“Well, we can come to that,” said their grandmother. “Once Sofia’s settled.”

“But we want Auntie Carmen to come,” said Phoebe in a small voice.

Irene looked at her younger daughter and for a moment couldn’t speak. She squeezed her arm instead.

“Oh, I’ll phone Mr. McCredie,” said Carmen. “He can do without me for a half day. I think I’ve got everything pretty much set up.”

MR. MCCREDIE DIDN’T KNOW what hit him when he woke up with a hangover and had to open the shop entirely by himself. A week to Christmas and there was a steady stream of customers from the very instant he opened the door while fiddling with his coffee cup.

Everything—the Paddington pop-up book, the skiing anthology—all went as the final shopping day loomed and people started to get anxious. He received several offers on the train set, each of which made him lapse into gloom, with customers often taking his silence to mean he was mulling it over, and generally they upped their offers to no avail.

He was quiet but thoughtful. Carmen’s reaction to his news—sympathy, coupled with amazement that anyone could still worry about it in this day and age—had struck home.

He had been so terrified of letting people know, letting them in after the cruelty he had grown up with at home and at school. The shame, the shame of decades, that had dogged him through relationships, through the death of his parents. His mother had said nothing, ever; left nothing. He had been nothing but a crashing disappointment to his father. The world of books, vast landscapes to play in and hide in, had become his home, and he had hidden in here until almost everything—years, money, life—had gone.

But now, as he saw the happy faces, as his fingers flew while wrapping up brown paper packages with string for excited children and other cheerful customers, and as he observed the enthusiastic tourists taking photographs of the window, he wondered why he had turned away from this for so long.

Carmen had phoned in a gush, so happy that her sister had had her baby, but that she now had to take care of the children that day, apologizing profusely, and her happiness had bubbled over the telephone. She definitely made him feel more cheerful when she was around.

And they would have a good Christmas. The shop had never made so much money. So. Someone probably would want the business.

He would sell the house and buy somewhere small, he supposed, as retired people do. One bedroom. Maybe a new flat with triple glazing so it was always warm, somewhere out in the suburbs where there were no steps to get everywhere so he wouldn’t risk tripping on the ice. Maybe two bedrooms, one for him and one for his books. Just him. On his own.