The Bookshop on the Shore

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘Let me show you this,’ she whispered.

  Chapter Seven

  Even in her short time back in the kitchen, the weather had changed, and the haar had burnt off even more, and there were more and more patches of sun on the grass. Hari looked around him in astonishment. Zoe had taken him to Brighton once or twice, but it had always been absolutely crowded with people everywhere and a rough stony beach that wasn’t any fun to lie on.

  This, on the other hand . . .

  They wandered down to the little sandy cove. The beach was golden – a colour Zoe couldn’t have imagined. These people must own their own beach. What an extraordinary thing, to own your own beach! She shook her head in amazement.

  The lake – the loch, she supposed – was absolutely vast; it seemed to go all the way to the horizon. She couldn’t see an end to it in any direction except straight ahead, where great mountains loomed out of the fog, but how far away they were she couldn’t tell.

  Apart from that, there was just the lapping of little waves onto the shoreline, next to the abandoned boat. She knelt down and put her hand in the water. It was frightfully cold and clear. You could probably drink it, although she wasn’t minded to do that right now. She took a sip of her coffee. Even black instant coffee without any milk in an old chipped mug, she realised with some surprise, tastes absolutely delicious when you’re standing on a beach at the water’s edge, on an utterly glorious – if chilly – morning.

  Suddenly a hand clasped the bottom of her nightgown frantically.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she said, crouching down. Hari was pointing frantically out into the middle of the loch. ‘What is it, Hari?’

  His trembling finger held fast, pointing furiously somewhere, but there was obviously nothing there.

  She looked out. Birds were circling over the water.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Look at the birds. Aren’t they beautiful?’

  Just as she was thinking this, she heard a loud screeching noise and jumped half out of her skin. Hari gasped. They turned round, hearts pounding, only to be confronted with a gigantic peacock, feathers distinctly downwards facing, hard little black eyes staring at them and pointed beak wide open.

  ‘CAAAAARK!’

  ‘Oh bloody hell!’ said Zoe. ‘You gave me a shock, Mr Peacock. Here.’

  She retrieved the bread she’d picked up as she’d left the kitchen.

  ‘Try this.’

  She threw a couple of bits in the peacock’s direction and gave a slice to Hari to do the same, stopping him from holding onto it to tempt the animal to come closer; it looked as if it could bite off his fingers.

  ‘CAAAARK!’ The bird seemed to be warning them that it wasn’t particularly mollified by the offerings they’d brought – while gobbling them up anyway – so they sidled round it carefully back to the safety of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s beautiful out there!’ said Zoe, still in shock. Patrick sniffed.

  ‘They all say that AT FIRST,’ he observed darkly.

  Finally, another figure clumped downstairs. He was physically as different from the other two as chalk and cheese: large, lumpy, sandy-haired. He was just on the brink of puberty and looked as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. His feet and hands were huge, massively out of proportion to his body, and he sat down in his seat with a sigh, after putting on six slices of toast.

  ‘Um, good morning.’

  The lad looked her up and down.

  ‘Nanny Seven!’ prompted Patrick.

  ‘I don’t need a nanny,’ said the boy, and Zoe had to admit he had a point: he looked more or less ready to play in the Six Nations.

  ‘Good because I’m not one,’ said Zoe. ‘Hello. I’m Zoe. I’m here to be your au pair.’

  ‘Shackleton,’ grunted the boy, and it was such an unusual name in a young person that Zoe had to ask twice.

  ‘Don’t ask him his name, he HATES that,’ informed Patrick. ‘If I’d been born first, I’d have had it. And the estate,’ he pondered thoughtfully.

  ‘You’re welcome to it, small fry,’ shot back Shackleton.

  ‘I shall,’ said Patrick. ‘And none of you can come. NEVER NEVER NEVER.’

  ‘I shan’t leave,’ said Mary. ‘So there!’

  ‘You WILL! You WILL leave my house, you WILL, you stupid girl!’

  Patrick suddenly dived at her in a fury. Out of instinct more than anything else, Zoe stuck her hands out and hauled him off.

  Patrick went rigid as soon as she touched him.

  ‘Leave me alone!’

  ‘Yeah, all right, just . . . leave your sister alone.’

