She went pink. ‘I mean, I’ve loved the books we’ve discussed but sometimes isn’t it nice to just read for the sheer pleasure?’
‘Yes, something frothy,’ Tash said.
Marti bridled. She took in a great sniff. ‘Well, personally I always read to improve myself.’
Laughter rippled around the room. Marti was suspected of never reading any of the books. It didn’t, however, stop her expounding on the merits of the text at length.
‘Really?’ Tash said, in acid tones. ‘You must tell me, sometime, how the books we’ve read have improved you.’
Amy felt the meeting begin to swerve out of control again.
‘Genius,’ Patrick said suddenly. He’d remained silent until this point. ‘The whole thing’s genius. This way, we can keep things ticking over until we start again next year. And now, can I make a suggestion?’
Amy’s heart sank. She thought she’d just sorted everything out. Surely she could have relied on Patrick for support.
‘As we’re not reconvening until January, could we not read A Christmas Carol? A bit of Dickens, nice and spooky for the month of Hallowe’en and it’ll get us in the mood for Christmas, so it will.’
‘Oh Dickens!’ Marti cried. ‘Now that’s who I call a writer.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘One of my absolute favourites. Such a towering genius.’
‘Oh, what have you read?’ Tash asked, innocently.
‘Well,’ Marti blustered. ‘There’s the one about the knitters or something isn’t there? And there was one adapted for television that I enjoyed tremendously.’
‘Oh yes, the knitters. The women who knit, now where was it,’ Tash frowned, pretending to remember the details. ‘At the doors of the Old Bailey, wasn’t it?’ She winked at Emma, and Amy could see they were enjoying the joke at Marti’s expense.
‘That’s the one,’ Marti sighed in triumph. ‘Such a powerful scene. From Here to Eternity, I think it was called.’
Amy could see Tash biting her lip to suppress her giggles at Marti’s ignorance and, before she could goad the poor woman any further, she intervened. ‘Right, that’s settled, we read A Christmas Carol this month, meet once more to discuss it, enjoy the Hallowe’en party and meet up when we can in the period before January. Sorted.’ She said this all in one sentence. Stopping to take a breath, she cast a look at Patrick. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed, hoping the love she had for him didn’t radiate out with too much ferocity and kill him on the spot.
As she stood at the shop door saying goodnight to the departing book group members, Amy was aware that Patrick remained at her side. She handed over Tash’s gift-wrapped book and said, ‘It was very wicked of you to tease Marti like that.’
Tash looked chastened. ‘Sorry Amy but I can’t resist, especially when she’s on one of her, “Isn’t literature the most marvellous thing,” rants. I wouldn’t mind so much if she wasn’t such a book snob.’ She took the book off her. ‘Thanks for this. I’m sure Mum will love it.’
Emma joined them, overhearing the conversation. ‘Marti’ll have a fit when she hears what the working title of Biddy’s erotic novel is.’
‘What is it?’ asked Patrick, Amy and Tash as one.
‘Last thing I heard it was A Tale of Two Titties.’
‘Go Biddy,’ Amy said through the laughter. ‘You’ve got to hand it to the woman.’ Emma waved goodnight and followed Tash, who was hand in hand with Kit, on the promenade. Amy looked out into the night after them and blew out an enormous breath. It puffed out into the frigid air.
‘That’s one big sigh,’ Patrick said.
‘Even without our resident OAP troublemaker, I still have difficulty keeping the meeting in order.’
‘You did a grand job,’ he exclaimed. ‘Sure, it’s a thankless task in there some nights. And it’s not like a work meeting; they’re there for pleasure. You can’t play the three-line whip on them.’
‘More’s the pity,’ Amy replied, with feeling. Then she brightened and added, ‘Although I think Biddy would rather like a whipping.’
‘I think you could be right there,’ Patrick said, in mock serious tones. ‘However, I, for one, do not want to pursue that line of thought.’ He shuddered. ‘Now I can’t get the image out of my brain!’ He held out his arm in chivalrous fashion. ‘Can I walk you home, this dark night?’
Amy glanced into the darkness stealing around the corner of the bookshop and shivered. ‘Oh Patrick, that would be lovely.’ She locked up, checked three times that the door was secured and then turned and put her hand through his arm. She gazed up at his profile. Is there anything so painful as unrequited love, she wondered, feeling the familiar longing for him shoot through her. Stamping on the accompanying pain, she contented herself with hugging his arm to her.
The last evening class came around far too quickly. It had been a coup to get funding for the short course of four lessons and Amy had been proud to offer them at the book café. The outreach literary study for beginners had been popular, and charismatic tutor Joel Dillon had been even more so. She’d been bitterly disappointed to learn that Joel had, out of the blue, taken an unexpected sabbatical year and had gone to live in the midlands.
‘Oh it’s such a shame,’ she said to Patrick, as she sank down on one of the bright green easy chairs in the children’s section, worry etched onto her face. ‘It means he can’t lead the final session. The group will feel so let down. It’s such short notice too, I can’t think who could do it instead. It would have been so nice to finish off the sessions and bring it all to a satisfying conclusion. Joel was so popular as well.’ She stared hopelessly at the copy of The Gruffalo that she was supposed to be putting on display.
‘I think that might have been the problem,’ Patrick said wryly. He put a mug of coffee on the floor next to her. It was four thirty in the afternoon and trade, although brisk earlier in the day, had tailed off now the October chill clung dankly to the harbour end of town. ‘There you go. In your favourite Persuasion mug too.’
‘Thanks Patrick. You’re a star.’ Amy positioned the book in its place next to an arrangement of posters tacked onto a background of fake grass.
Patrick perched on a chair upholstered in sky blue. Sipping his own coffee he said, ‘That’s looking good. I like the plastic grass stuff.’
‘Thanks. I’m trying to get something up for the next storytelling session. The Gruffalo always goes down well with the little ones.’
‘It does when you read it to them.’
Amy felt a blush creep treacherously over her face. She couldn’t cope when Patrick was nice to her. A peculiar mixture of pleasure and pain consumed her. And, as he was nice to her all of the time, it was reaching danger point. To hide her confusion she picked up her coffee and
