The Bookshop on the Shore

by Jenny Colgan

  She was picking up the heavy kettle when she nearly got knocked off her feet by something gigantic and shaggy that appeared to have materialised out of nowhere. She got more of a fright than she realised and might have made a noise out loud – Mary sneered spitefully as she jumped.

  ‘Porteous!’ yelled Patrick, leaping up from his chair and bounding over to the Hairy Maclary-style beast, a dog who had so much fuzz in front of his face it was hard to tell which way his head was looking, and some rather splendid dreadlocks tumbling down the back of his enormous head. Zoe blinked. It couldn’t be, but he rather looked like he was bouncing about in a black cloud of dust, like Pig-Pen. Mrs MacGlone seemed completely unperturbed.

  ‘Thanks for coming back, Porteous,’ said Patrick cheerfully getting a reasonably white T-shirt substantially un-white again.

  Hari leapt up and clung to Zoe’s knees in an unwieldy fashion.

  ‘Is this your dog?’ said Zoe. ‘I didn’t know you had a dog.’

  She wasn’t very used to dogs and moved back a little bit. Her neighbours had had a large angry-looking Staffie and she was permanently just a tiny bit frightened of the dog running up the stairs and tearing Hari limb from limb despite the owners insisting that Sabre was perfectly friendly and just wrestling and having a bit of a jolly tussle whenever he saw the baby.

  Zoe had tried to believe this and was sure it was true and had heard lots of good things about how Staffies were just wonderful dogs and she normally liked dogs, but she couldn’t deny that at the base of it, she saw the dog’s incredibly powerful jaws, and how it growled whenever they passed in the hall, and couldn’t help, even subliminally, showing her fear to her son. Hari therefore was totally and utterly terrified of all dogs, however much Zoe tried to encourage the patting of clearly benign pups in the park; the sweet greyhounds down the end of the street; her friend Mindy’s cockerpoo. None of this worked. Hari started to shake at the very sight of a tail. It was, Zoe often reflected, yet another way in which she appeared to be failing her own child.

  ‘Of course!’ said Patrick. ‘He is absolutely my dog.’

  And he thrust his hands around the beast’s neck, who sat there, panting happily. Zoe noticed that he had toast crumbs around his chops. This was ridiculous. The entire household was addicted to gluten.

  ‘He’s not your dog.’

  Mary was looking dramatic this morning, her long dark hair fluttering behind her, wearing her little white nightgown. Zoe thought that little girls living in big houses shouldn’t wear white nightdresses. It was just spooky, especially with the dark shadows underneath her eyes and strained expression.

  ‘Morning, Mary!’ said Zoe, trying to start with a blank slate. ‘Did you get some sleep?’

  Mary looked right through her and walked into the kitchen on silent bare feet which didn’t in the slightest make her look less like a ghost. She stood by the back door, then passed through it into the misty morning beyond, her feet leaving wet footprints in the overlong dewy grass out into the back meadow. Zoe watched her go sadly.

  ‘Well,’ said Zoe. ‘Hmm. Is she going to meet friends?’

  ‘We haven’t got any friends,’ said Patrick loudly, not sounding remotely bothered. He bent down. ‘Except Porteous who loves me.’

  ‘Get that beast out of here,’ said Mrs MacGlone. ‘He’s mucky.’

  ‘So he’s not your dog?’

  ‘He belongs to Wilby, the gardener. Patrick got the wrong end of the stick and now . . .’

  ‘I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MY DOGGO.’

  Hari inched forwards.

  ‘Would you like to meet my doggo?’

  Patrick had reached up to the table and grabbed another piece of toast, which Porteous was slobbering over. Hari took another step forward. Zoe watched, fascinated and slightly amazed. Hari still had one hand on her jeans, but his other was stretched out.

  ‘He’s the BEST doggo,’ said Patrick. Hari blinked as Patrick handed him a bit of toast to offer him. Everyone in the kitchen went quiet as Hari very slowly, and with a trembling hand, extended his little fingers with the toast in it.

