Molly McGinley has had enough of London and, feeling like a failure, heads home to the unremarkable Northern town of Merry-le-Moors, to move back in with dad Jack for Christmas.
Jack, still mourning the loss of his wife and Molly's mum ten years ago, nevertheless maintains a positive outlook on life, and to lift Molly from her slump insists she goes out with him on his daily rounds driving the town's mobile library.
When an elderly man, Cliff, starts coming into the library for warmth and companionship, Jack and Molly provide tea and sympathy... and begin to attract the lost, lonely and jaded people of Merry-le-Moors, who gather each day at the mobile library to talk about books, life and love. Each of them is searching for something in life, and Jack and Molly know just how to find it in the library.
As friendships - and more - begin to form, Christmas approaches... and so does a dark cloud on the horizon. The library is under threat, and so too the fragile friendships that have been formed.
But this is Christmas, after all, and magic - like love - can be found in the most unlikely places.
Release date:
October 10, 2024
Publisher:
Orion
Print pages:
304
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
6 That’s All Right in Books, but This is Stark Reality
7 It is Christmas for Mr David Hasselhoff, Too
8 Building Bridges
9 Old People Aren’t as Old as They Used to Be. Except When They Are
10 Human Resources
11 A Poet Wearing the Off-the-Peg Suit of a Philistine
12 Down to Earth
13 I Will Work Harder!
14 The Map on His Face
15 It’s Filth, is What It is
16 The Starless Dinner Time of Racism and War
17 The Only Single Girl in the Gang
18 Oh, Hello
19 My Life is Not a Bloody Christmas Rom-Com
20 Like a Canary Down a Coal Mine
21 Love at First Sight
22 The Merry-le-Moors Mobile Library Friendship Society
23 It’s Friday Night
24 The Note
25 I Believe in Father Christmas
26 Christmas Dinner? In a Library?
27 This Town is Coming Like a Ghost Town
28 A Goddess Walking Among Us
29 Making Plans
30 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Christmas Lights Switch-On
31 The Call
32 Doesn’t Make It All Right
33 Project Pamela
34 About Christmas Dinner
35 A Leap Into the Unknown
36 An Impossible, Forbidden Thing
37 Wuthering Frights
38 Kicking Open the Gates of Hell
39 Intersectionality
40 I’ve been Expecting You, Mr McGinley
41 Makes Me Feel Sad for the Rest
42 Publife!
43 Malarkey Days are Here Again
44 If Your Job is to Eat a Frog . . .
45 The Ex-Files
46 If It Quacks Like a Duck
47 It All Kicks Off
48 A Spark Inside
49 Fear of Flying
50 This Joke isn’t Funny Anymore
51 The Best Christmas Ever
52 Very Past Tense
53 Moving Forward
54 A Peace Offering
55 An In-Between Sort of Man in an In-Between Sort of Town
56 How Far Does a Ship Have to Get Before You Can Say It’s Sailed?
57 Christmas Eve
58 Cliff Jones Has Something to Say
59 Just a Knackered Old Bus
60 It Would Take a Miracle
61 But It’s Not One of Those Christmas Films
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Molly’s feet slap the pavement as she trudges up the hill, dragging her case behind her, the wheels catching in the cracks. It’s barely five o’clock and as black as it gets, save for the haloes of street lights and the glow of TV screens behind curtains. She keeps her eyes down, because that’s what she’s got used to. The pavement is covered with a wet sheen, that her breath pluming from her mouth tells her could turn to ice overnight. In the darker spaces between the pools of stark white light (what happened to the orange street lights on concrete poles that were here when she was growing up? she wonders. She liked the comforting glow of that orange, the fizzing and popping the bulbs made as they came to life like fireflies) the wet skin of the pavement shines with pinprick dots, smudged as though a drawing by an impatient child. The reflection of the clear night sky above.
If only Molly would look up, she’d see the stars themselves. But after what feels like a lifetime in London, she doesn’t look up. Something else she’s used to is reflected glory. Or so she’s always felt, anyway. Everything she’s ever done has been because someone else organised it, or pushed her into it, or she was left with no choice but to go along with it. Everyone could rely on Molly to congratulate them for whatever they’d done, big things and small things, because that was what Molly did. She was a cheerleader, an enabler, an encourager. And, seeing other people succeed and fly, that was enough for her. That was what made Molly happy.
Or so she used to tell herself. She was done with that, as she was done with a lot of things, at the age of thirty-five. She was done with Patrick and she was done with her job and she was done with her flat and she was done with her friends and, most of all, she was done with London. Oh, how she was done with London. The greatest city on earth, where everybody could be a somebody. Unless you were a nobody.
