How to Find Love in a Book Shop(5)
Emilia realised she should have phoned June as soon as it happened. But she hadn’t had the strength or the words or the heart. She didn’t have them now. She just stood there, and June wrapped her up in an embrace that was as soft and warm as the cashmere jumpers she draped herself in.
‘You poor baby,’ she crooned, and it was only then Emilia found she could cry.
‘There’s no need to open the shop today,’ June told Emilia later, when she’d sobbed her heart out and had finally agreed to make herself some breakfast. But Emilia was adamant it should stay open.
‘Everyone comes in on a Thursday. It’s market day,’ she said.
In the end, it turned out to be the best thing she could have done. Mel, usually loquacious, was mute with shock. Dave, usually monosyllabic, spoke for five minutes without drawing breath about how Julius had taught him everything he knew. Mel put Classic FM on the shop radio so they didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. Dave, who had many mysterious skills of which calligraphy was one, wrote a sign for the window:
It is with great sadness that we have to tell you
of the death of Julius Nightingale
Peacefully, after a short illness
A beloved father, friend and bookseller
They opened a little late, but open they did. And a stream of customers trickled in throughout the day, to pay their respects and give Emilia their condolences. Some brought cards; others casseroles and a tin full of home-baked muffins; someone else left a bottle of Chassagne Montrachet, her father’s favourite wine, on the counter.
Emilia had needed no convincing that her father was a wonderful man, but by the end of the day she realised that everyone else who knew him thought that too. Mel made countless cups of tea in the back office and carried them out on a tray.
‘Come for supper,’ said June, when they finally flipped the sign to CLOSED long after they should have shut.
‘I’m not very hungry,’ said Emilia, who couldn’t face the thought of food.
June wouldn’t take no for an answer. She scooped Emilia up and took her back to her sprawling cottage on the outskirts of Peasebrook. June was the sort of person who always had a shepherd’s pie on standby to put in the Aga. Emilia had to admit that she felt much stronger after two servings, and it gave her the fortitude to discuss the things she didn’t want to.
‘I can’t face a big funeral,’ she said eventually.
‘Then don’t have one,’ said June, scooping out some vanilla ice cream for pudding. ‘Have a small private funeral, and we can have a memorial service in a few weeks’ time. It’s much nicer that way round. And it will give you time to organise it properly.’
A tear plopped onto Emilia’s ice cream. She wiped away the next one.
‘What are we going to do without him?’
June handed her a jar of salted caramel sauce.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘There are some people who leave a bigger hole than others, and your father is one of them.’
June invited her to stay the night, but Emilia wanted to go home. It was always better to be sad in your own bed.
She flicked on the lights in the living room. With its deep red walls and long tapestry curtains, there seemed to be more books here than there were in the book shop. Bookcases covered two of the walls, and there were books piled high on every surface: on the windowsills, the mantelpiece, on top of the piano. Next to that was Julius’s precious cello, resting on its stand. She touched the smooth wood, realising it was covered in dust. She would play it tomorrow. She was nothing like as good a player as her father, but she hated to think of his cello unplayed, and she knew he would hate the thought too.
Emilia went over to the bookcase that was designated as hers – though she had run out of space on it long ago. She ran her finger along the spines. She wanted a comfort read; something that took her back to her childhood. Not Laura Ingalls Wilder – she couldn’t bear to read of big, kind Pa at the moment. Nor Frances Hodgson Burnett – all her heroines seemed to be orphans, which Emilia realised she was too, now. She pulled out her very favourite, in its red cloth cover with the gold writing on the spine, warped with age, the pages yellowing. Little Women. She sat in the wing-backed chair by the fire, slinging her legs over the side and resting her cheek on a velvet cushion. Within moments, she was by the fire in Boston, with Jo March and her sisters and Marmee, hundreds of years ago and thousands of miles away …
By the end of the following week, Emilia felt hollowed out and exhausted. Everyone had been so kind and thoughtful and said such wonderful things about Julius, but it was emotionally draining.
There had been a small private funeral service for Julius at the crematorium, with just his mother Debra, who came down on the train from London, Andrea, Emilia’s best friend from school, and June.
Before she left for the service, Emilia had looked at herself in the mirror. She wore a long black military coat and shining riding boots, her dark red hair loose over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, with smudges underneath, defined by her thick brows and lashes. Her colouring, she knew from the photo kept on top of the piano, was her mother’s; her fine bone structure and generous mouth her father’s. She put in the earrings he had given her last Christmas with shaking fingers and opened the gifted Chassagne Montrachet, knocking back just one glass, before putting on a faux fox fur hat that exactly matched her hair. She wondered briefly if she looked too much like an extra from a costume drama, but decided it didn’t matter.