Bookshop Girl Page 12

They’re lying on the floor. Smiling and winking, static and silent. I stretch to pick them up and wiggle the sheet above my face, watching their shiny fins shimmer.

  Blaine Henderson. What a babe.

  Holly isn’t a fan.

  But, oh God, I am.

  Is it really such a huge deal if your best friend thinks the boy you worship is a bit of a dick?

  What do the dolphins have to say about it? ‘Blaine is cute! Holly’s wrong about him!’

  He looked so fit when I saw him today.

  That dimple he gets when he smirks.

  Those hands. Magic hands. Drawing Naked Sue. Flicking through the pages of his sketchbook. Passing me cute stickers.

  I relive our conversation at the photocopier.

  How close he was standing next to me.

  I hope he turns up tomorrow.

  Maybe it wouldn’t actually be so bad if no one else bothered, as long as he did.

  Then it could be just me and him.

  Me and him locked in the bookshop.

  Overnight.

  That’s a delicious thought.

  Imaginary conversations take over.

  How I’d laugh and he’d laugh and how his hands felt on my skin that day we danced to Bobby the Busker.

  Those glittery dolphins swim me to a very, very happy place.

  I lie in bed and live out the fantasy of being locked in the shop with him.

  Again and again.

  And again.

  I’m completely submerged in it. All knickers and hands and humidity. When my phone beeps.

  My clammy fingers tap at the keypad to see who the message is from.

  Holly.

  Don’t forget your toothbrush! Xxxxx

  I get up on my feet, sweaty. Smooth my hair and exhale. Drop my toothbrush into my Occupation Survival Kit. ‘Check.’

  It’s a good turnout. Familiar faces fill the shop. There are plenty of people from school. Even a few of my teachers who look plain weird, standing around in their jeans and trainers, trying to convince us all that they are real-life human beings outside the classroom. The Posers life-drawing crowd have gathered. Well, all of them except Blaine. I guess he must be on his way. I recognise the shop assistants from Lush and the checkout boys from Tesco Express in the crowd. Even some of the lads from the phone shop have rolled up in a haze of overpowering aftershave.

  There are customers who are genuinely upset at the thought of losing this place and are willing to stay here overnight to make a point. They chatter to one another, leafing through hardbacks and leaning on placards.

  It proves all of my doubts wrong. Any concerns I had about this being a flop seem pretty ridiculous now, when we have a whole collective of bookshop lovers supporting the cause.

  Tony gushes as his literary heroine, Hilary Mackintosh, secures the lid back onto a Sharpie. She’s just signed his entire collection of her novels. Spines creased. Pages thumbed. Old faves.

  Alison, the journalist from the Chronicle, is back at Bennett’s to cover today’s action. She’s screwing a huge shiny lens onto her fancy camera.

  I watch the door anxiously. Waiting for them to arrive.

  Amidst the crowd of bookshop protestors, of placards painted with literary puns, of home-made vegan snacks and happy people sipping wine from plastic cups, I see the three men who plan to shut us down arrive. They move in single file towards Tony and take it in turns to shake his hand.

  Mick Morgan looks unnecessarily intimidated by the mass of bookish types as he welcomes Jeffrey Kahn and Greg Simmonds to Bennett’s Greysworth, one of the shops he is responsible for as regional manager.

  My stomach flips as Holly appears next to me, laughing nervously. ‘What do we, like, do now that all these people are here?’

  ‘Paige! Take this!’ Adam passes me an actual megaphone, his skinny arms exposed by his SAVE BENNETT’S T-shirt.

  ‘What’s all this?’ I hear Mick ask Tony, as he watches me climb onto the nearest kick stool. He clasps his hands together in front of him, like a footballer protecting his ‘manhood’ from a free kick.

  ‘Hello.’ This thing makes my voice feel massive. ‘Can I have your attention, please?’ I wasn’t even planning on saying that; I feel like the megaphone made me do it. I look out at the crowd and feel myself wobble. Holly is right by my side, wrapping her arm behind my knees, supporting me and giving me a gentle you can do it squeeze.

