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Chapter Twenty
The Voyager Returns Home
Magnús threw off his dripping waterproof coat and sat behind the old laptop at the shop counter.
She had gone with her boyfriend, Jowan had confirmed, and with her, she’d taken all the joy he’d found in running the shop yesterday. How could he have allowed himself to think for one minute that this stupid voyage to England was anything but a game? He’d been a phoney back home – kidding himself he could save his own bookstore – and he was nothing but a phoney here, too. Alex had told him she believed in him and that had been enough to have him grinning and sentimental, thinking himself a bookseller again. None of it had been real.
His thoughts spiralled. He’d grab the first flight out of here. Even if he left first thing tomorrow morning, he could still be back with his family in time for Christmas Eve dinner.
As the fans noisily whirred and the screen came to life, the shop’s holiday ledger opened automatically onscreen, loading slowly line by line. Magnús impatiently jabbed at the exit button but the laptop didn’t respond. It took all his willpower not to throw the thing to the ground, but he made himself fold his arms tightly and wait, eyes fixed on the ceiling until the computer had finished going through its slow start-up.
‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered, his jaw flexing hard.
When he looked again he saw his own name on the top line, marked out in green from all the others. He moved the cursor to close the page but was struck by the length of the list and instead scrolled through the list of bookings.
Sturluson, Iceland; Keeland, Vancouver; Forster, Belfast; Li, Amsterdam; the list went on and on. All those dreamers were queued up, waiting to take their turn pretending to be a bookseller, and no doubt they’d take to it as though it were the very career for them.
They’d leave thinking themselves cut out for a life of stocktaking and till-ringing. How little they’d have seen of how hard it really was. They’d have all the success and none of the hard work, and no inkling whatsoever of the shame that accompanied failure.
He scanned the columns again. Almost all of the guests were set to travel here in pairs: friends, lovers, fathers and daughters, all kinds of happy combinations. Not one of them would feel quite so utterly alone as Magnús did, now that Alex had left.
He stabbed at the keys and this time the page closed. His fingers worked fast as he typed, murmuring, ‘England to Iceland… leaving now.’ It took a moment to find the carrier he needed.
He could be packed and out of here in half an hour if he was quick. ‘There’s no point in staying, standing around uselessly like an empty shell’, he told himself.
Sure enough, there was a flight at eight o’clock tonight and even though he found he couldn’t change his ticket, he could simply buy a new one. Expensive, but worth it.
All he had to do was get to Heathrow. How hard could that be?
Once home, he could take over some holiday shifts at the wine shop, let his colleagues off the hook. They’d thank him for it. He could work hard, put away some cash, and he’d go out at New Year with his brother and get good and drunk. It would be like old times, only easier, because he’d finally come to the realisation that he had to surrender his old dreams. Five days here had been enough to show him everything he’d got wrong.
Alex had said that night at Minty’s that she refused to believe people couldn’t get their dreams if they really went for them. ‘Bullshit!’ he told the screen as he typed in his details.
He sniffed a wry laugh as his thoughts churned. They may well have had fun running the shop and café yesterday, but that was no marker of his success as a bookseller. He was still the failure he’d always been, but he was going home an adult at last: fully aware of his limitations, dreamless, and utterly empty-chested and sore.
He’d learned he had to settle for the decisions life made for him. Some people didn’t get their dreams. Some people ended up losing all their money and gaining a big chunk of debt in return for all of their studying and striving. That was just the way of the world.
Alex had talked about how important it was to be happy, but he’d come to understand that just wasn’t an option for him, not if he carried on wanting the same things he always had. So he surrendered them now. He needed new smaller, easier dreams.
He wondered if Alex was happy now. He hoped so. Jowan had said as much when he told Magnús she was going home for Christmas with her loved ones. Maybe that was what he’d come here to learn? That in the big karmic balance of things there were natural winners and losers. If she could get the things she wanted; he’d accept that he couldn’t have his.
More than anything, he hoped she’d win out over the demons that troubled her, whatever they were. He even hoped she was happy at home with that guy, if she truly did love him. He was willing to accept this distribution of contentment, even if it meant him being miserable for a while.
He hit the return key and watched the payment form he’d filled in disappear.
The Wi-Fi flaked out and the website buffered. ‘Come on, come on!’
His ticket home was only seconds away and he still had to call an Uber and pack his stuff. The little blue circle span until Magnús swore with impatience. He had to get out of here now.
‘How could you do that to me? And with Eve, of all people? How could you do that to her little boy?’
In the back seat, Alex hissed the words through gritted teeth while, beside her, Ben listened, now chastened after his heroic rescue.
Mr Thomas, navigating the winding single lane that led them away from Clove Lore turned up the music station on the car radio and discreetly pretended to hum along to ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’ while the tyres rolled slowly through spindly, gale-torn branches and the churning clusters of litter from wheelie bins blown over as far away as Appledore.
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Ben whispered, pleadingly. ‘It lasted, like, a second and I felt awful the whole time, honestly. But that’s not important now, is it?’
Alex turned fierce eyes upon him, exasperated.
