The Best escape
The sun was shining after yet another downpour, the summer sunlight glinting from the raindrops that still peppered her windscreen. Rachel pumped the wipers and glanced at her watch, hoping this detour was worth it. She knew that with this stop she’d be cutting it fine to reach the farm before nightfall, but she could spare half an hour.
Her gaze fell upon the beautiful postcard that she’d tacked to the dashboard. It had caught Rachel’s eye in the shop where she had last stopped. The image showed a lighthouse, but it wasn’t a photograph and the lighthouse wasn’t on a cliff. The tower was shown on a hill at the edge of a village, with no evidence that it was anywhere near the sea, an intricate picture made of lines rather than light. Rachel had picked it up and turned it over. The James Macdonald Tower, home of The Lighthouse Bookshop, Newton Dunbar. Lino print by Edie Strang. Rachel had bought the postcard even though she really couldn’t afford it. Then she’d realised that it wouldn’t take much of a detour from her planned route for her to visit the actual place. She loved bookshops. She loved lighthouses. How could she resist seeing a place that combined the two?
It was just as she reached Newton Dunbar that the VW’S engine gave a sickly cough.
“Oh no,” Rachel said, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see a belch of oily smoke rising from the van’s exhaust pipe. “Not now. Not here!”
The motor made it most of the way along the village’s single road, but then chugged to a noisy, emphatic stop. Rachel leaned down to rest her forehead on the steering wheel with a groan. This was catastrophic. She didn’t have the time for a breakdown. She didn’t have the money, either.
Wearily, she pushed herself back in the driver’s seat and saw, directly ahead of her, the lighthouse she had driven out of her way to see. Her camper had clapped out at the bottom of the hill where the James Macdonald Tower stood. Rain long gone, the sun was now shining in a bright blue sky, as if everything was right with the world, instead of very, very wrong.
If only she’d stuck to her plan she’d have been there by now. Even if the VW had died the minute she’d arrived, she might have a job and a place to stay while she earned the money to fix whatever was wrong with it. As it was…
Rachel felt a creeping sense of hopelessness working its way up from the messy thump of her heart. She couldn’t just sit here. She had to do something, even if it was pointless. Rachel climbed out of the van, locked it and went up the hill to the lighthouse.
“Good afternoon!” called a cheerful voice, as she stepped through the open doors. A small, stooped old man with fine white hair and warm brown eyes was standing behind a cluttered counter in the centre of the circular room. “Isn’t it a glorious day out there now? There’s fresh coffee on, would you like some?”
Rachel glanced around, wondering for a moment if he was talking to someone he knew rather a stranger who had just wandered in off the street. But no, there was only her.
“Thank you,” she said, “but – could I please use your telephone? My van’s broken down. I need to call a garage.”
He didn’t seem to find it strange that she didn’t have a mobile. “Of course. Help yourself.”
Rachel looked around as she crossed to the counter. The curved lighthouse walls were lined with books, with more crammed into additional free-standing bookcases. She passed a little arrangement of armchairs and a coffee table spread with a chess game in progress, more books piled on the floor beneath it. Behind the counter where the old man waited was a wood-burner. This stood in front of a wrought-iron staircase, set against the wall to lead up to a mezzanine floor also laden with books. Rachel felt as if she’d walked into the old man’s front room, the place was so
lived-in and welcoming.
“She loved bookshops. She loved lighthouses. How could she resist seeing a place that combined the two?”
“Oh, what a wonderful place,” she said.
The old man gave a sudden and unexpectedly wicked cackle of laughter, which took Rachel so by surprise that she laughed, too, though she hadn’t had anything to laugh about for a very long time. “Well, you can stay, my
lass,” he said, with another chuckle. “We could do with more of that enthusiasm around, me and this dusty old place.”
“You’re the owner, then?” Rachel asked.
The old man grinned and stuck his hand out for Rachel to shake. “Cullen Macdonald.”
“Rachel,” Rachel said. “It was your family that built this place?”
“Oh aye,” said Cullen, “this is the last of the family estate. Well, this and the gatehouse at the bottom of the hill.”
“Ah,” Rachel said, ruefully. “I’m sorry, but my van’s broken down right outside. I’ll get it moved as soon as I can.”
“No bother,” the old man said, pouring her a mug of coffee. “Help yourself to the phone and whatever else you need. I’ll just be here trying to sort myself out.”
Rachel called the number of a garage she found in the phone directory he passed her. The fee they quoted just for the call-out would swallow her meagre emergency fund, let alone what it was going to cost to actually repair the van.
“Will they be able to fix it?” asked Cullen Macdonald. He looked up from the laptop, apparently taking in her shaken demeanour. “Here, take a seat,” he said, ushering her to one of the armchairs. “Don’t fret, now.”
“Sorry,” Rachel mumbled. “I just… I should have gone straight to the farm.” “The farm?”
“I was on my way to one of the soft-fruit farms,” Rachel explained. “I thought I could get work for the season. I thought…” she stopped.
Cullen regarded her silently. “Your van,” he said. “What sort is it?”
Rachel gulped her drink. “A VW. A camper. It…” she hated explaining the rest. The looks she got when people realised.
“Home for you, is it?”
Rachel looked at the old man. Was it that obvious? But she saw no trace of judgement in Cullen’s face. It was just a question. “It was,” Rachel admitted. “But now… I don’t think it’s going anywhere but for scrap, so I don’t…”
Cullen slapped both hands on the arms of the chair and stood. “Well,” he said. “I’ve got some things I must get on with. You sit there as long as you need to. Gather your thoughts. How about that coffee?”
Rachel blinked back the tears and picked up her coffee. “Thank you.”
He poured her a mug and then went back to his computer. Rachel tried not to bother him further.
When the mechanic arrived, he hummed and hawed and then quoted an impossible price before saying he could take the van for free if she got rid of the junk inside. Rachel, numb, agreed. What else could she do? She wondered if she could walk to the farm – work for the season would at least give her a way to start again.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, to Cullen, as she put her empty coffee mug on the counter. “Look, I’ve got a lot of books in my van that are going to need a home. Could you take them?”
He looked at her over the top of the laptop. “A book lover, are you?”
She managed a thin smile. “It’s the best way to escape, isn’t it? Well… after a camper van, that is.”
Cullen nodded. “I’ll need a favour in return.” He turned the laptop around. “This is going in the local paper. I could do with another pair of eyes on it.”
Manager wanted for small independent bookshop. Very modest accommodation included. Must love books.
Rachel stared at the words, then looked up at Cullen Macdonald, who gave her a grin. “How about it, lass?” he said.
“Think you could put up with this old relic?” (simon & schuster, £8.99) is out now