Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers

‘Do you think Mum left because my dad died?’

‘Oh, my love,’ Grandma said. ‘I don’t know is the honest answer. I’m not going to pretend to you that it didn’t break her heart not being able to be with your father for longer, or that she didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about how things might have worked out differently. But then she had you, and she had a little bit of him back again, and that’s part of the reason you were so precious to her.’

‘I wonder which bits of me are from him?’ Tilly said.

Grandad smiled. ‘Well, you didn’t get your hair or your height from us. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that you might have inherited your literary tastes from our side of the family.’

‘But Tilly,’ Grandma said, ‘you may have a bit of him and a bit of her and a bit of us all mixed in there, but the best bits of you are all your own, that much I know. Now. Whose turn is it to do the washing-up?’

When Tilly had been small she had read with Grandad every night before she went to bed. Every evening after dinner, Tilly and Grandad would curl up on the big, squishy sofa in front of the fireplace and Grandad would read aloud a chapter or two of whichever book they were engrossed in. Together they had gone sailing with the Swallows and Amazons, met the witches of Miss Cackle’s Academy, and visited worlds balanced on the backs of elephants.

As Tilly got older the tradition had gradually faded; first they started reading their own books next to each other, exploring vast and separate worlds while sitting side by side, and then Tilly had started taking her books up to bed to read and before she knew it, and without anyone making a particular decision about it, they didn’t read together any more.

Later that evening, with her mum’s copy of Anne of Green Gables still closed, Tilly crawled out of bed and crept back downstairs. Her grandma was reading with a cup of tea at the kitchen table and looked up when Tilly came in. Seeing the book in Tilly’s hand, she just smiled and went back to her own. Tilly pushed the door to the shop open and saw Grandad on the sofa, lit up by the flickering light of the fire. She crawled up beside him and put her mum’s copy of the book on his knee. Without saying anything he put his arm round her, and when Grandma came through with three mugs of hot chocolate he put his own book down and began to read.

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he next morning Tilly was sitting at the kitchen table, reading her mum’s copy of Anne of Green Gables, when Grandad popped his head round the bookshop door. He came and gave Grandma a kiss on the cheek as she simmered gooseberries on the stove, singing under her breath along with the radio.

‘Oskar’s here,’ he said to Tilly, smiling. ‘He said you’d promised to help him find a book.’

‘Have you never been here before?’ she asked, making Oskar jump a little.

‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said sheepishly. ‘And yes, of course I’ve been in before; it’s where Mum gets all her Christmas presents. But I’d forgotten how …’ He paused.

‘Magical?’ Tilly suggested. ‘Exciting? Beautiful?’

‘Yes, but that’s not what I mean. It’s not what it looks like, it’s how it makes you feel, isn’t it? Is there a word that means somewhere adventures live?’

‘I don’t think so, but there should be,’ Tilly said.

‘But anyway,’ Oskar said, collecting himself, ‘it’s cool, is what I mean. But I haven’t been in for ages. I’m not up this way that much. We have someone else who looks after the café at weekends, and I usually spend the school holidays with my dad.’

‘Where does your dad live?’

‘In Paris, with my big sister, Emilie.’

‘Oh wow, I thought you were going to say south London or something,’ Tilly said. ‘It must be amazing to get to spend the holidays there. I’ve never even been outside of England.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Oskar said. ‘Paris is pretty cool, but Dad got remarried last summer and Marguerite’s really nice, but now it kind of feels like I’m visiting someone else’s home when I’m there. And Emilie is always out with her friends, so I decided not to go this holiday.’

‘How come Emilie lives with your dad?’ Tilly asked.

‘She decided to go to college there,’ Oskar explained. ‘She wants to be fluent in French so she can get into university there too. Her boyfriend lives in Paris.’

‘Do you miss them?’ Tilly asked.

‘Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I miss my sister more than my dad, I think. Sometimes it feels like I’m in the way when I’m there. Not that I’m not wanted, but that it would be easier if I weren’t there.’ Oskar paused. ‘Do you miss your parents?’ he asked quietly, as though he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk about them.

