The Christmas Bookshop(74)

‘Instead of what I do, you mean?’

Sofia lost her rag, which she did very rarely. Carmen was stunned into silence.

‘That’s not what I said! God, Carmen. You insist on taking every single phrase out of my mouth and wringing it for the worst possible angle. You’re like judge, jury and executioner of me. And Mum. It’s like we can never say a single word that isn’t secretly dissing Carmen because that’s literally all we have on our minds, every hour of the day and night. Carmen Carmen Carmen. Everyone be careful. Don’t upset Carmen because she doesn’t have a job! Don’t upset Carmen because she doesn’t have a boyfriend! I swear Mum didn’t want me to have another baby because you don’t have one yet.’

‘She would never say that.’

‘She basically implied it.’

‘Well, how come? How come you get everything?’ said Carmen, stung.

‘What don’t you have?’ said Sofia. ‘You’re young, you’re fun, everyone likes hanging out with you. You’re creative – look what you’ve done in the shop. You’ve got famous guys chatting to you, you’ve got some lanky student hanging around. And yet you act like the world is so unfair just because you couldn’t be arsed to pass any exams at school and frankly it gets very boring, okay? Here’s the answer. I work my arse off. Federico works his arse off. I am exhausted all the time. I need Skylar, despite you being jealous of her, because she also works her arse off being a student and a nanny and frankly I need that for the children so they don’t end up … ’

Her voice trailed off. Sofia never lost it. She bottled it up, she worked it out, she kept calm, she was professional, she was appropriate.

Carmen stared at her.

‘ … so they don’t end up like me,’ she croaked, her breath gone.

‘No. That’s not what I was going to say.’

‘Yes, it was,’ said Carmen. ‘Yes, it was.’

Sofia stared at her.

‘Well, you’ve got it out now,’ said Carmen. ‘So. Good to know, I suppose.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all!’ shouted Sofia, but Carmen had already turned and slammed out of the beautifully painted, decorated old door, and without even saying goodbye to the children.





The night was utterly freezing, and Carmen didn’t have the faintest clue where to go. The air was cold; the streets were full. She couldn’t believe that only twenty-four hours ago she had been so happy and full of excitement, playing with the children at the fair, then listening to that heavenly music. Now … oh God. She could only imagine Sofia being on the phone to their mother immediately, getting her side of the story in, the pair of them agreeing with each other, saying, oh well, wasn’t Carmen just like that. Oh God and then Skylar would get back and they could sit up gossiping – how did Sofia even know about Oke anyway? If it wasn’t for Skylar yammering on all the time …

Her fury kept her warm all the way up the street and into the Grassmarket. The bars and restaurants were overflowing, flooded with people laughing, hugging, pulling off coats, revelling in the Christmas spirit on this starry night, happy and full of goodwill towards men. Well, she bloody wasn’t. God.

There was a light still on in the bookshop. Frankly, she had no idea where to go. She knew Sofia would be anxious to smooth everything over if she went back and that made her angrier than she could say. She marched up Victoria Street and, sure enough, Ramsay and Mr McCredie were indeed killing what looked like their second bottle of burgundy, while the boys pored over a huge illustrated atlas, eating fish and chips and almost certainly getting greasy fingerprints on an expensive piece of stock, but for a moment Carmen was just relieved to see some people she wasn’t related to.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Have you got another glass for that wine?’

‘Problems at home?’ said Ramsay. ‘Because let me tell you, nobody is more qualified to discuss domestic issues than the two of us.’

There was a pause, then both men burst out into hearty laughter.

In fact, there was massive comfort in being with the pair of them, Carmen found. Mr McCredie told stories of Antarctic derring-do, and how best to play croquet with an Adélie penguin; Ramsay spoke about how all the money AirBnB-ing one of the wings of the house had brought in had been spent on pyjamas to stop the children tearing around the house wearing more or less nothing. A couple of glasses of wine down, Carmen discovered that she was feeling much more relaxed even though her phone kept pinging every couple of seconds. She focused on utterly ignoring it.

‘So, what’s up with you?’ asked Ramsay eventually. ‘Are all men bastards?’

‘The jury,’ said Carmen heavily, ‘is out.’

‘Remember,’ said Ramsay, who had some form in this area, ‘men are rubbish. They are rubbish at going after women they like.’

‘I agree,’ said Mr McCredie, who had absolutely no form in this area.

‘I know, but he thinks … ’

‘He doesn’t know what he thinks,’ said Ramsay confidently. ‘Even if you think you have made things very clear to him, you could make them more clear.’

‘It’s not that … dreadful popinjay, is it?’ said Mr McCredie, who didn’t speak a lot, but saw everything. ‘The charlatan writer.’