By that time Annie had sold a good few coastal path maps, a recipe pamphlet from the pile on the counter (which she noticed was attributed to Clove Lore’s own Jude Crawley), plus a very fine 1950s edition of the fieldnotes of an obscure Italian botanist she’d no reason to have heard of. Altogether that had come to a little over seventeen pounds.
Harri had upped the price of his lemon drizzle buns in light of the fact the fruit and caster sugar had come to six-fifty and he’d grumbled for a good fifteen minutes about the rip-off prices of Clove Lore’s only shop while he baked. Annie had balked too at the cost of ingredients for the meal she’d promised to cook tonight, but nothing could take the shine off her day’s bookselling.
The morning brought three coach loads of visitors to Clove Lore, and they’d all been greeted by the sight of the sloping village glistening in the sheerest covering of frost.
Annie had been kept busy fielding questions from the coach tourers.Did they detect an accent? Wasn’t she feeling the cold terribly? Long way from home, aren’t you? Assistant school librarian, indeed? What does that involve?
She’d answered each one with her usual wholesome charm.Yes, sir, she’d been told she had a strong accent everywhere but back home in Amarillo itself where folks found her words tinged with an Anglo-Welsh lilt(which always delighted her when it was pointed out);yes, ma’am, she’d been cold since she stepped onto the runway at Newquay; two planes – one big, one alarmingly tiny–and a bus journey she wasn’t keen to do over in twelve days’ time; and she’d only smiled and said ‘a lot of hard work’ in response to the enquiries about her real job back home.
If she’d told them the truth she’d have cried into their well-meaning faces. The truth was that she’d read for a degree in English, completed The School Librarian Certificate Programme, followed by the Educator Preparation Programme, and she was on her way to taking her State Examination of Educator Standards, all the while working for a tiny stipend, championing student wellbeing initiatives she rarely got credit for, and keeping up with reading trends and changes in state law and school rules, waiting for the day she’d take over as head librarian, which obviously was never going to happen now she was suspended.
Instead, she’d smiled and reminded the intrigued customers that the shop had a cafe too, if they – to echo Harri – ‘fancied a brew’.
The shop had been bustling and cheerful, even if Annie was still nursing her woes, and she had barely batted an eyelid when the third set of coach trippers shuffled in and out at around noon leaving one of their number sitting by the fire napping gently, a tiny pair of copper-rimmed glasses over his generous nose and the shop’s precious antiquarian copy ofA Young Man’s Valentine Writerclosed on his lap.
Shortly before three, when the shop had emptied completely and a frosty darkness was descending over the village once more, Annie summoned Harri to come take a look at the old guy.
‘You sure he was with one of the coach trips?’ Harri whispered, standing by her side a good distance away from him.
Annie shrugged, observing him still. ‘I didn’t notice him come in. I think he arrived when it was super busy with the lunchtime rush.’
Harri peered closer. ‘Is he…?’ He turned ominous eyes to Annie.
‘What? You don’t mean…? Oh my lord! Go find out.’ She shooed Harri towards the armchair.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Harri protested in a whisper.
‘I don’t know. Poke him?’ she mouthed.
Harri rolled his eyes to cover the fact he was paling significantly. He edged forward. ‘Excuse me, uh, Mr…’
There was no response.
Annie said a silent, slightly hysterical, prayer.Please, please don’t let him be dead.
‘Sir?’ Harri tried, watching for the man’s chest rising and falling.
She mimed a poking motion and nodded encouragingly, even while she was wincing.
Harri gently touched the man’s arm through his coat. Getting no response, he shook his shoulder.
‘Agh!’ the man cried, jerking awake, arms flailing like he was falling through the air.
‘Sorry, sorry! We thought you’d…’ Harri recovered himself after jumping inches from the ground in fright. Annie bit her lips together. ‘We think you’ve got separated from your coach party.’
The man’s befuddled look fell from his face, and something crotchety and dark came over him instead. He looked accusingly between Annie and Harri before laboriously struggling to his feet. He seemed to sway for a moment before straightening his back (well, as straight as he could stand), and he shuffled towards the door.
Annie tried to stop him. ‘Wait, sir, do you want us to call the coach company? Who are you travelling with?’ The man pulled ineffectually at the doorhandle. After a glance at Harri, communicating her concern, Annie resignedly opened it for him. ‘We can call them, see if they’ve left without you? Maybe the tour guide will come collect you?’
He raised a hand above his shoulder and wafted her words away as he shambled out into the courtyard.
‘Can we at least get you a tea?’ Harri tried, but he was well on his way up the dark passageway that led onto the slope.
‘Maybe he’s a local?’ Harri said, watching him disappear.
‘Maybe. He wasn’t dressed like a tourist,’ added Annie. The others had been wearing bright hiking gear, boots and bobble hats. The old man had worn a strangely old-fashioned coat, somewhere between a graduation robe and a caretaker’s coverall, and there’d been little more than a brown rag tied round his neck by way of a scarf.
‘Could he be homeless?’ Harri said, beating Annie to her conclusion.