  I suddenly notice the toddlers who are sitting on their parents’ shoulders, their small round heads popping up above the crowd of grown-ups. Down by my feet, there’s an adorable little girl. She’s probably about eight and she has bright orange hair. She’s got a placard stuck to the handlebars of her scooter. She frowns at me as she clutches a Pippi Longstocking book in her little hands.

  What would Pippi do, right?

  Okay, here we go.

  I unfold the scrap of paper I scribbled my notes onto late last night, and my hands shake as I read it.

  It’s just everybody you’ve ever known, Paige. You’re only making the most important speech of your life so far. Chill, dude. No biggie.

  ‘Hello, everybody!’ My voice wavers with nerves. I cough to clear my throat, and it echoes through the megaphone, deafening everybody in the front row. ‘Thank you to everyone who has come here today to show your solidarity and support … It means so much to me and my friends to see such a huge, happy turnout …’ Yes, Paige, you can do this. ‘I’d like to welcome Mick Morgan, Jeffrey Khan and Greg Simmonds to our demonstration. Today is about saving Bennett’s. Tomorrow will be about saving Bennett’s. And if needs be, the day after tomorrow will also be about saving Bennett’s. This is an occupation, a sit-in protest. We will sit down to stand up for our bookshop. Our objective is clear: we reject the plans, laid out by the high-street regeneration scheme, to close us down so that this building can be demolished.’

  The crowd start to hiss and boo. It’s all very panto. Maybe Tony will resurface after the meeting, dressed as a dame or the arse-end of a horse.

  ‘We would appreciate it if today an alternative plan could be put forward. An alternative that saves this bookshop. The only bookshop in this town. The bookshop that attracted one thousand people to sign the petition to keep us here.’ There’s a cheer from my colleagues. ‘An alternative to the plans for “regeneration”, which are, so far, pushing our only access to new books out of this town.’ I nod towards Tony and the men in suits and clench my fist, punching the dusty air. ‘SAVE BENNETT’S BOOKSHOP!’

  Sue starts chanting ‘What do we want? BOOKS! When do we want them? FOREVER!’ and it catches on with a pocket of people around her.

  I climb down from my soapbox, flustered. I think my nerves got the better of me. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that I’ve said enough to make a difference. I’m too busy suffocating in a crush of hugs to dwell on that right now, though.

  Tony leads the suits upstairs to his office, and as they pass by Maxine offers a paper plate of veggie samosas their way. Mick flinches. ‘Oh! No! No, thank you.’

  Now all we can do is wait, I suppose.

  Things have taken a surreal turn.

  Sue’s arms are above her head. Her pinky-brown nipples look like a sad pug’s eyes staring in opposite directions.

  Elspeth crouches and flips her sketchbook open.

  ‘Spontaneous Posers class!’ Jamie fist-pumps the hot air.

  ‘Oh no.’ Elspeth waves a silver-ringed finger. ‘This isn’t life drawing, this is Reportage.’

  Reportage because this is really happening. Sue is taking direct action, as promised. I didn’t expect direct action to be quite so … nipple-y, but when I saw Sue standing on top of a display plinth, unbuttoning her blouse and hollering ‘TRY TO IGNORE THIS, HIGH-STREET REGENERATORS! BENNETT’S IS HERE TO STAY!’ I was so moved by her solidarity, and her armpit stubble, that I joined in with the crowd’s applause.

  ‘Um, is she allowed to do that in here?!’ Adam hisses through gritted teeth, his cheeks flushing
as he does everything in his power to avoid looking directly at Sue’s curves.

  Sue ‘ahem’s to grab the teensy-weensy bit of attention that was off her for a split second. ‘I may not be “allowed” to do this; “society” might tell me to keep my knickers on, but this is an act of civil disobedience.’

  I’m pretty sure she’s breaking some kind of unspoken rule about nudity on the shop floor, but, hey, it’s classic Sue. A group of protesters have already gathered around her feet and are picking up pencils and paper to get involved with the sketching sesh.

  I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less from inviting the Posers crowd. Clive must recognise that feeling on my face as he leans over and chuckles. ‘Life models, eh? Can’t take them anywhere!’

  He’s obvs not fazed by the full-frontal nudity sitch; he makes his way over to the table and begins to pour himself a plastic cup of bargain wine. ‘They’re taking their time up there, aren’t they? How long’s it been now?’

