The Lovebirds. Cressida McLaughlin

       Chapter Two

       Long-tailed tits are the most beautiful of all the tits. Small and fluffy, with pinky-purple, brown, black and cream feathers and long tails, they’re very sociable and fly about in groups, spinning and bouncing like gymnasts in the trees. They’re sometimes called bumbarrels, because their nest is shaped like a barrel, with a small hole in the front for them to fly in and out of.

      — Note from Abby’s notebook.

      Abby folded the paper out flat as she read.

       Dear Abby,

       Happy New Year! I hope this finds you well, and that you had a good Christmas. Thank you for the walk, which I know you would have been doing anyway, without me, but even so. I enjoyed it. I was thinking about turning up on another one, or finding something else to complain about, and then I remembered my invitation to you. Are you still prepared to give up some of your precious time to meet me for coffee?

       I look forward to seeing you soon.

       Yours, JW

      Grinning, Abby put the note back into its envelope and hurried to the storeroom and her handbag. She would take it home and slide it between the thick, illustrated pages of UK Flora and Fauna that sat on the bookshelf next to her bed, along with Jack’s other note to her. Now she just had to decide when, and how, to respond.

      She held out until Friday, when a particularly difficult customer turned a cold but beautiful day into an extreme test of her patience. He arrived at reception with a complaint already on his lips, about how the speed humps on the approach road had dislodged the roof rack of his car, and then moaned about the quality of his lunch when he returned from his walk.

      Abby had come to Stephan’s rescue and tried to placate the man, but his refusal to back down, not to mention his final comment that Reston Marsh was much more professional, left her feeling despondent. By closing time she was in sore need of something to cheer her up and, the irony not lost on her that it was a complaint that had brought her to Jack’s door in the first place, it was him she wanted to see.

      Though the hour wasn’t as late, it was as dark as it had been on her ill-fated Halloween walk home, and she kept her new torch angled towards the ground. Peacock Cottage and its lit window, visible through the swaying branches, felt like a haven. She walked up the path and knocked on the door, listening to the sound of footsteps from inside, trying not to let her nerves get the better of her.

      And then the door opened and he was standing in front of her, wearing a thick, sea-blue jumper with a high collar. His hair was wild, as if he’d been tearing at it repeatedly, and he had shadows under his eyes, but he was as beautiful as ever, and Abby was struck by how much she’d missed him. As his gaze met hers he smiled, the gesture lifting his face, though not entirely banishing his obvious tiredness.

      ‘Abby,’ he said. ‘Happy New Year.’

      ‘You too,’ she replied quickly. ‘I got your note, and I was wondering about that coffee? Only if you’ve got time though. I know you must be busy.’

      He stepped back. ‘Come inside, it’s freezing.’

      She shook her head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I have to get home to Raffle.’

      ‘Of course. Let me give you my number. We can arrange a date that way.’ He held out his hand, and Abby thought for a moment he expected her to take it, but then understanding dawned and she scrabbled in her bag for her phone, unlocked it and handed it to him. He quickly tapped in his number, then Abby heard the shrill sound of a ringtone from somewhere inside the house as he called his phone from hers.

      ‘Good Christmas?’ he asked, as he passed her phone back and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

      ‘So-so,’ Abby said. ‘You?’

      ‘Pretty much the same,’ he admitted, his smile fleeting. Abby thought that perhaps there had been no glamorous parties after all, that his reality was very different to what she’d been imagining. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come in? We could start the coffee trend right now.’

      She was sorely tempted, but if she went inside, she would never want to come back out in the cold. And Raffle was waiting for her. ‘I can’t,’ she said, gesturing in the vague direction of her house. ‘But I’d love to meet up soon. Whenever you’re free.’

      He nodded. ‘I’ll call you. It’s good to see you, Abby.’

      ‘You too.’ She turned and walked down the path before she could change her mind, and didn’t hear his front door close until she was almost out of sight of Peacock Cottage.

      ‘Hangover walks, you say?’ Octavia asked, as she whizzed around the library with her trolley, putting returned books back on the shelves. ‘You think that will take off?’

      ‘I don’t know yet,’ Abby said. ‘But I’m trying to think a bit more cleverly. If we only appeal to people who already visit us, then our footfall will never grow dramatically. I want to attract brand new visitors.’

      ‘You can but try, my lovely. I’m hoping to do the same with this place, but at the moment my secret weapon is a little bit too secret.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Abby asked, sitting in a faded blue armchair in the reading area.

      She loved the old chapel that Octavia had almost single-handedly turned into the village library, with the convenience store in what had once been the vestry. It was a tiny chapel, and yet it seemed cavernous, with several rows of bookshelves, a colourful, bean bag filled area next to the children’s books and games, and three tables with green reading lamps that passed as the reference library, alongside a tatty set of encyclopaedias. With its high roof, stained-glass windows and that cold stone smell about it despite being carpeted, Abby always felt calmer here. On this particular Tuesday afternoon, it contained only the two of them, nobody else perusing the shelves.

      ‘The elusive Jack Westcoat,’ Octavia said, pushing her red hair over her shoulders and hurrying to the desk to update the online catalogue.

      ‘Oh.’ Abby picked at a thread on the chair.

      ‘Not so elusive to you, it would seem. He turned up on one of your walks, I hear. And how was he?’

      Gorgeous, Abby thought. Gorgeous and mysterious and, understandably, a little bit shy. And he kissed me Octavia, just on the cheek but – oh, he kissed me! And we’re going for coffee, on Friday.

      ‘He was nice,’ she said, noncommittally. And then, because she had already bad-mouthed him to her own mother to throw her off the scent, added, ‘he wasn’t remotely rude. He was even slightly interested in what I was saying at one point. And he thanked me afterwards.’

      ‘Well, my love, that gives me hope.’

      ‘You’re still thinking of asking him to do a talk here?’

      ‘I am. We cannot waste these opportunities. I picture you all striving at that reserve, doing all you can to combat the threat of Wild Wonders, and I know that I have to take my chances too. Hold that thought.’ She lifted a finger and disappeared in the direction of the convenience store, which was manned by part-time staff and volunteers, some older people from the village who liked to stay busy and sociable, many of them also covering shifts at the reserve.

      ‘What thought?’ Abby called, but Octavia was back in a flash, carrying two cans of coke.

      ‘Kettle’s on the blink,’ she said, ‘so I hope this will do.’

      Abby