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By Root 1819 0

I looked beyond them to the gleaming spines I'd lined up yet again this morning, making sure they were all neatly aligned, and a fastidious inch from the edge of the shelves, which I'd also had painted the same very pale blue of the walls. I nervously rearranged the flowers in the corner on the table, fanning out the sweet peas, then moved on to smooth the cream calico of the sofa and armchairs I'd had re-covered as I passed. Surely all bookshops didn't have to be dark green with leather chairs? Up above, spot lighting, which I'd put in to make it brighter, twinkled down like so many tiny stars, and underfoot the prohibitively expensive limestone flooring – I'd almost shut my eyes as I'd written out the cheque – felt smooth and cool. Restful. All of which had been paid for with Dad's money, of course. Would he have approved? I gazed round. I think so. The money wasn't going to support the farm any more, but it was going to support a family business, and that, I believe, would have pleased him. Oh, it could have gone straight into the bottomless pit of renovating the farmhouse, could have been poured effortlessly into the roof, for instance, or the dry rot, but Ant had said no. Use it for something definitive, something to remember him by: something for you. Use it to take out a mortgage on the shop. My shop.

‘What d'you think?’ I asked him now as he approached, even though he'd seen it dozens of times in its new incarnation. Even though he'd had to approve every colour swatch, enthuse about every lick of paint.

‘Terrific.’ He smiled down at me. ‘You're terrific.’ He bent his head to kiss me, and at that moment the door opened again, and Ludo walked in, together with Alice and her husband, Angus, and a very beautiful Asian girl.

‘Ludo!’ Ant and I said simultaneously and perhaps overenthusiastically, springing apart like deflecting magnets. He and Ant lunged to shake hands, again, somewhat over-heartily, and then Ludo and I pecked cheeks as if we were encountering molten metal.

‘Hi.’ He stepped back smartly as I did too. ‘This is fantastic.’ He gazed around. ‘You've done a very good job.’

‘You think?’ I wasn't really listening: I was looking at the fashionably crumpled linen jacket, the crazy red and white print shirt, which had replaced the enormous tweed overcoat and the loosened collar and tie.

‘For sure. It's taken it out of the last century and brought it hurtling into this one. I always thought we were a bit nineties in here, but I couldn't work out why.’ He saw me clocking the new wardrobe. ‘Oh. Sunita bought me these.’ He grinned, that lovely old tigerish smile that made his eyes crinkle at the edges and all but disappear, and then with a deft arm around her waist, drew the dusky beauty into the circle. Her hair hung like a long sheet of mahogany silk, her cheekbones were high, and when she smiled, her eyes and teeth dazzled.

‘Sunita – Evie,’ Ludo said. ‘Sunita wanted to bring me out of the last century too.’

I laughed. ‘About time too. It's lovely to meet you, Sunita.’

‘It was nice of you to invite me,’ she said with a secret smile, and I knew, in an instant, she knew. Had been told, maybe in bed last night, or maybe in the car on the way down; Alice perhaps leaning forward from the back seat to divulge more information: I once had a crush on this girl. Might he have said she brought me back to life? No. But Alice might have done. And I caught a glimpse of surprise in Sunita's eyes now. Girl? Woman, surely. Ah, but you see, Sunita, I thought, excusing myself politely and moving on, you don't have to be a spring chicken to make hearts beat faster. It helps, of course, but it's not mandatory.

I moved on around the room: being the party-giver and the jug-bearer gave me a delicious freedom and I greeted my guests here, accepted compliments there, exclaiming at people I hadn't seen for ages, revelling in being amongst friends, family, on this, my opening night; a blissfully balmy, late summer's evening. I spied Ted, talking to Stacey in the bay window, and went to say hello.

‘You're sweet to come all this way,