  ‘Yeah, leave me alone,’ said Mary, sticking out her tongue, even as Zoe felt the little boy trembling in anger.

  ‘Who wants more toast?’ she said, looking hopefully at the toaster, but Shackleton had already laden all six slices with butter half an inch thick and most of a pot of marmalade, and was chewing through them stoically.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his mouth full and crumbs spitting out. ‘Think I finished it.’

  Chapter Eight

  Zoe couldn’t have anticipated how pleased she was to see Mrs MacGlone when she turned up on the dot of 8.30. None of the children even looked up as she entered and put on cleaning gloves.

  ‘You’ve met then, I see,’ she said.

  ‘Well, yes!’ said Zoe, following her out into the hallway. Mrs MacGlone turned round with a sigh as soon as they were out of earshot.

  ‘Yes, Mary is always like that. Yes, Patrick has a very high IQ. No, you may not smack them.’

  ‘I had no plans . . .’

  ‘Oh, believe me, you’ll want to.’

  ‘Why aren’t they at school?’ said Zoe.

  Mrs MacGlone sniffed.

  ‘Mary got excluded. Then Shackleton fought someone who made fun of his sister for being excluded, so he got excluded too. Patrick isn’t meant to start till Christmas.’

  Zoe blinked in astonishment. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask before. What on earth did they do all day?

  ‘How long are they excluded for?’

  ‘I think the headmistress will decide that.’

  ‘And what do they do?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Mrs MacGlone, who was starting to polish the banister. It became clear there was obviously one area of the house she considered her concern, and it wasn’t the back kitchen.

  Shackleton started up a very loud and noisy computer game. The sound travelled all the way from the kitchen, which answered at least one question.

  ‘Bleeping things,’ said Mrs MacGlone ominously.

  Zoe looked around the rest of the large hallway in the daylight. There were ancient oil paintings on the wall, some hung tapestry and a large stag’s head with shining eyes. Mrs MacGlone pushed past her and opened the large handle of a huge heavy wooden door and pushed it open slowly. It creaked obligingly.

  The room was dark, with the shutters drawn. Mrs MacGlone tutted. ‘I do not have time to do this today,’ she said. ‘I have the west wing, and the laundry, and the children’s wing, and the two staircases . . .’

  She moved stiffly, and Zoe wondered just how old she was.

  ‘You have a lot to take on.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ she mumbled.

  ‘He’s been at it again,’ she continued, heading towards the windows and pulling them open. Bright sunshine flooded the room, showing the motes of dust floating on the rays. Dazzled, Zoe turned her head then slowly looked up to take in the space.

  It was actually a lovely room, stretching out right into a huge bay window at the front of the house – but it was filthy. The most arresting thing about it was that every square inch of the wall space was completely covered in bookshelves, old wooden ones that had been moulded to fit the walls. The ceiling was wood-panelled too, making the room look very brown.

  But the books! Zoe had simply never seen so many in one place, nothing like. Hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands. There were great big old leather-bound vol
umes, ancient bibles and encyclopaedias and what looked like spell books. There were gold-bound books, and ancient manuscripts delicately held together. Carefully behind glass, there were several scrolls and – Zoe couldn’t help but gasp to see it – an illuminated manuscript. A real one, in somebody’s home. She took a step forward, fascinated and oddly moved by the tiny painted figure of a monk and the wildly overwrought S, tangled with vine leaves and fruit and the tiniest of meticulous decorations in ink that had dried centuries and centuries ago.

  There were shelves of orange Penguin Classic spines and shelves of black Penguin Classic spines; vast atlases piled up from every period of history; neat hardbacks in many different languages; old James Bond originals as well as an ancient, cloth-covered collection of Dickens that Zoe wanted to touch, then decided it was better not to.

  There were huge volumes of art history, some extraordinary German-looking children’s books and endless other volumes, stretching right across the room and back again.

  The only furniture were two armchairs in front of a vast fireplace, and a large green leather desk with an old rotary dial telephone on it as well as two pens, some blotting paper but nothing else.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Zoe, almost forgetting what it was she wanted to say. ‘A library.’

  ‘This isn’t the library,’ frowned Mrs MacGlone. ‘Nobody uses this at all. No point.’

