The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(50)

‘No. You’re right.’

He felt bad taking her away from her favourite painter, but at the same time he wanted to get out of the church and into the light because his unease was growing.

So the honeymooners walked out of the church and the Ghost went to follow.

They wove a different way back to the hotel, through the labyrinthine streets, crossing little bridges and turning down ever-narrower paths.

Maggie read out the name of a street sign. ‘Calle … dei … Stagneri … o de la Fava.’

‘That was a mouthful.’

‘A very wide name for a very narrow street.’

They held hands.

The Ghost watched as he walked behind. How he missed that. Being able to just hold her hand. Back then he hardly even thought about it.

They came to a small bookshop with a table full of Italian paperbacks nearly blocking the path. A youngish man – about his own age – was inside the shop, casually reading a magazine as he sat behind the till.

Wilbur tutted when they’d passed. ‘Well, he’s not going to get much business lazing around like that, is he?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t want to get much business.’

They walked further along the street in silence until Wilbur stopped, quite dramatically, to announce something.

‘I’m going to do it.’

Maggie gave him a curious look. ‘Do what?’

‘I’m going to ask Geoffrey Baxter for the loan.’

‘Who’s Geoffrey Baxter?’

‘Manager at the Yorkshire Bank. The one I’ve got an appointment with a week Tuesday. Good bloke. No nonsense. I’m going to go for the loan. For the second shop. He’s already offered a lot of money. I’m going to do it, Maggie. I’m going to phone him the day we get back and tell him I want to accept.’

He smiled broadly. It was a genuine smile with just a dash of uncertainty.

Maggie’s face was expressionless for a little moment. ‘It’s a big undertaking.’

‘It’s a big opportunity. The opportunity of a lifetime, in fact.’

‘Aye, it is. It is.’ She seemed to be repeating herself in order to believe it. ‘If it’s what you really want to do …’

He detected her concern. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I mean, you were just talking about moving to Venice.’

‘That was just a joke, Maggie. A flight of fancy.’

‘I know. I know it was, love. I just, well, I just don’t want it to take us away from each other.’

‘It won’t.’

The Ghost sighed. ‘You are a fool and a liar, Wilbur.’

‘If anything,’ Wilbur went on, ‘it’ll be the opposite. At the moment, I’m working long hours at Bagdale’s. If I accept this offer, we’ll have financial resources.’

‘Financial resources,’ echoed the Ghost. ‘Such a romantic phrase for your honeymoon.’

Wilbur looked around as if he had heard this mockery. But then he turned back to Maggie.

‘We’ll be able to grow, and hire more staff … and become a proper operation across two shops … Set up a template and let the shops run themselves … The same principle … Books for everyone … Children’s section … More fiction than non- … White walls and big lights … Seats for people to sit and read … I can give a blueprint to other managers … I will end up doing less …’

The Ghost was confused for a moment. Did I sincerely believe that?

‘Look, Maggie, most of my life I was poor. My entire childhood I was poor. I had holes in my shoes and I was hungry and I saw my mam counting out farthings on the kitchen table to pay Mr Parkin the rent … If I go for this, it means we’ll never have to have those worries.’

The Ghost was despairing by this point. ‘Jesus, Wilbur. You’re running the most successful bookshop in the country. You’re paying off your own house. This is not a Mr Parkin situation.’

Wilbur stared towards where his ghost was, squinting a little. Had he heard him? It was hard to tell.

‘Well,’ said Maggie, with a doubtful tone Wilbur wasn’t choosing to hear, ‘if you think it’s the right thing, then you have to do it.’

They walked back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. Behind them was a ghost, and in front of them was a future about to change.





The Tune She Was Humming


Maggie was having a bath. They had half an hour before they had to leave for the restaurant. Wilbur hadn’t changed his clothes. He was lying on the bed, still in his sandals and the same flares and shirt as the Ghost. He felt suddenly quite tired. His eyes were dry from the flight, and he was feeling the consequences of the wine they had drunk earlier.

He picked up their guidebook. The Companion Guide to Venice.

A section on jazz bars. There were quite a few of them, and they were popular places to hang out, apparently, and one was close to the restaurant they were going to tonight.

Maggie liked jazz more than he did, so he thought he could surprise her by walking past there later on, after the meal. And then they could walk back to the hotel via the Piazza San Marco.

He heard Maggie gently humming to herself in the bath. He was sleepily trying to work out the tune she was humming, smiling to himself, no longer thinking about the ghostly doppelganger he had seen earlier. The one who was watching him now as he fell asleep in his clothes on the bed.