The Bookshop of Second Chances

by Jackie Fraser

  If I’m still here.

  I water pots and Edward fills the second watering can. Then he wanders about, looking at his plants. It’s a lovely evening, very still, and the sky very blue. I might eat my dinner outside if it’s still warm enough when I get home. I finish my task and begin to roll up the hose. I fear if this was my garden I’d leave it untidily spread out ready for next time.

  ‘Right then,’ he says, ‘better face the music, I suppose.’

  I pause, one hand on the door. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘A personal question?’

  ‘Be my guest.’ He looks amused. ‘Unlikely to be edifying.’

  ‘I just wondered – and this is horribly nosy – why you brought her here, if you don’t want to spend time with her?’ We’re in the back room now, and I lock the door behind us. It’s warm and quiet in here with the Local History. ‘You needn’t answer – it’s none of my business.’

  ‘I often wonder myself,’ he says.

  ‘I mean, have you been together all week?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, I picked her up this morning. I don’t usually bring her here – she doesn’t like it.’

  ‘Doesn’t she?’

  ‘Hates books, hates the ghastly provinces. Isn’t that fond of me.’

  I stare at him. ‘So why–’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘O-kay…’

  ‘I said I was coming home, she said she’d come with me. I think her usual fella’s away.’

  ‘Her usual fella? I thought you were–’

  ‘Oh, no. She lives with someone.’

  ‘Does she? Oh, okay. Okay.’

  ‘He knows about me; assume he doesn’t care.’

  I’m gawping at him. ‘Goodness. Well, it’s none of my business, like I said. I just wondered.’ We walk along the passage, past the room full of plays and poetry, towards the stairs. ‘She’ll be cross you didn’t go straight up.’

  ‘Yes, probably.’ He shrugs.

  ‘Do you… Will you have a row?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t usually rise to it. Which makes her even crosser.’ He grins, suddenly. ‘It’s quite perverse, isn’t it?’

  ‘A bit.’ I’m disappointed. I couldn’t tell you why, though. That grin suggests he’s fine with it, and maybe I was right earlier; maybe that’s the whole point.

  ‘Have a nice evening anyway,’ I say, pulling the curtain aside so I can collect my cardigan from the hook by the sink.

  ‘You too, Thea. Any plans?’

  ‘Oh, no. Just the usual. See you later.’

  ‘You’ll lock up?’

  I nod. He climbs the stairs away from me and I watch him for a moment. He doesn’t look back but raises his hand in farewell. I go out into the front room and pick up my bag from behind the counter. I feel awful, and I’ve no idea why. Sometimes it comes in waves though, being sad. I take a deep breath and try not to think about them, upstairs together, bickering.

  I lock the front door behind me and watch the swallows darting over the town hall. Time to go home. There’s salad for tea, and then I might watch a film. Something comforting but unsentimental.

  Why would you want to spend time with someone you don’t even like much? It’s all a bit beyond me. I wonder about this man Lara lives with. How can he not mind about her and Edward? Perhaps I’m just not very sophisticated. I’d assumed she was single, wanting a similar thing to him, whatever that is exactly. I can see it might be useful to have a friend you can… sleep with. But they’re not friends, are they?

  The sex must be great, though, or why would they bother?

  * * *

  When I get to work in the morning, I can hear them yelling. Or her, anyway. I stand motionless in the passage, half out of my jacket. I guess they didn’t hear me come in. Or they don’t care – that seems more likely.

  ‘… pay any bloody attention,’ Lara screams.

  I can hear the rumble of his voice but not what he’s saying.

  ‘As if I give a SHIT,’ she yells.

  I’m embarrassed. Should I hide behind the curtain? What if they come down and they’re still fighting? I hear footsteps on the stairs and she’s hammering down them in a fury. She nearly runs into me, but clearly doesn’t care; all she does is snarl, ‘Is the door open?’

  ‘Yes–’ I say, and then she’s gone, whisking past me. I hear his footsteps down the stairs as he runs after her.

  ‘Lara! For God’s sake,’ he says. ‘Oh hey, Thea. Look, I’d better go after her; she can’t get home unless I give her a lift to the station.’