  ‘Really?’ said Zoe, thinking of the three children crammed into the kitchen, attached to their devices. ‘I’d have thought it could be quite handy.’

  ‘Would you now?’

  The voice was low, booming and, of all things, sounded amused. Zoe whirled round, startled.

  A very large man was standing there, taking up all the space, it seemed. His head was too high for the door frame; he was almost comically too tall.

  ‘Just showing the new girl around,’ said Mrs MacGlone. ‘We’ll get out of your way, sir.’

  ‘Just keep her out of my library.’

  ‘Of course!’

  There was a slight pause, then a loud noise.

  ‘DADDY!’

  Patrick launched himself from the hallway like a bullet from a gun. Mary hung behind.

  ‘MARY is being horrible! And Shackleton won’t let me have a turn! And he finished the marmalade because he is absolutely QUITE HORRIBLE.’

  ‘Daddy! Stop Patrick! He’s being a clype and he’s just awful and I hate him.’

  ‘We don’t . . . we don’t hate anyone, Mary,’ said the tall man, holding out his hands in what was clearly meant to be a conciliatory manner.

  ‘You might not,’ said Mary snidely. ‘I do.’

  And she looked straight at Zoe.

  ‘Good, good,’ said the man distracted.

  Zoe found herself uncharacteristically nervous. This was the guy whose wife had left him. Ramsay Urquart. What had happened? Was he cruel?

  ‘And!’ said Patrick. ‘There is a baby in the kitchen that doesn’t know its own name.’

  ‘Is there?’ said the man. ‘Well.’

  ‘This is Zoe,’ said Mrs MacGlone unenthusiastically.

  Zoe overcame a stupid urge to curtsey.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘And that’s my baby in the kitchen.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So you are . . .’

  ‘Nanny Seven,’ said Patrick helpfully.

  ‘Right. Good, good,’ Ramsay said again. Zoe frowned. ‘Well, welcome I suppose. Do try and stay a bit longer than the others! Ha!’

  ‘I’d like to, sir,’ said Zoe. ‘Just . . . you tell me what they like and I’ll try for us all to have a fun time.’

  He grimaced.

  ‘Fighting, mostly, as far as I can tell,’ he said. ‘I just . . . well. I have a lot of work to do.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m an antiquarian bookseller.’

  Zoe looked puzzled.

  ‘I buy and sell old books. Very old books. I travel a lot . . . around the country . . .’

  ‘It’s important he’s not disturbed,’ added Mrs MacGlone.

  ‘It is absolutely important,’ agreed Patrick, although he was still hanging onto the bottom of his father’s trousers.

  ‘Leave him alone then, creep,’ hissed Mary.

  ‘SHUT UP!’ howled Patrick.

  ‘Now, now,’ said the man. He looked at Zoe.

  ‘So, um . . . try your best . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ said Zoe. She’d met his type before, although they were normally slightly smoother men, never off their phones, or aeroplanes; who saw their own children as faintly irritating interruptions to their highly important lives, and she didn’t think much of them.

  ‘Is Shackleton on that computer still?’ he asked Mrs MacGlone, who nodded. He sighed. Then he knelt down and took both the children in his arms, patting them awkwardly on the shoulder. Zoe wondered if it was for her benefit, something that was confirmed when she heard him whisper to them, ‘Please be nice to her. Please. We can’t keep going through this now, can we?’

  Neither child said anything, but Mary’s face was stony. He straightened up again.

  ‘Great! Wonderful! Mrs MacGlone will show you the housekeeping box, tell you what’s what. Just one thing . . .’

  Patrick wandered off looking cross.

  ‘This will absolutely be about the library,’ he muttered to himself as Zoe watched him go.

  ‘Just . . . well. Yes. Keep them out of my library.’

  Chapter Nine

  Zoe made her way back into the kitchen. It looked like a bomb had hit it. Mrs MacGlone was scurrying around picking up plates and putting them in the sink. Hari was, to her surprise, wandering towards Patrick, who had commandeered Hari’s tablet and was showing him facts about dinosaurs on it.

  ‘Don’t you have a dishwasher?’ she said. Mrs MacGlone looked at her sternly.