‘Mostly it’s almost fine,’ said Tilly, surprising herself at how comfortable she felt talking to Oskar honestly, ‘but every so often I can feel the gap where they should be. It’s not like that all the time, but I’m always aware of it a little bit.’

‘What happened to them?’ Oskar asked, still looking at his feet.

‘My dad got ill and died. I don’t know many of the details. He had to go abroad for work; he got ill; he died before he could get home. We don’t really know what happened to my mum. She left really soon after I was born without telling Grandma and Grandad or anyone where she was going and she never came back. We haven’t heard from her since.’

‘Whoa, that’s like something from a TV show,’ Oskar said, before stopping. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … It must be horrible. Do you really not know anything?’

Tilly shrugged. ‘She didn’t leave a note or anything. The police think that maybe she had postnatal depression and she ran away and is living a completely new life somewhere else. They said she might try to make contact at some point, but that I shouldn’t get my hopes up.’

‘Do you think about your parents a lot?’

‘Kind of. It’s funny because I can’t remember them at all, so it’s hard to miss them or feel sad about them in a very specific way. It’s like feeling sad that you never had a diamond ring, or a unicorn. I feel sad about the idea of them, and knowing that they’re not here, and I hate that I don’t understand why Mum left – but I don’t really have any memories of them as real people. I have this, though.’ Tilly pulled out her necklace from under her jumper and showed Oskar. The small gold bee was no bigger than the nail on Tilly’s thumb.

‘Was that your mum’s?’ Oskar asked.

‘No, it’s mine but she had one just the same. Hers was a present from my dad and when I was born she had one made for me too.’ Tilly tucked it back into her jumper.

The shop phone suddenly started ringing and made them both jump.

‘Anyway, I’ve never really told anyone else about all of that,’ Tilly said a little awkwardly.

‘I’m glad—’ Oskar started, but Tilly cut him off.

‘Let’s find a book for English. I need a new one too.’

Oskar nodded and followed her up the stairs to the children’s floor. Tilly picked out a pile of books for Oskar that she knew were printed on a different kind of paper that made it easier for people with dyslexia to read and placed them in front of him with a flourish.

While Oskar flicked through them, she went to find A Little Princess and realised the shop stocked several different editions. She looked through some of the different covers, wishing she’d had the chance to talk to her mum about the book. She was sliding the various editions back on to the shelf when, after careful consideration, Oskar settled on a slim book with a black cover and a creepy illustration on the front.

They took it downstairs where Grandad put it in a canvas tote bag stamped with the Pages & Co. logo, and refused to let Oskar pay for it.

‘It’s a pleasure to have you in Pages & Co.,’ Grandad said. ‘Special offer for friends of the shop.’

Oskar thanked Grandad and gave Tilly an awkward half-wave before making his way back across the road to Crumbs.

Tilly headed upstairs to her reading nook, but when she turned the corner she saw that her sofa was already occupied by a girl with red pigtails. She looked up at Tilly as she approached and sighed dramatically.

‘I know what you must be thinking,’ she said in an accent that Tilly couldn’t place. ‘You’re thinking what a dreadful burden it must be for a girl who is already so skinny to be forced to endure red hair as well.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that at all,’ Tilly said. ‘I was just wondering what you were doing on my sofa?’

‘I’m so awfully sorry,’ the girl said, jumping up and haphazardly straightening the cushions, ‘I didn’t know it was yours.’

‘I mean, it’s not really,’ Tilly said, realising that she must have seemed rude. ‘It’s just where I like to sit and read and you surprised me. I hadn’t noticed you when I was up here with my fri— With a boy from school.’

‘Oh, I know that feeling,’ the girl said, smiling broadly. ‘I have a tree that is laden with the most beautiful, sweet-smelling, pale pink blossom that I like to read under.’ The girl’s face suddenly morphed into a look of horror. ‘But can you ever forgive me?’

‘Forgive you for what?’ Tilly said, thoroughly flummoxed at the change in tone.