  ‘About an hour …’ I reply, all too aware we still haven’t had an answer from Mick Morgan and the gang. I do my best to ignore the knots twisting in my stomach.

  ‘Oh! Look who it is!’ Clive’s crusty artist hand (aka one of his ‘tools’) waves to someone just behind me.

  Sweet Baby Beyoncé on a bike! It’s Blaine. It’s my photocopying, life-drawing, sticker-donating bae.

  He’s later than he promised, and he’s dressed head to toe in black with a group of four other boys.

  ‘What have they come dressed as?’ Holly raises her eyebrows and just as I’m about to rush over to Blaine to say hi, something stops me. One of the boys he’s with has a balaclava pulled over his face.

  Why would anyone wear a balaclava unless they were about to rob a ban—

  SMASH.

  Blaine hurls a brick through the Bennett’s display window.

  There’s glass everywhere. The crowd of peaceful protesters stagger backwards away from the boys who tear through the window, trashing the place.

  What the hell?!

  ‘Stop! Stop it!’ I yell, grabbing the lad with the balaclava as he pushes a table of non-fiction over. Paperbacks slide over the shop floor that has descended into chaos.

  Blaine scoops armfuls of books into a holdall, not even looking at what he’s taking.

  ‘What’s going on?! What do you think you’re doing?!’ I shout at him over the racket from the shop full of people screaming, panicking, dialling 999.

  He holds his hands in the air triumphantly. ‘This is a riot! This is anarchy!’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ I screech. Fuming. How could he do this? How could he do this to me?! There is so much at stake and he’s blowing it.

  He laughs. ‘Paige, chill. It’s just a bit of public disorder. Looting. That’s all. You want publicity, don’t you?’

  ‘No!’ I despair. Looting? Who would loot an effing bookshop?!

  His mate, some tall guy with an ironic handlebar moustache and a black roll-neck, shrugs and asks, ‘Who is she anyway?’ as he side-eyes me, like I’m the one who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. ‘I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve nicked stuff from here.’

  ‘What?! Blaine?!’ What does this guy mean? Does he really mean that Blaine has been stealing from Bennett’s all along? I think of Tony studying the stock loss figures. I think of Mr Barnes stuffing books down his trousers. In a flash I start to question everything I think I know about this boy.

  ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve nicked stuff from here?’ I ask again to clarify. Just for some clarity. Just a tiny, miniscule scrap of certainty in this completely mental situation.

  Blaine rolls his eyes, exasperated by my perfectly reasonable question. ‘I’m not stealing, am I? I’m just reclaiming my right to have access to literature from The Man. C’mon, Paige, join the revolution.’ His mouth curls into a smile, like he has actually fooled himself into thinking he knows what he’s talking about.

  ‘That’s bullshit!’ I thunder. ‘The Man?! I’m not The Man. I’m not even A MAN! I’m supposed to be your friend!’

  I immediately cringe when I hear myself say ‘fwend’ like a baby and his friends laugh at me.

  ‘Seriously, though, who is she?’ The bloke who looks like he belongs on a packet of Pringles asks this again, while he takes a selfie. Yep, that’s right, a selfie, as he commits an actual crime. This is the calibre of self-centred imbeciles I’m dealing with right now.

  ‘I don’t know what you think you’re achieving, Blaine, but you won’t get away with this. The police will be on their way.’

  He snorts. Laughs at me. Laughs right in my face.

  Of course. I think about what he said about that day at the fountain. Eugh, that bloody day at the fountain! That he isn’t threatened by the police. The ‘pigs’ or ‘puppets’ or whatever he refers to them as when he’s trying to sound like a tough guy. Like the James Dean of Office and Art Supplies.

  Blaine Henderson isn’t scared of the police. He’s not scared of hurting my feelings.

  Luckily I know exactly what he is scared of.

  I clench my fist and pound the fire alarm I’m standing next to. Breaking the glass makes my knuckles bleed and it also sets the sprinkler system into action.

  Cold water sprays from the ceiling and the sirens wail.

  The crowd of protesters who hadn’t bustled past this mob of idiotic vandals before, run for the door, out onto the dry pavement.