So here she comes, Molly McGinley, ten years in London and now back home in Merry-le-Moors, dragging her case up the hill in the chill, clear, November evening, keeping her eyes on the wet pavements and not thinking about what happens next, not thinking about how people will see her as a failure, not thinking that Merry-le-Moors is an in-between sort of place and you’re not meant to stay in in-between sorts of places for the rest of your life. Instead, she’s thinking about how sad she is that they replaced all the comforting old orange street lights with cold, bright-white halogen ones.
Not that she doesn’t see immediately what that’s all about. She’s not stupid, our Molly. She has a university degree and everything. She knows that the long-gone orange street lights illuminate the dusty old corners of her memory, the carefree years of childhood and adolescence, the warm and comforting world that she used to inhabit and gave up as soon as she was able for the bigger, wider, brighter world of London. Molly aches in her heart for those days, those happy, untroubled days, and she knows that, with every step up the hill towards her old house, she feels as though she should be walking back into those days, that they should be waiting for her, embracing her in a warm, woollen hug that smelled of fabric conditioner and coal tar soap and cigarettes and cheap perfume brought by the lady who came round with a little catalogue of potions and creams and mascara and lipsticks in outrageous shades and with unbearably exotic names.
But that hug won’t be waiting for Molly, because those days are gone, and those who used to give those hugs are mostly gone, and the world turns, and life moves on, and even Merry-le-Moors has halogen street lights now, as though it, too, like Molly, is just happy to live in the reflected glory of other, brighter, busier, fancier places.
‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen.’
So intent is Molly on staring at the pavement, watching her shoes extinguish the reflections of the stars, that she hasn’t seen the man coming towards her. Hands shoved in the pockets of his coat, a flat cap on his head, white hair sticking out from underneath, framing his huge ears. Like a barrel on legs, his chins resting on a football scarf wound around his neck.
Molly masks her face with a blank-eyed scowl, enough to show her disapproval without offering an invitation to engage. London training kicking in. Then she risks a glance at him, sixty, seventy maybe, eyes twinkling. And she remembers. You’re not in London anymore. You’re in the north, and things are different here. The man smiles, nods and walks past her. And Molly realises he means what he said. Cheer up, love, it might never happen. Not necessarily telling her to plaster a smile on her face because she might look prettier that way, not as a preamble to talking to her and showing off and lavishing her with unwanted attention. But just what he says. It might never happen. More in hope than expectation, this being the north, this being Merry-le-Moors, but still. It might never happen.
And finally, as she stops at the broken-down fence struggling to contain an unruly front garden laid out before a red-brick semi-detached house, finally, as she stands in a black, shadowy canyon sandwiched by the house on one side and on her other, parked by the pavement, a huge juggernaut of a vehicle, a long behemoth, a kraken of a bus, shrouded in darkness yet shimmering with knowledge, finally, Molly looks up.
And she sees the stars. A canopy such as you’d never see in London, or any other city. As though someone has ground diamonds into dust and scattered a handful across a black cloth. It’s beautiful, concedes Molly McGinley. Fat lot of good it’ll do me.
Then she pushes open the gate that groans on its one good hinge, and drags her case up the paved path, tough weeds sprouting between the stones, and she stops at the door, peeling green paint and tarnished letterbox. Molly fishes in her coat pocket for a bunch of keys. Like the strata of her life, this key ring. Every key to every place she’s ever lived, added one by one, like charms on a bracelet. She doesn’t know why she keeps the keys, except as some sort of reminder that she’s never really been able to unlock the one thing she wants to, the one thing everyone wants to. Happiness, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. The key to this door, this flaking green paint and tarnished letter box door, is the first one on the ring. Except, Molly realises, as she plucks at it, the ring is a circle. And what was the first key, long ago, is suddenly the key for here and now again. And she’s not quite sure how she feels about that.
So on this chill, dark, clear November evening, a little after five o’clock, Molly McGinley lets herself into the house, and is immediately enveloped by not quite a hug, but at least by warmth, and the smells of cooking. She is home, for good or ill, and – this being the north – she is just in time for tea.
The sound of a key in the door is like one of those things, what do you call them, madeleines. Jack McGinley had never been a big reader before Annie died, and he certainly wouldn’t have sat in the canteen at the pit wanging on about madeleines, or Proust. Jack had always said it to rhyme with trout, because why wouldn’t you, until he once had a halting conversation with a teacher at a pub quiz about the book he’d just read. The teacher, who had patches on the elbows of his corduroy jacket, like he’d been made in a teacher factory, kept calling him Proost. After that, Jack always muttered to himself things like, ‘I’m going oot for some troot with Proost.’ In a vaguely Scottish accent. He still wasn’t sure what a madeleine was, but presumed it was some sort of biscuit, like a Biscoff, or an exceedingly good cake like Mr Kipling used to make. Jack liked that they brought a rush of memories, in the book. When the teacher started going on about À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Jack thought they were talking about different books entirely, because the one he’d just read was called Remembrance of Things Past.