  Zoe held her breath as Porteous turned his mighty shaggy head and, with a great gulp, swallowed up the slice with a lick of his tongue and a smacking noise, and Hari jumped with surprise, and then – a very rare sound indeed – made a little barking noise that Zoe alone recognised was a laugh. She gasped and picked him up and kissed him on the top of his head, even as he wriggled to get free.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘You know,’ Zoe said, still buoyed as she got ready to leave, ‘I could probably put Patrick in the nursery too. I’m sure they have places.’

  It would be nice for Hari to have someone, she thought Mrs MacGlone shrugged.

  ‘I don’t think the maister would hold with that,’ she said. ‘Too much . . .’

  Zoe blinked. She didn’t know what Mrs MacGlone meant.

  ‘Too much . . . speculation.’ Mrs MacGlone said the last word very quietly, shooting a warning look at Patrick. ‘We’ve already had enough trouble at the school.’

  ‘Well, they’ll have to go back to school,’ said Zoe. ‘Can I ask . . . ?’ she continued, deciding to launch into it head on. Patrick and Hari were now chasing Porteous round the kitchen table, making the most extraordinary racket. Shackleton would occasionally put a leg out and try and trip Patrick, who would kick him fiercely.

  ‘You may not,’ said Mrs MacGlone, pursing her lips. ‘I don’t encourage gossip or speculation, Miss O’Connell. We have enough chatterboxes through this house.’

  She marched out of the kitchen carrying a tin of Brasso and a pile of old newspapers.

  ‘It upsets them,’ she said as she passed Zoe. ‘Can’t you see that? It would upset anyone. And the maister won’t like it. Not one bit. You want to stay here, you mind your business.’

  * * *

  Still, Zoe’s spirits were still higher than the previous day as she bounced down the road with Hari, even after they passed Mary in the long grass, wandering along by herself, down to the foot of the water. Zoe watched her. It would never occur to Mary, she knew, that a terrible grown-up such as herself could understand exactly what she was going through – loneliness and loss. She watched as the girl picked up a stone, and hurled it, a perfect arc in the misty air, landing in the absolutely motionless loch with a splash she couldn’t hear above the noisy little engine of the car.

  Driving on, past the coaches pootling into the Loch Ness car park, which made her think that if there was a monster that had survived for hundreds of years, the one thing it would have learned to avoid was a car park full of noisy people looking for it.

  To distract herself, she made up silly songs for Hari about dogs that matched the songs playing on the radio. Today she was going to be on point, tidy, helpful and more open with Nina to try and somehow convince her that hiring her hadn’t been a terrible case of misguided charity.

  She glanced at Hari.

  ‘You’re going to love nursery,’ she said, feigning an enthusiasm she didn’t really feel. ‘Honestly. Everyone is going to be so nice to you. I’ll make sure that big boy doesn’t hurt you.’

  Hari looked at her. She couldn’t read his expression at all.

  * * *

  ‘Aha!’ shrieked Tara, rushing over. ‘It’s our beautiful boy who’s so nice and quiet.’

  Zoe grimaced.

  ‘I’ve sent through the paperwork,’ said Tara. ‘We’ll be getting that extra help in no time! Come in, come in, we’ve got a coat hook for you . . . oh, no, it appears that we don’t. Never mind!’

  Hari was standing stock-still. Zoe knelt down.

  ‘My darling,’ she said, her good mood evaporating. This was ridiculous. People sent their children to nursery every day.

  But still. Since he’d been born, he’d been hers, petted and played with. She hadn’t had to share him with anyone; only Jaz when he could be bothered to pop in. The rest of the time he had been hers alone, through the good times and the bad �
�� more bad than good, admittedly. But now all she could remember was cosy nights wrapped up reading Each Peach Pear Plum; his lazy smiles on cold winter mornings; him sitting up in his high chair sticking his paws out for more pureed plum, or shutting his mouth up tight like a gimlet when it was the turn of broccoli; the way he bounced up and down on the tube; his delighted face when she bent down to rub his nose when he was in the buggy; his tiny snow boots her mother had sent in the coldest winter, which he loved and wanted to wear long after he had grown out of them; the mittens which he had repeatedly pulled off with his teeth, that stretched the elastic as they rolled under the wheels of his buggy.

