The Bookshop on the Shore

by Jenny Colgan

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Everyone turned their head round, Shackleton letting his mouth fall open. Zoe hissed at him to close it, then smiled.

  ‘Hellooooo!’ trilled a loud confident voice, clear as a bell. Zoe blinked. Nobody visited. That was kind of the deal, as she understood it. It was just them, Mrs MacGlone, Wilby the gardener and the occasional lost tourist pretending they needed directions in an attempt to get in to have a look round. Zoe had been quite amazed by their boldness. But they always came to the front door. Whoever was attached to this voice had been here before.

  A tall, slender blonde sidled in. She was heavily and fully made-up in a way that made it difficult to tell her age – she could have been anywhere from about twenty-eight to a very well preserved forty – wearing an expensive coat that wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in Lennox’s courtyard and bringing with her a strong scent of fine perfume. She reminded Zoe immediately of the women who dropped their kids at the nursery she used to work at; the ones to whom she was utterly invisible.

  Her first striking thought was that it might be the children’s mother; her thin face wouldn’t be a mile away from Mary’s pinched look. She blinked. It couldn’t be, could it? But then again, surely the children would be reacting, rather than sitting still, staring at their food glumly.

  ‘RAMZER!’ the woman yelled. Ramsay’s brow furrowed at first, then his face relaxed slightly.

  ‘Rissie,’ he said finally. She barrelled over.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, embracing him. She ignored everyone else in the room. ‘I’m back. I know. Ages. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh God,’ muttered Mary under her breath. Zoe shot her a look but Mary didn’t return it; she didn’t want an ally. Instead she stood up.

  ‘Hello, darlings,’ said the woman, looking round. ‘Oh, look at you all, beautiful and gorgeous as ever! Aren’t you amazing!’

  All three children stared at her stonily.

  ‘Here, I brought presents!’

  She produced three boxes of Turkish delight from her bag, smiling slightly nervously.

  ‘I’ve been in Istanbul and I thought . . .’

  The children took them sullenly, without thanks, and immediately ripped them open and started eating them, disregarding the dinner already on their plates. Zoe was horrified by their rudeness.

  ‘THANK YOU,’ she said loudly. ‘I think that’s what we all meant to say.’

  Mary shot her a look.

  ‘Um, don’t mention it,’ said the woman. She smiled hopefully at Ramsay. ‘They’re such dear little things.’

  Zoe couldn’t think of a word less suited to Shackleton, who was practically grunting as he scarfed the sweets, sugar around his mouth and a bit of spittle on his chin. She glanced at Ramsay with her eyebrows up and he said, ‘‘Children, say thank you to Larissa.’

  ‘Thank you, Larissa,’ said Mary in the most sarcastic tone imaginable.

  ‘You’re so welcome!’ said the woman. ‘Are you the new nanny?’

  ‘Hello,’ said Zoe, putting her hand out. Larissa looked surprised as if acknowledging her was about as far as she could be expected to go, but took it, smiling graciously.

  ‘They’re just such gorgeous kids, aren’t they?’

  Mary snorted loudly. Hari was behind Zoe’s knees, and she patted his head encouragingly.

  ‘I’m going upstairs,’ Mary announced, and walked off, leaving her plates behind her and scraping her chair loudly. Normally Zoe would have called her back, but she wasn’t in the mood for a Mary shout fest that evening in front of this glamorous person, so she left it.

  ‘Do you fancy coming out for a drink, sweetie?’ Larissa was saying to Ramsay. ‘You look like a man who needs a bit of fun.’

  Zoe was slightly annoyed that Larissa was obviously right about this as they swept out, Larissa saying once again how lovely it was to see the wonderful children, who stared at her glassy-eyed.

  * * *

  ‘Well,’ said Zoe. ‘That wasn’t very nice behaviour.’

  ‘She’s absolutely not nice,’ agreed Patrick.

  ‘Not her! She was super-nice! I’m talking about you guys!’

  Shackleton methodically carried on with the Turkish delight, chewing without much enthusiasm. He shrugged.