  The station’s in Dumfries, which, as previously established, is an hour and twenty minutes away.

  ‘That’ll be a delightful journey,’ I say.

  ‘Jesus, I know. Sorry, I’ll be back later.’

  ‘Okay.’ I watch him as he runs after her. Bloody hell.

  * * *

  He slams back into the shop at lunchtime, just as I’m eating my sandwiches. I had to put up my favourite sign – Back in five minutes! – so I could run across to the Old Mill and pick up my food. There was actually a customer waiting when I got back as well, the first time that’s ever happened. And she bought something – miracles will never cease!

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘I bought you some lunch. I didn’t know if you’d want it.’

  ‘Thanks. Back in a sec, desperate for a piss.’

  ‘Oh, do tell me more,’ I mutter, as he runs for the loo.

  Then he’s back. ‘Why does the hot tap take so long?’

  I shrug. ‘I think it’s because your plumbing’s ancient.’

  ‘How rude. It’s no older than the rest of me,’ he says, and laughs at my expression. ‘Sorry. Are these for me?’

  I nod.

  ‘Thanks very much. I’m starving. No breakfast.’

  ‘Too busy yelling at each other?’

  ‘Hm. Yes.’

  He slumps into his green armchair and takes a huge bite out of his sandwich. ‘Be an angel and make me a coffee?’ he says, indistinctly.

  ‘I think you’ll find that sentence might sound better as, “Thea, please would you make me a coffee?”’

  ‘I’d be terribly grateful.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. I’d rather you didn’t ask me to be an angel though.’

  ‘A darling?’

  Now I’m blushing. ‘That’s worse.’

  He tuts through his roast beef. After swallowing, he says, ‘Would you though? Please? I’ll get you one later. Or buy your dinner, or something.’

  I sigh and push myself off the counter. In the semi-darkness of the kitchenette I make two coffees and bring them back. Now he’s on the phone – his phone, not the old-fashioned shop phone, which has a dial and which I try never to use because it’s too echoey and peculiar.

  ‘If you’d just stop yelling at me,’ he says, ‘I could… No. No, it’s not… Jesus Christ.’

  I stop watching him and move away into the hall. I’m fascinated, but I can’t just sit there goggling while he has a personal conversation. I stand on one foot and then the other and pretend I’m not listening. I can hear him clearly; he’s annoyed and therefore quite loud.

  ‘Okay. I don’t care. No. Whatever. No… It’s not meant to be difficult, is it? No. But it is… You tell me… Right, well, as I said, whatever.’

  I think that’s it. Is it? I peer through the doorway. He puts his phone on the counter and presses his fingers to his forehead. ‘Fuck’s SAKE,’ he says.

  I go back into the front of the shop and pick up my coffee. ‘Lucky for you there’s no one here but us,’ I say. ‘Very unprofessional.’

  ‘Gah.’

  ‘So. How was your morning?’

  He groans. ‘God save me from self-obsessed, high-maintenance bitches.’

  ‘I don’t much like her,’ I say, ‘but please don’t call her a bitch.’ I lean on the counter, not looking at him.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Gendered insults are lazy.’ I pause. ‘
“High maintenance” is also gendered, obviously.’

  ‘She’s a bastard, then,’ he says, after giving it some thought. ‘And unreasonable. Or… maybe not unreasonable, then. I don’t know.’

  ‘What were you fighting about? If you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Oh, the usual. I’m distant and uninterested, apparently.’

  ‘And are you?’ I take a sip of coffee.

  ‘Well, yeah. I’m not very interested in her, why would I be? It’s an arrangement of’ – he pauses – ‘mutual convenience, not a love affair.’

  I wince. No wonder she’s angry. ‘Is that how she feels about it?’

  He has the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I think so. I mean, we were both pretty honest about it in the beginning. I hope.’

  ‘So – forgive me for prying – how does that work? Did you say, “I wouldn’t mind having semi-regular no-strings sex”? Is that effective? I’d like to find out, you know, in case I ever need to do anything similar.’

