizing this was true.
“So, no more London? No more publishing?”
“Whoa, steady. What else am I going to do? I’m going to have no job in Portneath by Christmas.”
“What then?”
“Two words,” Jules said. “LinkedIn.”
“Actually, that’s one—”
“I know!” she said, laughing.
“I mean, I’ve mentioned before, there’s New York? I’ve got contacts.”