  ‘She is Daddy’s SPESHUL FRIEND,’ Patrick said. ‘She told us that.’

  ‘She isn’t,’ said Shackleton scornfully. ‘She wishes.’

  ‘She is!’ said Patrick. ‘She told me she is very, very SPESHUL.’

  ‘Very, very ANNOYING,’ said Shackleton. ‘She is all sweet sweet sweet.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Zoe. ‘What’s wrong with someone being nice to you?’

  ‘AND THEN!’ said Patrick with a flourish.

  ‘And then what?’ said Zoe.

  ‘AND THEN! FOR SURE!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Not “for sure”, you absolute plank,’ said Shackleton. ‘Brochure. She brought brochures. We weren’t meant to see them.’

  ‘What kind of brochures?’

  ‘Prison,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Prison?’

  ‘Boarding school,’ said Shackleton. ‘She thinks we should be in boarding school.’

  ‘Ohhh,’ said Zoe. ‘Really? And you definitely don’t want to go to boarding school?’

  Shackleton gave her a look. ‘She wants rid of us so she can marry Dad and . . .’

  ‘Ugh,’ said Patrick.

  ‘She seems nice,’ said Zoe mildly.

  ‘She pretends,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s not real.’

  ‘Sometimes people pretend to be nice until things are nice,’ said Zoe. ‘And it works.’

  Patrick looked unconvinced.

  ‘No,’ said Shackleton. ‘People pretend to be nice until they’ve packed other people off to boarding school and they never have to see them again.’

  ‘Prison,’ said Patrick and his little face looked so sad Zoe suddenly felt her heart go out to him.

  Normally at night she went to bed before the children, absolutely exhausted. Tonight, however, she could see how rattled they were.

  ‘Look, you can’t be rude to people in the house like that. It was naughty.’

  The boys looked at her.

  ‘But if you help me clear up . . . would you like a story?’

  She was electrified by the change in Patrick’s demeanour.

  ‘I DO!’ said Patrick. ‘I ABSOLUTELY WANT A STORY! Please please please! I never ever get a story!’

  ‘Doesn’t Daddy ever read you a story?’

  ‘He’s always working. Or in the . . . LIBRARY.’

  He said the word like he might have said ‘dungeon’.

  ‘What about your other nannies?’

  ‘“We most absolutely do not read English, Patrick”,’ recited Patrick. ‘“Mary has been absolutely most naughty, Patrick, and nobody deserves a story”. “Go away, Patrick, I am very busy with my crying at the moment”.’

  ‘Well,’ said Zoe, her lips twitching unavoidably. ‘You go and get in your pyjamas and I’ll come up and brush your teeth and we’ll see what we can do.’

  ‘Do you have to brush your teeth every day, Nanny Seven?’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Zoe, clearing away the rest of the plates. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Even she was surprised when she got up there and found, lined up in front of the sink in the bedroom, in a room very like Mary’s but with two beds in it, both of the younger boys in identical ancient flannelette pyjamas with well-darned tears.

  ‘Oh, look at you two,’ she said. ‘Did you get dressed all by yourself?’

  Hari nodded solemnly.

  ‘I perhaps absolutely helped,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Zoe, and took out her old Kindle with Up on the Rooftops on it. It had been her absolute favourite as a child.

  ‘What is going to happen?’ said Patrick, sounding nervous. And Zoe’s heart went out aga
in to the child who never got read a story.

  ‘Well, first we get nice and cosy,’ said Zoe. Hari was already sitting up patiently. He was too young for it, she knew, but it was the soothing quality of her voice as much as anything else when she put the two boys either side of her on Patrick’s bed.

  ‘Can Hari sleep here?’ he asked eventually. Sure enough, just like Mary’s room, the bedroom was absolutely vast and quite spooky, with tree branches waving in the wind outside the huge windows. She would never hear a sound. Not that Hari would ever make a sound.

  ‘Would you like to do that, Hari?’ she said. She was a little worried. They’d never been separated for a single night before, not ever. She didn’t even own a baby monitor. She’d never had enough space to use one.

  And. The ghost.