  The whole exhausting, charming, whirl of babyhood they had left behind as surely as they’d got rid of the potty and the second-hand Bumbo they never used and the muslins and the big metal pinging tins of follow-on milk; the tiny plastic spoons and soft cotton hats; the Sudafed and the baby wipes and the sterilised bottles boiling hot from the dishwasher; the tiny sheets with hedgehogs on and the little towel with the hood, where she could wrap him up like a baby bear and play peekaboo, lying in front of the two-bar fire on the cheap rug, blowing raspberries underneath his arms while he giggled and giggled and had no idea at all that the world outside the tiny warm ring of the two of them was a cold place.

  ‘You just have a good cry, dear!’ boomed Tara irritatingly, although actually it was a little helpful as Zoe did in fact instantly feel a bit less like crying. He was just . . . so little. And defenceless.

  As she was thinking this, Rory the monster child stomped up to him again. He was holding a toy boat. Hari stretched his hand out to get it. Rory whacked him with it.

  ‘Rory!’ said Tara. ‘Here at the Pure Tots Nursery, we don’t behave like that towards others. We talk about our feelings and express ourselves.’

  ‘Do you know what?’ said Zoe. ‘Why don’t we try again another time?’

  ‘But it’s meditation class this morning!’ said Tara.

  Zoe felt awful and utterly torn. Then she stared out of the window again, to the garden. This was the right thing. She knew it. She couldn’t leave him with those unhappy children at the big house and she couldn’t drag him to work every day. She couldn’t keep him tethered to her, much as she wanted to.

  ‘Go outside,’ she whispered. ‘Go outside and play, my darling.’

  And so she had to leave without looking at his face, and cried the entire way up to the farm.

  * * *

  Nina, who was feeling rather unwell, was waiting for her anxiously, mostly because she didn’t want to do the vacuuming. She frowned.

  ‘How was nursery?’

  Zoe grimaced and side-stepped the chicken who didn’t appear to have moved from the previous day and ruffled its feathers at her quite aggressively. Zoe quickly rubbed her face with the back of her hand and looked around her. A tall figure was marching up the hill ahead, whistling as a dog bounced about his heels. That must be Nina’s other half. How lucky she was.

  ‘Busy day ahead?’ she said, shaking herself out of it.

  ‘I hope so.’ Nina frowned. She really could have done with another lie-in. ‘Normally we go down to Farr, but it’s not really season yet – there’s a hillwalker’s convention in a month or so; we do well with the Wainwrights.’

  She indicated a pile of walking guides, and Zoe brought them down and started dusting them.

  ‘How do we get tea?’ said Zoe.

  ‘Yeah, they’re a bit weird about burning water in a moving van,’ said Nina.

  ‘Oh yeah. Maybe they do have a point,’ said Zoe.

  ‘That’s okay – the pub lets us use theirs. But I hate herbal tea. I figure I’ve given up coffee, alcohol, Lemsip and raw cheese; the baby is going to let me have a cup of tea.’

  ‘And sushi,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nina. ‘Not much of a call for that up here.’

  ‘Right,’ said Zoe. ‘I couldn’t afford it anyway. Ooh, have you read . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nina.

  ‘You didn’t know what I was going to say.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nina. ‘Just saving time.’

  Zoe smiled.

  ‘You didn’t know!’

  ‘I did! Sushi for Beginners.’

  ‘It wasn’t . . . oh. Yeah. All right.’

  Nina sat up behind the driving seat of the van, stretching her hands out as usual to get them round her bump. Then she thought about it. It wasn’t raining, and Lennox didn’t have the tractor round. There was room in the yard. She shouted at Flossie but as usual the chicken was too stupid to move, so she got out and picked her up, stuck her muddy claws on what remained of her lap after she’d climbed in the passenger side.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You have to learn to drive this thing at some point. Might as well do it now.’

  Zoe gulped.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Well, you just drove here, didn’t you? I mean, you clearly can drive.’

  ‘I passed my test,’ said Zoe, starting to gabble. ‘I mean, you know, it’s hard to do in London. Well, I couldn’t pass it in London actually. I ended up going down to my friend in Kent because I knew the traffic wouldn’t be so horrifying and awful and I wouldn’t have to worry quite so much and, okay, it took me a few times and obviously I couldn’t really afford to have a car in London, there’s no point really, ha, there’s so much public transport and . . .’

  Nina blinked.

  ‘Please. Tell me you can drive this van.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Zoe. ‘Do you really have to watch?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nina a little stiffly. ‘In case you reverse it into my house.’