Jack isn’t really a big fan of Proust, to be honest. Or teachers, come to that.
But the sound of the key in the door is like one of Proust’s madeleines, summoning all kinds of memories. When you live on your own, you never hear the sound of a key in the door, because nobody else ever lets themselves into the house, obviously. Unless you’re so far gone that you need carers and just sit there rotting in front of telly shows about people running around buying antiques.
Jack isn’t ready for that just yet. So as he stands at the kitchen sink, washing up in a fog of steam, and hears the snug click and turn of a key in the front door, he is transported back to a time when the house seemed full of people all the time, even though there were only the three of them. But three people with busy lives, always coming and going, going here and there, in and out like a fiddler’s elbow. It’s been quiet here, all on his own. But that’s changed now.
Because here comes Molly, his daughter, home again. And just in time for tea.‘I never liked him,’ says Jack, putting a plate of egg and chips down in front of Molly at the little table. There are only two rooms downstairs, a lounge and a kitchen, and the little round table hovers in the open archway between them, as though never sure whether it’s a kitchen sort of piece of furniture, or a lounge sort of piece of furniture.
‘Have you got any ketchup?’ says Molly, watching as Jack slaps the bottom of a glass bottle of HP brown sauce as though it’s a newborn baby.
‘London’s changed you,’ he says, going into the kitchen to get the red sauce from the fridge. ‘I said, I never liked—’
‘I heard,’ says Molly. She squeezes the sauce all over her chips until it looks like one of those paintings. One of those Pollocks. Bollocks, more like. ‘I don’t really want to talk about Patrick, Dad.’
‘Do you want me to go down to London and batter him?’ he says. She laughs but Jack is being quite serious. That turn of the key in the door has awakened all sorts of things in him. An air of protectiveness, for one. Molly is his little girl and he can’t bear the thought of someone making her sad. So sad that she gives up her dream of living in London and slinks back to Merry-le-Moors. Not that he’s not happy to have her home.
They eat in silence, soundtracked by the news on the telly. Jack points his knife at Molly’s plate and says, ‘Bet that looks a bit sick to you after all that exotic food in London.’
She laughs again. Jack likes the sound of laughter. Been a long time since it rang around this little house. ‘Dad. It’s London, not Delhi or something. We have egg and chips in London.’
‘Yeah, but I bet it’s called Oeuf et Frites and comes served on a piece of bark and costs fifteen quid.’
Molly looks impressed. ‘Since when did you learn French?’
‘Since I started reading Proost,’ he says. He knows she can’t tell whether he’s joking or not. She looks less impressed by the fact he’s piling his chips up into a slice of white bread slathered with best butter. ‘What?’ he says.
‘Bit carb-heavy,’ she says. ‘And white bread? I can see I’m going to have to take charge of meals in this house for a bit.’
‘Don’t pretend you’re not loving your Oeuf et Frites,’ says Jack, nodding at her breaking the yolk on her second egg with the battering ram of a thick chip speared by her fork. ‘But, be my guest. Be nice to have somebody to cook for me for a change.’
Molly puts down her fork and lays her small fingers on Jack’s big spade of a hand. ‘Dad. I know how tough it’s been for you since Mum died. And I’m genuinely really impressed with how you’ve coped. How you’ve not just given up. You were together a long time.’
Jack nods. ‘Since we were teenagers. But not long enough, eh? She should still be sitting here now. Fifty-five. Far too early, Molly, love. Far too soon. I wasn’t ready.’
Jack can feel tears pricking his eyes. He doesn’t mind a good cry, does Jack. Wouldn’t have been seen dead weeping at one point in his life, but Annie going changed all that. Annie going, and the books. Read some right heartbreakers, he has. That Bridges of Madison County, for one. And One Day. Blubbing like a baby at the end of that, he was. Couldn’t believe the author had killed that lass off. Spoilers, says Jack to himself. He has to be careful about that in his job. Got in awful bother with some woman when he first started and she checked out Gone Girl. All Jack had meant to do was tell her that he’d really enjoyed it. He just got a bit carried away and told her what happened at the end. A lesson learned.
Molly lets her knife and fork clatter to her empty plate. Well, almost empty; Jack leans over with a slice of bread and butter and mops up the last of her egg yolk. She says, ‘So, what do you normally do on a Monday night these days?’
‘University Challenge and Mastermind,’ says Jack. ‘Can’t really be doing with that Only Connect though. Fries my brain. I mean, you have to keep the mind active, don’t you? Or it just rots away. But I’m not clever enough for all that malarkey. Then I probably go down the Wheatsheaf for last orders.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ says Molly.