  I turn to the boy with the moustache and the bad selfie habit. ‘Oh, and before you ask again, I’ll tell you who I am.’ I point at my chest, at my home-made SAVE BENNETT’S T-shirt. ‘My name is Paige.’

  Tony and the suits scramble down the stairs from their meeting and are met by carnage.

  ‘What the hell is going on?!’

  Blaine cowers from the shower and tries to protect his precious hair with his hands.

  I can’t believe this is the same boy I’ve been lusting after for weeks. He doesn’t look gorgeous now. He doesn’t look cool. He looks like a frigging idiot.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ he asks me, picking up an actual book to shelter his head with.

  ‘What am I doing?! Me? Oh, nothing much, just trying to save the place you’re obviously hell bent on destroying! What’s the matter with you?!’ I snatch the book from him and wait for an answer. He doesn’t say anything immediately so I can’t help but continue. ‘What were you thinking of smashing the window for? It’s right next to the door and the door was open!’ He’s edging away from me, pacing backwards through the broken glass and out onto the street. ‘Blaine, how could you do this? You don’t even care about the demonstration or the campaign, do you? How could you care, when you’ve been helping yourself to free books all along? You made this about you, but today is about so much more than you. This is about real people, and our jobs.’

  We stand on the other side of the broken window, on the high street.

  ‘So much was resting on today going well, and we’ve worked so hard together to make it happen …’ I blink away the prickly feeling behind my eyes.

  ‘I need this job, Blaine. I need the money to get out of this dump. This dump, which is about to become a whole lot dumpier if we lose the only good thing about it. Do you have any idea what it will mean for this high street if we close? It’s hugely unlikely that anyone will bother opening up a different bookshop once one has failed. It will make this place a complete cultural wasteland.

  ‘Books are more than just a prop to pose around with when you’re trying to convince people you’ve got a bit of substance. Books are an escape route. A refuge. They can be a connection to a stranger, someone you’ve never met, who writes something that you hadn’t considered anyone in the world to have felt but you. When you grow up feeling too big for a place, and you make that kind of connection with a book, it’s like a link; it’s a tunnel to the outside world. A glimmer of something beyond. If we lose Bennett’s, then we block all of those tunnels. We slam al
l of those doors.

  ‘There’s a whole universe outside your little bubble of Blaine, and your pathetic attempt at “anarchy” might have just cost us everything we’ve been campaigning for.

  ‘I thought you were cool, but you’re not. You’re nothing but a poser. Please, just get lost. And if, by some freak chance, Bennett’s is saved, don’t bother coming back.’

  I stop to breathe and follow his eyes. Dark blue eyes that, up until now, made me look at him the way I look at the chocolate counter in Costcutter when I’m on my period. Those eyes dart around the audience of people watching us.

  They’re all here, standing and blinking.

  Everyone.

  I was so lost in ranting at Blaine that I had no idea anybody was listening to me lay into him.

  Holly’s hands cover her mouth in shock. Jamie holds his phone up, recording the whole thing as Adam switches off the sprinkler system.

  A camera flashes loudly, as Alison, the reporter from the local paper, paps Blaine.

  ‘No! No photos!’ he protests, attempting to hide his ruined, dripping-wet hair from the lens. I watch as he legs it up the high street and into the distance.

  Tony strategically places a rather soggy cardboard Mary Berry in front of Sue’s naked body. Mr Abbott is wrapped in one of those emergency tinfoil blankets, like a jacket potato from the school canteen.

  People walking along the pavement, laden with Primark shopping bags, buggies and Happy Meals stop to see what all the commotion is about.

  ‘This is exactly what we’ve just been discussing. That this is not the sort of town that wants a bookshop. You’d prefer to … to riot than read …’ Mick Morgan gesticulates furiously with his big hands and Tony shakes his head in disagreement and shame.

  ‘Now hang on there, Mick,’ Greg Simmonds, the politician in the navy blazer, pipes up. ‘I think that what this young lady has just shown us is how much a town like this can benefit from a bookshop. Readers make a better society. That’s the kind of thing I want for Greysworth town.’

  I shiver in my damp SAVE BENNETT’S T-shirt, folding my arms across my chest, waiting for him to continue.