  ‘And the chicken will be watching me,’ said Zoe, her voice tailing off.

  ‘The chicken isn’t watching you,’ said Nina. The chicken continued to fix Zoe with its beady eyes. ‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘It is, but it has absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to be doing.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ said Zoe, clambering up into the driver’s seat. She seemed very high off the ground. She glanced in the rear-view mirror. There wasn’t one.

  ‘There’s a full van of books between us and the road,’ explained Nina. ‘Use your side mirrors.’

  Zoe glanced down at the gear stick. It was a huge thing with a white knob on the top.

  ‘That’s the gear stick,’ said Nina and Zoe tried not to bristle.

  ‘Okay, okay, give me a minute . . . mirror, signal, manoeuvre.’ Zoe tried to look in the non-existent rear-view mirror again, then cursed herself.

  ‘I really am flustered,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nina. ‘But you’ll need me in here to show you where the lights are and stuff.’

  ‘It’s really the chicken.’

  ‘Forget about the chicken!’

  ‘Bork!’ agreed the chicken.

  Going bright red, Zoe tried to chunk the heavy gear stick into reverse. She wasn’t quite sure what happened, but it didn’t engage and instead the vehicle lurched forwards, bouncing up and down. There was an ominous dropping noise from the back. Nina tried her best not to wince visibly. Trying again, Zoe lurched forwards, deeper into the farmyard mud, causing the back wheels to lose their grip and start to spin.

  Nina tried to remember how hard she’d found it herself to drive the van when she’d first got it, and to be more understanding, and then slightly belatedly remembered that when she’d learned to drive it, there wasn’t a precious cargo of beautiful books inside it. She blinked hard as Zoe revved the engine even more and a slight smell of burning pervaded the atmosphere.

  ‘Just let me quickly reverse it,’ she said, ponderously unbuckling her belt and starting to climb down. She opened the door a little.

  ‘No, it’s all right, it’s all right, I can do it!’ said Zoe, panicking a little. She thrust the gear stick finally into reverse, gunned the accelerator and applied some pressure to the massive steering wheel, which caused the van to jolt backwards and twist itself a
long the back, which in turn startled the chicken, which in turn fluttered through the half-open window, which in turn made Zoe go ‘SHIT, THE CHICKEN!’ and pull the wheel around again, which resulted in the van firmly ensconcing itself deep in the mud, and that mud covering itself all up the side of the van.

  On the plus side, the chicken was absolutely fine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The chicken was fine. Alarmingly, Nina wasn’t. Zoe jumped out of the van once she’d finally shut the damn thing down, and charged around to the other side of the vehicle. Nina was looking very pale.

  ‘Oh my God, are you all right? I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!’ said Zoe.

  ‘It’s . . .’

  Nina screwed up her face a bit.

  ‘Sorry, I just . . . I just . . .’

  Nina quickly threw up out of the side door of the van, narrowly avoiding Zoe’s shoes, which was a relief as they were the only smart ones she had.

  Zoe held her hand.

  ‘You look . . . you really don’t look well,’ she said. Nina was utterly pale and sweaty-looking. Zoe felt for her pulse. It was racing.

  ‘Could you . . . ? Can I take you to the doctor’s?’

  ‘You’ve stalled the van.’

  ‘I’ve still got the car,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. No. Don’t . . . don’t . . .’

  Nina threw up again.

  ‘I just . . . I feel very, very unwell,’ she muttered as Zoe handed her a bottle of water. ‘I just need sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘Probably just a bug,’ said the practical Zoe. ‘But worth getting checked out.’

  ‘I’m really, really hot,’ said Nina. They both stopped for a second as the chicken started to peck at the spew, and Nina groaned deeply. ‘Don’t get the doctor.’

  Zoe was already googling.

  ‘How long have you been feeling bad?’

  Nina sighed.

  ‘A while,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

  ‘Because . . .’

  Nina didn’t like the answer. Because she wasn’t ready to give up the van. Because she couldn’t help resenting Zoe turning up with her cute little perfectly behaved child and taking over her job and her life and had no problem fetching and carrying and had obviously breezed through her own pregnancy while Nina felt she was so clearly and visibly failing at it.