The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan Page B

where people could get to her. Painting the insides colorfully, filling the shelves with the very best of everything she knew. Helping to match people to the book that would change their life, or make them fall in love, or get over a love affair gone wrong.
    And for the children, she could show them where to dive into a crocodile-infested river, or fly through the stars, or open the door of a wardrobe . . .
    She sat gazing at her fantasy, imagining it bustling and filled with life and people coming up to her saying, “Nina, thank goodness you’re here; I need a book that will save my life!”
    She slammed the door shut excitedly.
    Yes! She could do it! She thought back to how she’d felt that morning. She would show that old guy in the pub! She would buy this blooming van and make a success of it, and everythingwould be absolutely fine. She was so excited that she only stalled four times on the way back to the village, got lost once, and spooked a horse, which made the posh-sounding woman riding it curse her in an extremely non-posh fashion that rang in her ears all the way back down to Kirrinfief and, she was pretty sure, would traumatize the horse far more than the van would have done.

    â€œI’ve changed my mind,” said Wullie when she parked carefully outside the pub. “It’s not for sale.”
    Nina stared at him, aghast. “But I managed to reverse it and everything!”
    This wasn’t strictly true, but she’d looked at where the reverse lever would go and reckoned she could handle it, as long as nobody was yelling horse abuse at her.
    â€œI don’t want to sell it.”
    â€œThat’s just sexist!”
    â€œIt’s my van, and I don’t care.”
    Wullie turned and looked about to stomp off out of the pub.
    â€œPlease,” said Nina. “I have plans for it, and there aren’t any others I can find for sale that are just what I need, and I’ve come all this way and I’m really going to look after it.”
    Wullie turned around and Nina’s heart leaped briefly.
    â€œNaw,” he said. And he let the door bang behind him on the way out.

Chapter Six
    N ina sneaked a glance at Cathy Neeson, who was sitting on the end of the interview panel with her arms folded and her face giving absolutely nothing away. Would it really hurt her to smile? thought Nina. She was doing her best, in the new black tights she’d splurged on, trying to make her hands look calm and relaxed rather than squirming them on her lap. Just a little glimmer of recognition? Although she hadn’t studied that hard for the interview, nobody knew the ins and outs of the books better than she, the ordering and filing systems and everything that went into making the library work properly.
    (She couldn’t know that Cathy Neeson had forty-six interviews to sit in on this week, for only two jobs, both of which she was under orders to give to lively young people who could shout a lot, looked nice in the pamphlets and would work for next to nothing, and although she’d argued about it at the top level till she was blue in the face, she could do absolutely nothing about it. Top management was completely safe. New, young, cheap hires who would do anything were coming in. It was the middleranks, the professional, clever book people, who were simply no longer required.)
    â€œSo I feel that a library meeting and anticipating the needs of its readers is absolutely my top priority,” went on Nina, feeling as she did so the sense of her words going into space, of simply tumbling unheard from her mouth. She had a ridiculous, nervous urge to say something utterly absurd just to see if they kept nodding or not.
    â€œYes,” said a different humorless-looking woman wearing a pants suit and very pink lipstick, leaning forward. “But what about anticipating the needs of your
non
readers?”
    â€œI’m sorry?” said Nina, not sure she’d