  ‘I don’t really get on with new-fangled things,’ she said.

  Zoe blinked.

  ‘Wouldn’t Laird Urquart want to make your life easier?’ she said.

  ‘Ha,’ said Mrs MacGlone. ‘Ramsay hasn’t the slightest idea how his dishes are cleaned.’

  ‘And the children help you?’ said Zoe, risking another one of Mrs MacGlone’s looks, which she duly got.

  ‘I don’t know what fancy ideas you’re bringing up from London,’ said Mrs MacGlone, which was rather ironic as the children at Zoe’s fancy nurseries had never cleaned up a thing in their lives, except their mothers referred to ‘au pairs’ rather than ‘servants’, ‘but we do things traditionally here.’

  Zoe shot a side glance at Shackleton, who hadn’t even taken a plate for his toast and marmalade and had managed to make an almost perfect circle of crumbs around himself while he played his computer game. A knife sticky with marmalade and butter lay face down on the table. Her own mother would have had a coronary.

  Zoe mentally added it to her list of things to worry about later.

  That was becoming a very, very long list.

  ‘So,’ concluded Patrick, ‘that is how dinosaurs invented television.’

  ‘You’re so pathetic,’ sneered Mary from her seat at the side of the table.

  ‘Well, you’re a stink pig.’

  ‘Takes one to know one, stink pig.’

  ‘Oh, so you admit it, stink pig.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ said Zoe, starting to clear up around them, including Mary’s filthy feet which were fully propped on the table. Well. This would have to stop pretty soon. ‘Then, I’m going to see Nina.’

  Mrs MacGlone’s face softened.

  ‘She runs that book van, doesn’t she? Ask her if she’s got any new Barden Towers books in. He doesn’t deal in that kind of thing. Only fancy books.’

  ‘Oooh, I love Barden Towers . . .’ started Zoe, who was indeed a massive fan of the nineteenth-century-set serial about the humble scullery maid in the great house who worked her way up and eventually fell in love with the lord and . . . ah. Zoe let the sentence taper off.

  �
�Um, I’ve got The Triumph of the Staircase if you’d like it,’ she said shyly. Mrs MacGlone blinked. ‘Well. Well. Now.’

  Zoe could tell Mrs MacGlone didn’t want to say yes and look like she was trying to be friendly in any way as it would be a clear sign of weakness, so she didn’t press the issue.

  ‘I’ll leave it downstairs,’ she said, as if it would be all right if they didn’t actually have to meet each other for the handover.

  Mrs MacGlone sniffed.

  Zoe glanced around. ‘Well, okay . . . bye then.’

  Patrick and Mary were kicking each other under the table. Shackleton was now pouring sugary cereal into a bowl. Bits were going everywhere. Hari looked at her expectantly.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ she said, grateful to get him out of that environment.

  Rather oddly, he gazed at Patrick briefly and shook his head.

  ‘No, you’re coming,’ said Zoe.

  Hari shook his head more abruptly.

  ‘I think he absolutely wants to stay with me,’ said Patrick airily.

  ‘Well, he can’t,’ said Zoe shortly. Hari looked like he was about to screw up his face, gesturing madly to the show they were watching about dinosaurs. He scowled as she scooped him up and headed to the door, Mrs MacGlone reluctantly handing over the car keys to the ‘nanny car’.

  Just as she stepped out, she turned round to say goodbye. Shackleton was buried in his phone. Mrs MacGlone had disappeared. Mary, however, was standing in the door frame.

  ‘We don’t want you here,’ she hissed. ‘We don’t need you and we don’t want you. So why don’t you just stay away.’

  Chapter Ten

  The ‘nanny car’ turned out to be a tiny scuffed-up green Renault that seemed older than Zoe herself. The insulation was more or less stripped out, so you could see the metal of the roof, and the heating was definitely idiosyncratic, but it started eventually and Zoe figured she could get used to no power steering if she absolutely had to. Although she couldn’t deny it: she rather wished she didn’t have to. Mary had shaken her up, even though that was ridiculous from such a small child.

  Zoe sighed and swung around the non-working fountain in the courtyard of the house a few times just to get the hang of it, sparking up gravel as she went.