The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan Read Free Book Online

it appeared to be a rooster. She had dressed and gone downstairs, ready to try out the van for appearance’s sake before hitting the bus again and forgetting all about her little Scottish adventure. There must be bookshops and other places that needed staff. Maybe she’d start there. The money wouldn’t be as good as she’d been making, but she had never met a bookseller she didn’t like, and as long as she could still be around books, still be close by, surely that would be enough.
    Breakfast, when it arrived, was a serious affair, a meal to be treated with respect. She sat at the polished table by the window, where she could see all the comings and goings of the village—schoolchildren running along in a free and easy manner in their bright red sweaters; tractors pulling trailers full of mysterious machinery; horses out for their morning exercise; and plenty of Land Rovers off and about their business.
    Alasdair set down a huge bowl of porridge with honey and thick fresh cream, still slightly warm. This was followed by a plate of Lorne sausage, which turned out to be square and crispy and utterly delicious; golden-yolked eggs that tasted better than any Nina had ever had—she assumed they came courtesy of the chickens out the back; crispy bacon, black pudding, and triangular things that she thought were toast but turned out to be somekind of thin potato cake. After just a sandwich for supper, she realized she was ravenous, and polished off the entire thing. It was completely and utterly delicious.
    â€œGet that down you,” said the landlord happily, refilling her coffee cup. “Wullie’ll be busy up at the farm till eleven, so there’s no rush.”
    â€œThis is amazing,” said Nina happily.
    â€œYou look like you could do with a meal,” said Alasdair. “A meal and a bit of fresh air.”
    Nina had been told regularly since she was a child that she needed more fresh air, at which she would take her book and clamber up the apple tree at the bottom of their tatty garden, away from the car her father was always tinkering with but had never driven in all the years of her childhood—she wondered what had happened to it—and hide there, braced against the trunk, her feet swinging, burying herself in Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl until she was allowed back inside again. It was a good place to be because, she had learned, when people were looking for you, they never looked up, which meant that her two brothers couldn’t track her down to either rope her into one of their stupid war games or, when she refused, tease her for liking books so much and sometimes grab whatever she was reading and throw it to each other over her head until she cried. So she simply smiled politely at Alasdair.
    Nina really loved wet and cold winter days; she liked to sit with her back to the radiator, listening to the rain hurl itself against the windowpanes as if it could breach them; she liked knowing she had nothing to do that afternoon, that there was bread to toast and cream cheese to spread and gentle music playing, and she could curl up cozy and warm and lose herself in Victorian London, or a zombie-laden future, or wherever elseshe felt like. For most of her life, the outdoors had simply been something to shelter from while she got on with her reading.
    Now she stood at the threshold of the pub door. The air outside was bracing, the sun bright, the breeze cold and fresh. She took a deep breath. Then she did, for Nina, a very unusual thing.
    â€œCan I just leave this here?” she said to the landlord, and when he nodded, she placed the huge hardback down on top of the table.
    â€œI’ll be back soon,” she said as he waved her away, and she stepped outside, book free for the first time in a very long time.

Chapter Five
    I t was another splendid day outside, not at all what Nina had been expecting. It looked like the sky had been freshly laundered: a bright