Page 99 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘And then Trent – who you loved, who you trusted – discarded you when you couldn’t live up to his standards.’
‘I couldn’t commit to him as much as he wanted me to, but he didn’tdiscardme.’
‘No?’ Fiona said quietly. ‘You’ve told me snippets here and there, and I know you better than you think. And Jazz hasn’t been shy about telling me what she’s been through, what it’s like to be on your own: how isolating it can be, how you cling onto any affection that comes your way, but can’t always trust it. You think May and Harry have broken your trust, and that’s the worst thing they could have done.’
Sophie squished the teabags against the sides of the mugs, then added milk and brought them over to the sofa. ‘Here you go.’
‘Thank you.’ Fiona took a sip. ‘Just take some time to think about it. I know your independence is important, but has what’s happened really put that in jeopardy? Think what you’ll lose by moving on.’
Sophie had done nothing but think about it since the night before, but every time she’d gone through it, the thing she’d come back to – her default position – was that it was better to start again. The first chapter of a new story; that crisp, white page in a notebook, with nothing hanging over her or weighing her down. Just her and Clifton and the green-blue of the Atlantic ahead of her.
She looked out at the deep, shimmering navy of the North Sea beyond her window. She thought of the runs she’d taken along the cliff path, the unbeatable views, and how, even in the summer when it was bursting with tourists, she couldfind pockets of quiet beauty and calm in Mistingham. She would never forget the evening she’d come across Harry fixing his fence, or that he’d been doing it for a tiny goat in a paisley jumper. Her heart squeezed.
‘Think about never seeing us again,’ Fiona said softly, ‘because I doubt that once you leave you’ll be paying us a visit.’
‘We can call each other.’
‘Of course. But what about Dexter – and Lucy, who calls you Aunty Sophie? What about the old sweet shop, the opportunity to have a proper place to run your business from? Will you go back to selling at fairs and markets, days in the cold, hauling everything out of your car boot, having to work in cafés and bars again?’
‘I did that for years until you let me have your concession stand.’
‘And here you could have a permanent shop, a proper studio to make new stock, build up your reputation and your customer base, increase your profits. People would know where you were, and they’d come back to you again and again.’
It was a tantalizing thought. It offered her more stability, less anxiety: the chance to live a life without the restlessness that had become a part of her. Could she leavethatbehind, instead of Mistingham?
‘You wouldn’t see Darkness or Terror again. You’d miss out on Felix’s jumpers.’
‘And his escapades,’ Sophie added.
She expected her friend to jump on her agreement, to push her point home, but instead the silence stretched between them, and the panic welled up inside her. This waswhat she did, she reminded herself. This was how she kept everything safe, didn’t get her heart stomped on again, like it had been with Mrs Fairweather, with Trent.
‘Think of never seeing Harry again,’ Fiona said into the quiet. ‘Think how much he means to you, and then imagine him disappearing from your life, without a backward glance.’
Sophie swallowed and rubbed at her throat, which felt thick with the urge to sob or scream. But he hadn’t told her about the book, even when he knew May had sent it: he had kepthersecret, instead of revealing the truth to Sophie. How could she trust him after that?
Fiona put her mug on the coffee table and lowered Clifton gently to the floor. ‘Think about what it would do to you, if he was suddenly gone – after everything you’ve shared, all the ways you’ve let yourself care for him. Because that’s what you’re doing to him by leaving.’ She walked to the door. ‘Come by whenever you want to pack up your notebooks. We’re open late today.’
Fiona stepped through the door of Sophie’s flat, then closed it quietly behind her, leaving her alone with too many thoughts, and a plan that – far from being the simple escape she had always intended – was looking more and more complicated by the minute.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mistingham on Christmas Eve was a twinkling snow globe of festive cheer.
Almost every building was adorned with lights, and while most of them displayed a soft, elegant gold, a few – like Penny For Them and Two Scoops – were draped in shimmying rainbow bulbs, candy colours that couldn’t fail to make you smile.
When Sophie stepped outside with Clifton, wrapping her scarf tightly around her neck because it was bright but extra cold, she heard the melodic tones of ‘Silent Night’, too rich to be coming from a speaker. She walked up the street and saw that, outside the hotel, a Salvation Army band were performing, the shine of the brass instruments as enticing as the music.
After Fiona had left the day before, Sophie had spent the afternoon packing, flinging things into bags and boxes. Then she’d stood forlornly in her sparse flat, her notebook tools and materials the last things left to tidy away, so similarto the ones she’d seen in Harry’s secret room. It was something they had in common, and it should have brought them closer, but he’d kept it from her.
She’d stood there, looking at what little her life was made up of, the central heating no match for the chill she was feeling. Then she’d phoned the hotel and changed her booking, the receptionist at Crystal Waters pleasant but with an understandable note of irritation, as Sophie had explained she would be arriving on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve.
She reasoned that it would give her a bit of extra time, and the roads would be clearer on Christmas Day anyway, while everyone was ensconced with their loved ones, opening presents and popping champagne corks, the aroma of roasting turkey wafting through houses and flats, hugs exchanged.
Sophie walked through the village, smiling at people she passed, wondering how many of them knew, now, that she was going. A niggling voice in her head asked what she needed extra time for. She was packed – she’d waited until evening to clear her notebooks from Hartley Country Apparel, using her set of keys when she was sure Fiona and Ermin had left for the day. There was nothing left to do. She could get in her car and leave right now.
She stopped in front of Ye Olde Abandonede Sweete Shoppe, that and the bookshop next door conspicuous by their lack of Christmas cheer. Their reflections stared back at her, Clifton bright-eyed and fluffy, her looking tired and pale and bundled up against the cold, her boots crusted with mud.
She peered inside, trying to imagine the space decked out with her notebooks, other lines of beautiful stationerythat she’d always imagined adding to her stock one day.One day when what?the niggling voice said. She was going back to fairs and markets, boxes in the boot of her rusty old car, another makeweight job in a café or restaurant. She wouldn’t have the time, the funds or the room to expand her business.
