Page 54 of The Cornish Christmas Book Clu
‘I caught him fondling one of those grubby old books about some battle everyone else has forgotten about. Talk about creepy.’
The girl had determined that working in a bookshop demanded that she dress all in black, and wander around quoting poetry at random moments. Echoes of Virginia Woolf.
‘Have you restocked the biography section?’ asked Tamara.
Much to Gage’s bewilderment, books about pop-culture celebrities were hugely popular as Christmas presents so there was another order from the wholesalers to shelve.
After the first week of officially working with Gage full time rather than juggling it with her old commitments at the pub, Tamara’s spirits were sky-high.
Despite a few misgivings, she’d agreed to his suggestion that they use her ceramic pig collection as the focal point of the proposed café. Georgie was lined up to build display shelves in the same rich maple wood as the bookcases to show them off. Tamara still wondered if some customers might be put off by some of the negative connotations surrounding pigs, so that was the main reason why the café’s name was still up for debate. It sent Emily off in a huff when her suggestion of ‘Babe’s Bakery’ was turned down. The girl had thought it the perfect nod to the famous pig from Dick King-Smith’s 1983 novelThe Sheep-Pig, but Tamara envisioned them trending on social media for all the wrong reasons.
The only fly in the ointment came every time she glanced across the road at the pub. Last night she’d been a coward and insisted Gage went to the pub quiz on his own while she’d bailed out with a fictitious headache.
‘Yeah, and I’ve updated our Instagram and TikTok feeds.’ Emily shuffled her feet and didn’t quite meet Tamara’s eyes. ‘Any chance I can leave a bit early today?’
Despite the fact Emily was officially an adult, Gage took his responsibilities towards his niece seriously. If he were here, he’d be quizzing Emily about where she was going and with whom. But he wasn’t, and wouldn’t be back until after closing time.
The ever-patient man had taken the van and driven to Redruth to pick up a set of two dozen pale-pink plastic chairs, steel-framed with tubular legs, which she’d bought online. They were cheap knockoffs of the famous Eames chairs from the 1960s and would fit perfectly with the slightly kitsch style she had in mind for the café.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Cheers. I’m getting the bus to Truro and meeting a friend.’
‘That’s fine. Why don’t you run along now? We won’t get many more customers. I can manage.’
‘You’re the best. Cheers. See you next Saturday.’ Emily’s smile filled the room, the cool teenage front momentarily forgotten.
The girl’s dark ponytail swung in time to her excited, bouncy stride as she hurried out of the shop.
Tamara smiled to herself as she tweaked the Christmas book display before standing back to survey it. She jerked around as the shop bell jangled, and tried not to gawp. The stunning redhead who strutted in looked familiar, but she couldn’t think why. Dressed as if she’d stepped off a catwalk, the woman’s cream wool dress fitted like a second skin, emphasising her jutting hip bones and Bambi-like legs.
‘Is GG around?’
The upper-class drawl put her teeth on edge.
‘GG?’
‘Gage. Or maybe you call him Mr Bennet? Her languid stance contrasted with cold blue eyes that darted around, sizing everything up, including Tamara.
‘He’s not here at the moment. Can I help?’
‘It’s personal. Private.’
The air of dismissiveness irked her and she considered putting the stranger right about her own relationship with Gage.
‘If you’d care to leave a message with your name and contact details, I’ll pass them on when he gets back later.’
‘My name?’ That seemed to amuse her. ‘GG knows that, and where to contact me. You can say Victoria popped in to return his call.’ In a cloud of expensive perfume, she swanned out of the shop.
The penny dropped. Victoria was Tori G. The face of a dozen iconic brands, and so well-known that Tamara could kick herself for not recognising her immediately. Her reaction wasn’t a million miles from William Thacker’s to the famous Anna Scott when she’d dropped into his Notting Hill bookshop. Even the idea of GageknowingTori G was bizarre. Like an odd jigsaw piece from a totally different puzzle, nothing about it fitted. It’d be interesting to hear him explain this away later.
* * *
Humming to himself, Gage parked the van and almost sprang out. He couldn’t wait to show Tamara the chairs, along with a surprise that should make her smile even brighter. The owner had forgotten to include the matching tables in the advert, but had offered them at a knockdown price when he’d arrived.
‘Sorry it took me a while but the A30 was backed up around Truro.’ Gage breezed into the shop. ‘People have started Christmas shopping already, I suppose.’
Tamara stopped in the middle of straightening books, but stayed where she was instead of rushing to him. It was childish for him to feel a niggle of disappointment. As Melissa said the other night, they weren’t teenagers with their first crush, but regular middle-aged people. He went to her instead. No matter.
