‘Yeah. There wasn’t even a conversation about it, really. He just texted last night to say his car was booked and the flights were confirmed.’
Daisy blinked. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yep. He’s speaking at some leadership thing. I get it. He planned it months ago. But…’
‘That’s tough.’
‘It is. It means everything falls to me now and I’m not exactly winning gold medals for my handling of things.’
‘You don’t have to win medals. It’s not surprising you feel awful.’
‘It means a lot that you’re here.’
‘I wanted to be.’
‘On a different note, before I forget to ask. Have you heard anything else from Holly about the business people who are interested in that building and bringing in GayesBooks?’
‘Not really anything substantial. I bumped into Holly and Xian this morning, they’re calling a town meeting. I’ll deal with it when I get back. What can I actually do about it? Not a lot.’
‘At least that’s a start.’
‘They said there would be no way they will let a big corporate into Pretty Beach but really what can be done to stop it? I guess we’ll get a petition going. I’ve decided to try not to worry about it and that I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.’
‘What a nightmare.’ Miles shook his head.
‘Yup.’
The waitress brought over their drinks, a pot of tea for Daisy, a buttered toasted tea cake cut in two and a coffee. Daisy eyed the tea cake. ‘Ooh, that looks nice.’
Miles broke the atmosphere with a joke. ‘I feel like I could eat six after hospital food yesterday and you look like you’ve come halfway across the country on foot. I can’t believe I made you leave Pretty Beach seeing as I know how much you hate it.’
Daisy chuckled. ‘I feel like I’m in another country.’
‘It’s strange how quickly things unravel. One minute Mum was getting back to normal and fine, the next this.’
‘Life’s fragile, so they say.’
‘Yep. I bet Mum will now be scared to go out, which she never used to be and I’m supposed to carry that.’
‘You’re not on your own. You’ve got me. For what it’s worth.’
‘I’m just so glad you came.’
26
It had been a few days since Daisy had got back from London and the news from the hospital hadn’t changed much. Miles had stayed with his mum, his brother had been delayed in Tokyo because of ash from fires affecting flights and Daisy had been checking her phone every ten minutes to keep abreast of everything. She’d replayed phone conversations from hospital corridors in her head, and was trying to figure out how she was supposed to act in the middle of the whole messy thing. She’d told Miles that if he needed her, she’d be there. Really, though, both of them had worked out that there was little to no point in her being in the thick of things.
A funny thing had happened because of the mugging: Daisy Henley had realised that she wanted to be with Miles full time. Since he was no longer a five-minute walk away, she was feeling his absence monumentally. She’d gone from not having anyone in her life to feeling as if she was part of something and then being shown how quickly it could be whipped away. She didn’t like how it made her feel at all. She’d berated herself for her selfish navel-gazing and had tried to help and support Miles and his mum as much as she could. Mostly she felt useless butat least she was a useless person listening and giving sympathy from a screen on a phone.
She also felt obsolete and redundant about the impending threat to the bookshop. There had been a lot of talk on the Pretty Beach grapevine about it and a town meeting had been called. People were whispering, there’d been mention of a petition and Lotta had been in and suggested designing a flyer. Overall, though, the situation was a bit in limbo. Daisy also felt unhinged about that, not just the Miles thing.
Feeling quite helpless about both things, therefore, in true Daisy fashion, she threw herself into a project that had been nudging at the back of her mind for weeks. A little corner of the bookshop that had never quite worked. Situated at the back far left, just near where one of the library ladders sat, the area had niggled at her every single time she’d looked at it. It wasn’t that it was awful, but from day one, she’d been aware that it wasn’t spot on and needed some effort. It needed a bit of faffing because it hadn’t taken her long to work out that if an area of the shop got snapped by someone’s phone and put on a story, her customers, emails and enquiries went up. It really was quite as simple and straightforward as that. Any little area she could create that would be loved enough to end up on social media was only going to help her business to grow and for sure she needed that. With the incoming GayesBooks threat she needed to scrape the barrel and do every little thing she could to keep the bookshop special, unique and as far away from a generic corporation style retail experience as could be.
So, a little plan had formed in her head that she would continue to invent, create and rotate corners in the shop. Which was not only an anti GayesBooks project but also a very good distraction from the problem with Miles. The corner in question needed some serious Daisy love. She wanted more than just an odd chair and a lamp, but something that made people stop,drop their jaws, raise their eyebrows and hopefully Instagram the life out of it. Plus, in real time, she wanted something that felt like you could sit down and never want to get up again.
So, just after the twins had gone off to school, she’d started work as a woman on a mission like a bat out of hell, hoping it would take her mind off the Miles situation. It was a grey morning in Pretty Beach which suited her mind and mental state well. The Bookshop was a bit damp around the edges and the sky outside the front window had definitely warranted staying inside and getting jobs done. Pulling her sleeves up, she tied her hair up in one of Annabelle’s old Liberty print scarves, put her head down and got to work.
The corner in question was near the back left of the shop and had lovely bones with a tall arched sash window with slightly rippled glass and a section of alcove shelving on one side that was crying out for attention. The shelves had been fine filled with some of Dennis’s botanical book collection, but fine didn’t cut it in the book-fluencer world that Daisy Henley had quickly ascertained and taken on board. Every corner of the bookshop needed to earn its keep and Daisy was determined to make it happen.