  Hari, however, nodded, delighted.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  It wasn’t a case of her being just in the same house. She was out of the huge bedroom, down the passageway, up the back stairs, and along the west wing where the servants’ quarters were. He could scream and she wouldn’t hear it. Mary could bite his leg off and she wouldn’t know until the next day.

  ‘I’ll look after him!’ said Patrick, not entirely setting her mind at rest.

  ‘Do you know how to get to my room?’ she said, and Patrick screwed up his face. ‘Maybe?’

  How, thought Zoe, raging inwardly, had this worked before? Who put children so far away from their caregiver that nobody could hear them if they cried at night? What on earth were they thinking? Were they just left to cry it out?

  ‘Well, maybe not tonight,’ she said.

  ‘I can get Daddy,’ said Patrick. ‘Daddy is close. He likes it when we come in.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Zoe. ‘Well.’

  She hadn’t thought of that. That he would want them close to him. But then, he was away so often . . .

  She started reading anyway, trying to figure out what to do.

  So they started out on the perilous (that means ‘dangerous’) journey through the rigging, desperate and terrified as they saw, looming ahead, their destination (that means place you’re going to, Hari) – Galleon’s Reach. The wind was picking up again, and Wallace saw the weather cocks on the roofs around them, ships in full sail, spinning and spinning.

  ‘It’s getting worse,’ he muttered to Francis. ‘We’re going to have to find safety until the storm passes.’

  ‘Fish!’ said Francis, and Wallace rolled his eyes.

  ‘Stop going on about fish,’ he said. ‘The pigeon mentioned it, that’s all. Pigeons eat fish. I think.’

  ‘I CAN SEE FISH!’ Francis was shouting now and wobbling up and down in a way that Wallace didn’t like. One slip was all it would take . . .

  He followed Francis’s trembling, dirty finger, pointing south-east towards the river. And then he saw it . . .

  ‘No,’ he said, his face white. ‘No . . .’

  She found Patrick was grabbing at her arm.

  ‘What’s going to happen?!’ he demanded. ‘Why is the boy pointing at fish?’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out,’ said Zoe. ‘This is what stories do. They start at the beginning, then things happen . . .’

  ‘Bad things?’

  ‘Yes, usually bad things. Good things happening don’t really make for very interesting stories.’

  Patrick thought about this for a while.

  ‘This,’ he said eventually, ‘is why I only like things about dinosaurs.’

  Zoe considered it prudent at this point not to tell him what had happened to all the dinosaurs.

  ‘You don’t like stories at all?’

  He shrugged.

  She ventured an arm around his shoulders, which he shrugged off immediately.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Bad things happen.’

  ‘This is a very bad thing happening,’ said Patrick, pointing to the illustration on her Kindle. ‘Look! At Belin’s Gate. Who’s Belin?’

  ‘An old warrior king,’ said Zoe. ‘He’s there to protect the fish.’

  ‘But they’re only children!’ moaned Patrick. ‘They ABSOLUTELY cannot fight him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zoe patiently. ‘But don’t worry. There’s lots of the book to go. It’ll probably turn out fine . . . it will turn out fine.’

  Patrick looked at her unconvinced.

  ‘Do things turn out fine?’ he asked in a quiet voice, and Zoe suddenly found herself a little short of words and with an unexpected lump at her throat. She glanced at Hari, who had fallen fast asleep.

  How could you tell a child without a mother that things turned out fine? If you were a child without a mother, did things turn out fine? Would lying help?

  Zoe wanted to take him in her arms and hug him. But she couldn’t.

  ‘It’s a long way to the end of the story,’ she said.

  She lifted Hari up.

  ‘Can’t he stay?’ said Patrick, looking tiny in the big bed.

  ‘One day, maybe,’ said Zoe, and stood up. They regarded one another.

