‘Hot cocoa?’ Annie enthused.
‘Well, that and a few bottles of red.’ Jude knew the Clove Lore crowd, evidently.
‘So, we’re doing this?’ Annie glanced at Harri for the go-ahead, which she knew he’d never dream of withholding. He knew it was best to let her run with her ideas.
‘When’s a good night to do it?’ She looked to Jude.
‘Sunday evenings can feel long in the winter round here, for some people,’ Jude said after some thought. ‘Week today would give us time to get the word out. You can charge for refreshments and keep the tickets free. That would be enough to cover your costs, since we’re a not-for-profit kind of place. How’s seven o’clock?’
‘Sunday at seven it is!’
That was it, decided. And all in the space of ten minutes.
Jude was soon on her way again, leaving the friends alone with a huge cake under a glass dome next to the hangover buns on the cafe counter.
Now they had an event to organise.
They were mid-way through making a poster for the window with marker pens and a big sheet of card Annie found behind the till when the deluge outside tired itself out.
They didn’t notice at first, since the sound of the rain was replaced by the sounds of the sea-swell down in the harbour, but all across the Clove Lore promontory, holidaymakers were clambering out of steamed-up cars and campervans, packing away Thermoses and pulling on hats and scarves, while the locals peered from tentatively opened doorways at the tiniest slices of watery blue sky through the cloud cover.
Soon the steep, cobbled slope that formed the spine running from the visitors’ centre at the top of the village down to the Siren’s Tail pub on the seawall was bustling with people making the most of this respite from the rain and determined to run errands and make memories before the short winter’s afternoon drew to a close and darkness fell again.
Annie and Harri suddenly found the Borrow-A-Bookshop full of people, and Annie was in her element.
Chapter Four
Bookselling and a Summons
Harri had been awestruck as he watched her work. He’d kept a low profile, making the coffees and cutting the cake, mopping wet footprints from the floor, and generally being useful to Annie who he realised had assumed the role of bookseller-in-chief, just like in Aber.
Now the rush was over and the cafe was cleared of people, he brought Annie a sweet mint tea by the till.
‘That’ll be four pounds and forty-five pence, please,’ she was saying, her grin broadening, as yet another customer counted coins into her hand over the counter.
‘Nice to find a shop still ’cepts real money,’ the older man said, before placing his new Bill Bryson and his biography of John Denver in his raincoat pockets.
Harri hadn’t known how to respond but it was no problem to Annie, a natural at this kind of thing.
‘Sure is,’ she said, handing him one of the fiddly five-pence pieces she’d fished with some difficulty from the till drawer. ‘My grandpa always said there’s nothing realer than the cents in your pocket.’
With an approving tip of his waxed hat, the man went on his way.
‘Mind you,’ Annie said, turning to Harri with a cunning smile, ‘he also used to shoot racoons from his porch and thought the Clintons were listening to him through his toaster oven, so, you know…’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Is that for me?’ She cradled the mint tea in her hands. ‘We got busy for a spot there,’ she said, blinking like she was waking from a dream.
‘A four-hour spot!’ Harri told her. ‘I sold the entire chocolate cake.’
‘And the buns?’
‘I think you were right about needing some passion fruit filling or something. They didn’t do so well.’
‘Never mind.’ She shuffled closer to his side like she was seeking warmth.
‘Are you still freezing? Why don’t you wear my big jumper?’
He could hear her protesting, but he was already on his way to his suitcase to pull out his warmest jersey.
When he returned, he put it over Annie’s shoulders and arranged the arms in a knot. She thanked him in a quiet way that made him step back again.