  He laughs. ‘You won’t need to, though, will you? I mean, you’ll meet someone. You won’t need to make a pointless and irritating arrangement.’

  I’m not sure I believe this, but still. ‘Is it pointless and irritating?’

  ‘For something that’s supposed to be all about sex, there’s a lot of shouting. And not much sex.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah, oh.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  He finishes his sandwich and brushes crumbs off his lap. ‘Through Sophie.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about her. How d’you know her?’

  He turns back to his laptop and rattles the mouse to wake it up. ‘How d’you reckon?’

  ‘Um, your brother used to go out with her?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘So you–’

  ‘I’ve slept with both of them, yes. Sophie was a long time ago; she was Charles’s girlfriend at uni, or one of ’em.’

  ‘Was she? She looks a lot younger. Than Charles I mean.’ What I really mean is ‘than me’ but no need to expose one’s insecurities.

  ‘No, she’s your age. Sophie, I mean. Lara’s thirty-eight or something. There’s another one in the middle – Rachel.’

  ‘Slept with her?’

  He looks at me for a moment and then laughs. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh dear. What happened?’

  ‘God, you’re rude. I’ve never tried.’

  I consider this. ‘Is she desperately ugly?’

  ‘Ha. No, she’s happily married, has been for years; it’s very unusual.’

  ‘Rich people are awful,’ I say, vaguely.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  I’m still intrigued by something he said yesterday. ‘So, Lara’s husband–’

  ‘No idea. Not interested. If I’m in Edinburgh, I call her, and if he’s away, we meet up. Even if he’s not, sometimes. If he’s away I go to hers though, which is easier than trying to make sure wherever I’m staying is acceptable.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘I don’t know why you’re interested in this sorry tale. You’re not planning on writing a book, are you?’

  I laugh. ‘Oh my God, it would make a good book. I shall call it How the Other Half Live. But no. I’m just… It’s so different to my experience of life. I can’t imagine just accepting that my wife was shagging someone else.’

  ‘I’m never going to ask her to leave him, am I? I guess I’m a safe pair of hands.’

  This gives me a mental picture that’s a little disturbing, so I try not to think about it. ‘But why don’t you try and find someone you like? Wouldn’t that be better?’

  He turns back to the screen. ‘What’s the point? It’s too late. I’ve fucked it all up.’

  ‘But have you? I don’t understand why you think that. You’re perfectly nice, aren’t you? Obviously grumpy as hell, but you might cheer up a bit, you know’ – I look up as the door opens – ‘if you were getting laid regularly. Good afternoon,’ I continue smoothly, ignoring his snort of amusement as I greet a couple of tourists who have pushed through into the shop. ‘Just let one of us know if we can help at all.’ A man of about my age, and his teenage daughter, mutter the usual British embarrassed shop murmur about ‘just looking’.

  I watch them as they look about. The girl has the most spectacular hair, a perfect, glossy low beehive, like something Mandy Rice-Davies might have achieved before a day in court. I’m impressed and slightly jealous. We get two sorts of customers: people who know what they want and head straight for it or ask immediately, and browsers. With browsers you never know if they’ll buy or not; it really does depend whether they see anything they fancy. This is why I keep saying we should move Local History to the front of the shop. People on holiday like to buy things related to the area. Edward’s not convinced, but I bet it would make a difference.

  * * *

  That evening, as we’re closing up, he says, ‘Shall we get something to eat, then?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think you were serious.’

  ‘No, I’ll take you out. Where shall we go? What do you want? Fish and chips? We could go down to the harbour.’

  ‘The chippy on the corner? I’ve never been in there.’

  ‘Come on then,’ he says. ‘Don’t bother sweeping up, I’ll do it later.’

  ‘What about the pots?’

  ‘They’ll be fine.’

  I fetch my jacket and duck my head through the strap of my bag, and we walk down through the square to the harbour road. It always seems odd that there’s a harbour; the town isn’t exactly on the coast. There are just a few boats, and lots of boatyard buildings and winches and stuff. There’s no harbour wall or sea defences because it’s more like a river than the sea, although it’s tidal and they call it a bay. There’s a kiosk that sells ice cream, and tea and crab sandwiches, and a fish and chip shop, traditional with a Formica counter, and nothing to sit on while you’re waiting but the tiled windowsill. There are two picnic benches outside and a furious sign telling you not to feed ‘the fecking gulls’.