  ‘Would you like a goodnight kiss then?’ said Zoe casually, as if she didn’t care one way or the other. There was a pause, then a tiny voice said, ‘Absolutely I would,’ and she bent down, Hari over her shoulder, and kissed Patrick very lightly on the forehead, and he did not shy away.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Zoe did it. She ordered as many books on Loch Ness as she could find in the catalogue and started taking them to the visitor centre. She didn’t even always take the van back to Lennox’s, partly because it was further away and partly because she didn’t want him to ask any suspicious questions about why she had a new windscreen. And partly the chicken.

  Also, by the hotel was a small, slightly dilapidated children’s playground, and while the autumn weather remained crisp and fine, she could take Hari along and pretend it was okay for him to be skipping nursery, and soon it just made sense to take Patrick along as well, and the two of them kicked leaves and climbed the climbing frame and absolutely loved the fact that the choice was either ham or cheese or ham and cheese sandwiches.

  Murdo would bring his boat over from time to time and Agnieszka would come out and chat, and it was so pleasant to have adult company for a change – particularly adult company that wasn’t constantly keeping secrets or looking annoyed – that Zoe could sit down on the benches overlooking the loch in between coach visits, and hear the children crunching in the leaves, and watch the sun sparkle off the water, and drink a cup of tea – she’d persuaded Agnieszka it might be a good idea to buy some paper cups and start serving it, and sure enough it had been a clear hit right away – and she’d take a breath, and look at the cash box and feel, just for a moment, rather pleased with herself.

  * * *

  The following Sunday, Zoe took Hari with her to the hospital for a visit. Nina was looking tired, but otherwise well, her bump vast and swelling over her loose-fitting pyjamas.

  ‘How’s it going?’ said Zoe.

  ‘Thanks for these,’ said Nina, indicating the line of about four hundred Agatha Christie books Zoe had fed her in a tearing frenzy the previous week.

  ‘I’m cutting you off,’ said Zoe. ‘Otherwise you’re going to start accusing randoms of murder.’

  ‘It’s always the people you least suspect,’ said Nina. ‘Did you find out what happened to Ramsay’s wife by the way? According to Agatha Christie, she is definitely dead, and it will definitely be somebody unlikely.’

  Zoe shrugged.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘The gardener.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s always the gardener,’ said Nina.

  Zoe unloaded another pile. ‘Okay. Start on Rebus. The murders are a great deal grittier.’

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.’

  Nina sighed and shifted slightly uncomfortably.

  ‘Okay, let’s have a look at the accounts then.’

  She didn’t have high hopes of the accounts at all, had been dreading it in fact, telling herself as long
as it covered the petrol, the stock and the wage, it was all she could hope to keep the show on the road.

  So she was to find herself pleasantly surprised – pleasantly surprised and undeniably slightly jealous.

  Nina was proud of her ability to find the right book for the right person; to know instinctively what would suit people – where they would find comfort, or solace, or laughter, or thrills. Moods for books changed like the weather. Sometimes you wanted something profound to lose yourself in; a completely different world. Sometimes you wanted a romp. Sometimes you undeniably just wanted to read about something utterly awful happening to somebody who wasn’t you. It was part of being a reader, that books chased your moods, and it was Nina’s great skill to match them, like a sommelier matching a wine list to a menu.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve managed to suit so many people to books.’

  ‘Um. Yeah. Just luck I guess,’ said Zoe. She felt obscurely guilty about the fact that so much of what she was selling were colouring books and silly stories about the Loch Ness monster being real – tartan tat, she knew Nina would say – and there was on some level a suspicion that Nina was right.

  On the other hand, Zoe thought mutinously, she was making money. She wasn’t sure Nina had ever been poor. Not properly poor. If there was money out there to be had, it was absurd to pass it up. That was how she justified it to herself. Plus, she’d had the windscreen to pay for.

  ‘I’ve sent you the order papers,’ Zoe said quickly. Nina hadn’t really looked at them, having been particularly engrossed in the new Robert Galbraith.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  ‘And I’ve been going up to the visitor centre . . .’

  ‘At the loch?’

  ‘Yeah . . . not the main one, the other one.’

  Nina was furrowed her brow.

  ‘What,’ she said, ‘are you selling there?’

  She was instantly suspicious.

  ‘Have you turned the van into some tartan touting tatty tourist shop?’