Page 73 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
She no longer felt a tidal wave of sadness when she talked about her mum. She’d never known her, had no memories of her. From a young age she’d understood that she was on her own, and there was a certain freedom in that: she could go anywhere she wanted, at any time. No obligations to a place or person, just her and Clifton and the things she could fit in her beaten-up old car.
‘Are you a Henry?’ she asked. ‘I remember Winnie calling you Henry when we went to see her.’
‘I was christened Henry, but I’ve been Harry for as long as I can remember. My mum was Harriet.’
‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Fifteen,’ he said. ‘She’d been ill for a while, but you can’t ever prepare yourself for a parent dying, I don’t think. And then Dad … he threw himself into the bookshop. He spent all his time there, made it his singular focus, which is why it was so well-loved in the village. And I understand why. I think it was the only way he could contain his grief, but he left me and Daisy, my younger sister, to fend for ourselves.
‘The only place he paid us any attention was at the bookshop, as if, away from this house, with all its memories of Mum, he could breathe and give our relationship space. The manor got neglected, and it no longer felt like home.’ Harry trailed his hand up Sophie’s arm.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘So then … you went to London as soon as you could?’
‘To escape this backwater? Of course.’ He laughed, but it sounded sad. ‘London was huge and full of possibility. I had a strong head for figures, and ended up managing people’s investments, then companies’ investments. It felt important – at least at the time. It took me a while to realize how impersonal it all was, how much I’d lost touch with the things that mattered. I found hobbies I cared about, and the plan was to change jobs, to get out of it completely, but then …’
‘Then?’ Sophie prompted, looking up at him.
‘Then Dad got in touch, and he was upset; more emotional than I’d heard him in years. He told me things he’d been keeping from me for ages: that the estate was falling apart; that the bookshop, while popular in the village, wasn’t making money. That, in fact, he’d put so much into it without getting enough back, built up such a huge debt, that he was close to losing the entire estate, all the land – close to having everything repossessed. Everyone here saw him as their best friend, the kindest man they knew, but he’d let everything crumble at the expense of being well-liked. My only option was to keep earning good money, to work as hard as I could, to save it all.’ He gazed down at his hands, as if he was examining the lines across his palms.
Sophie swallowed. ‘So you stayed in London because …’
‘I had to,’ he finished. ‘I felt guilty for not realizing how bad things were, for staying away for so long. I had to make sure Dad was financially OK again. And then, when the estate was safe, when we’d scraped through by the skin of our teeth, he got sick, and I knew that living here, with me caring for him, wouldn’t give him the best chance. It wasn’t the healthiest environment; parts of it weren’t really safe any more.
‘So I found the best place I could for him, and I knew that moving back here and working as a remote consultant wouldn’t cut it for the care-home fees, so I stayed in London and worked harder than ever, all the hours I could, paying for Dad’s care, building up savings so I could come home and be closer to him when I had a big enough cushion.
‘Dad wouldn’t let me sell the manor. It was the easiest solution when he was first diagnosed with dementia, to pay for his care home, but when I suggested it he point-blank refused. He told me it had to stay in the family, that it meant so much to him, had meant a lot to Mum, and that I had worked so hard to save it, I couldn’t just let it go. So then I had this grand idea that I would restore it when things got easier, when I was able to.’
He stopped talking, and Sophie waited for what came next. She glanced up at him, and he was staring ahead, his expression blank.
‘Hey,’ she said, but he wouldn’t look at her, so she pushed back the duvet and slid her leg over his hips, so she was facing him, straddling his lap, and he couldn’t avoid her.
He met her gaze, his distant look replaced by something more intense. His hands came up to her hips and squeezed.
‘What made you come back?’ she asked.
He gave her a rueful smile. ‘A book.’
Sophie sucked in a breath. ‘Abook?’
‘Dad had only been in the home a year, but he had already lost so much of himself. When I phoned, and the few times I came back to visit, he didn’t recognize me. Then I got this book in the post: an old copy ofNorth and Southby Elizabeth Gaskell. The inscription said,To my darling Harry, all my love, Bernie.It must have been a gift he’d given Mum years ago – it was her favourite novel – and he’d held onto it after she died. I don’t know whether he knew he was sending it to me, passing the gift down the line and ensuring it wasn’t lost, or if, in his confusion, he somehow thought it was going to Mum.
‘He must have had the address of my London flat, told the nurse where to send it. Obviously she knew the truth – that his wife had died over twenty years before – and I’d spoken to her plenty of times, so she knew I was Harry, too. But it didn’t matter what Dad had thought he was doing, or who had a role in the book getting to me, because it made me realize …’ He swallowed. ‘I realized that I could earn all the money in the world, but here was my dad, slowly disappearing, and I wasn’t even visiting him. Daisy is a career woman, she was busy too, and we’d both convinced ourselves that we were doing the right thing, but I think we were running away.’
‘Running away?’
He pressed his nose into her collar bone. ‘He effectively abandoned us after Mum died, and I know that, really, we were doing the same to him. Not entirely consciously – probably more out of fear that he wasn’t Dad any more, telling ourselves that it was so much easier to get on withour own lives and, in my case, that I was helping by funding his care. But when I got that book, I realized that he was still, somehow, holding on to his love for Mum, even after so much else had deserted him. I knew I had to come back.’
‘And you did.’ Sophie’s throat was thick. She tipped his head back, her finger under his chin. ‘You came back to him.’
‘I had a few months with him before he died,’ Harry said. ‘It wasn’t really enough.’
‘But at least you came.’ Sophie’s thoughts were whirring, because he’dbeen sent a book, and it had changed the course of his life. It had made him realize that he needed to uproot everything and come home. But he’d known from the beginning who sent it to him, it hadn’t been a mystery. But the coincidence …
‘Soph?’ he asked. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘And I’m so sorry. You’ve been through so much. You stayed away to help your dad, and everyone thinks you deserted him, that you deserted all of it – the estate, Mistingham.’
‘But I was doing that too.’ Harry slid his hands up her back, beneath the T-shirt.