  Edward buys us both a fish supper and we take our paper parcels of fish and chips further along to where there’s a wall just right to sit on, with a more pleasing view of the river. He empties sachets of vinegar, ketchup and mayonnaise from his pockets and we eat hot chips with cautious greasy fingers.

  ‘How am I going to eat fish without cutlery?’ I fret, and he produces a fistful of wooden chip forks and a Swiss Army knife.

  ‘There you go, princess,’ he says, and I snort with laughter.

  ‘I know, la-di-da, eh?’

  ‘And you say I’m the posh one.’

  ‘I suppose you ate all your food with your fingers growing up.’ I crunch a piece of batter. ‘Or gold knives and forks.’

  ‘Gold’s not very practical for cutlery – too soft.’

  ‘Oh, I suppose. Silver? Like my spoon?’

  ‘There was silver cutlery. Only for high days and holidays.’ He fights with a sachet of ketchup. ‘Damn. Oh, there we go.’

  ‘Not every day?’

  ‘No, Sheffield’s finest for the rest of the time. Grandparents’ wedding cutlery, I think.’

  ‘And eating all your meals off’ – I search my brain for the name of an expensive china manufacturer – ‘um, Sèvres?’

  ‘There is some Sèvres, but it’s not a whole set. Royal Doulton, the everyday stuff. And some Villeroy and Boch that my mum bought Dad as an anniversary present once. Hideously eighties, be fashionable again soon, I should think.’

  ‘Do you miss all that?’

  He wipes his fingers on his handkerchief and opens a can of Coke, which fizzes excessively. ‘Bugger.’ I watch him slurp at it, amused. ‘Christ, no. Not at all. It’s absurd, living in a giant house you can barely afford to heat. And twenty bedrooms mean nothing when you all hate one another.’

  I lick mayonnaise off my thumb. ‘Did you really all hate each other?’

  ‘Well, maybe not when I was very small. Before my grandfather died. We
were closer then. Or it seemed like we were. I don’t know what happened. Maybe my parents fell out of love. And they thought their sons would be, you know, nicer and less frustrating. Perhaps.’

  ‘Your mum gets on okay with Charles, though?’

  ‘Only because they rarely see one another.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He stares out across the bay for a moment, and then turns back to look at me. ‘My mother was a raving beauty, you know. Friends with all the right people, parties, holidays on yachts, dancing all night, champagne, blah blah. They lived a wild life before I was born.’ He pauses. ‘Have you ever read Like a Pendulum Do?’

  ‘I have, but not for years.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know the one who dies of an overdose? Lady Elspeth? Based on her.’

  ‘No way.’ I drop a chip, distracted.

  ‘Yep. And Johnny Meltram’s Mick Jagger.’

  ‘I knew that. So is any of it true? Obviously she didn’t die of an overdose.’

  ‘Close run thing.’

  ‘God, really?’ I stare at him.

  ‘So they say. She never talks about that. But she can tell you fruity stories about various people if you get her in the right mood. Andrew Loog Oldham and Dusty Springfield and Lord Lucan.’

  ‘Bloody hell. So, what, pills?’

  ‘I think so. Uppers, downers, all that sixties stuff. Yeah, it was all more interesting than breeding, I should think. They were quite jaded by the time I came along. Tiring business, being fashionable.’

  ‘Must be. Blimey.’ I think about this. Like a Pendulum Do was massively popular when I was at sixth form; we all read it. And there was a trashy TV adaptation as well. I loved it. I remember asking my mum how to do cat-eye make-up – I’d only ever used a kohl pencil, never heard of liquid eyeliner. You couldn’t get it. I had to buy a dry, cakey thing that you mixed with water yourself. I bought my first pair of false eyelashes in the chemist by the station, inspired by – apparently – Edward’s actual mother, or a simulacrum at least.

  ‘Your mum slept with Mick Jagger.’ I’m slightly disbelieving.