‘But first …’ Jack ducks into the kitchen, and comes back with a tea towel folded over his arm, like he’s a waiter in a posh restaurant, a bowl in each hand, still cold from the fridge.
‘Dessert. Délice d’Ange. Or Angel Delight, as we call it around this parish.’
‘Butterscotch?’ says Molly hopefully.
‘Welcome home, love,’ says Jack, watching Molly take her first mouthful of Angel Delight, transported on a sea of memories. Take your madeleines and stuff ’em, Monsewer Proust.
The Wheatsheaf is a boozer’s pub, brewery-owned and nothing fancy, burgers and chips on match days to go with the beers on the pumps and the big TV, round tables etched with graffitied names and glass ring stains, the varnish a distant memory. The carpet is dark to hide the slops of spilled pints, smokers loiter in the small flagged yard by the empty barrels. It is what it is and it’s happy with that. As is Trevor, the landlord, who has been in situ since Molly was a kid.
Trevor is of mixed parentage, and the tattoos on his huge hams of forearms pay tribute to his dual heritage; on the left he has the crest of Leeds United Football Club, and on the right, Burnley’s. Like a Yorkshire–Lancashire version of Romeo and Juliet, Trevor always says of his parents’ marriage, less star-crossed and more Pennines-crossed.
‘Now, then,’ says Trevor as Molly and Jack bustle in, wrapped up in their coats and stamping their boots on the threadbare mat. ‘Your dad said you were coming back.’
Jack orders a pint of IPA and looks questioningly at Molly. She peruses the refrigerated cabinets behind the bar and Trevor says, ‘Nothing fancy, you know. It’s not one of your London bars. Though we do have rosé.’
‘I’ll have a pint of what Dad’s having,’ she decides.
‘Two Throttler’s Pale,’ Trevor says, nodding and handling the pump with the practised grace of a Spitfire pilot pulling up into the blue sky after a sortie over the White Cliffs of Dover. He sets the drinks down on a sodden mat to settle.
Jack looks around. ‘Quiet tonight.’
‘Always is.’ Trevor shrugs, topping up the pints. ‘Gets that way in the run-up to Christmas. People saving their money. Be busy on Christmas Eve, though. I’m doing hot pork sandwiches and curly fries, if you fancy it. I’m still running the karaoke nights, though.’ He looks at Molly. ‘Bet you’ve got a good voice. Unlike your dad.’
Molly laughs. ‘Dad does karaoke?’
‘I’ve been known to, on occasion,’ says Jack, sipping his pint.
‘The occasion being six pints to the good,’ says Trevor still scrutinising Molly. ‘So, what brings you back? Fed up of London?’
‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,’ says Jack. ‘Samuel Johnson said that.’ Showing off his book learning, again.
‘So are you tired of life?’ enquires Trevor of Molly. ‘Too expensive? Broke up with your boyfriend? Miss the north?’
Molly suddenly feels as though she is on one of Dad’s quiz shows. She is suddenly sitting in the big black chair, a harsh spotlight on her, and Trevor is the question master.
‘You have two minutes on your specialist subject, Molly McGinley, starting now. Why did you come back to Merry-le-Moors?’
‘I … it was just time for a change.’
‘Why did you leave Merry-le-Moors in the first place?’
‘My mum had died. I had finished university. I just needed to get out, to start my life somewhere afresh.’
‘You haven’t been back to Merry-le-Moors much since you left. Why is that?’
‘I just didn’t feel like there was anything here for me. No work. No friends anymore.’
‘What happened to your friends?’
‘They moved on. I moved on. Once you go away to university … especially from this place … I don’t know. I always felt like people thought I’d got too big for my boots. That I thought I was something special. Better than them.’
‘And was that true?’
‘No! I never thought I was better than anyone! That’s the problem with Merry-le-Moors. It’s so entrenched in being beaten down it’s got a victim mentality. And the minute you try to better your own situation, people think you’ve gone all snobby or something.’
‘Didn’t you think it would be hard for your dad, you going away so soon after your mum died? Didn’t you feel bad about leaving him alone?’
‘That’s two questions. And yes, of course I did. But—’
‘But you had your own life to lead.’
‘Well, yes. That’s more of a statement than a question.’
‘What about Patrick? Why did you break up with him?’
‘Because he’s a shit.’
‘I’m going to need a little more than that …’
‘Because he’s a shit who had an affair with his posh ex-girlfriend behind my back.’
‘And are you back—’
A strident beeping noise sounds.
‘I’ve started so I’ll finish. And are you back in Merry-le-Moors for good?’
Molly pauses to think.
‘I’ll have to hurry you.’
‘Pass.’
‘And after that round you scored eight points, with one pass.’
Molly blinks. Trevor is talking to her, for real . . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
