Miss Mary's Book of Dreams

by Sophie Nicholls

‘So so sorry, El.’ Laura’s voice broke. ‘I don’t know what to do. We’ve been up most of the night.’ She pointed at the buggy. ‘I’ve got an appointment at the doctors with him in, um . . .’ She looked at the clock. ‘Oh, God. Like now. And Izzie just refuses to walk any further in the rain and –’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Ella scooped the slick bundle that was Izzie up into her arms, balancing her expertly on one hip. ‘Come on, Izzie. We’ll have a lovely time, whilst Mummy takes Harry to his appointment, won’t we?’ She started to shoo Laura out of the door. ‘Off you go. She’ll be fine. Go on –’

  ‘I’m so grateful.’ Laura’s face relaxed. ‘And you were writing, weren’t you? I’m so sorry. I owe you one. Big time.’ She set off again, rattling across the cobbles, shouting over the renewed wailing, ‘I’ll text you.’

  Ella closed the door behind her, held the little girl firmly on the edge of the counter, easing off her wet boots, keeping up a steady stream of soothing chatter. ‘Now then, Izzie. What a treat. Just you and I, together. But let’s see. What shall we do first? I don’t think you like hot chocolate, do you?’

  The little girl’s face dissolved into dimples. She nodded vigorously and her fat, damp curls bounced on her shoulders.

  Ella jumped her down from the counter and led her over to the Children’s Corner. ‘Oh? You do, do you? OK, well that’s good to know. Because if you sit here . . . that’s right, just like that . . .’ She settled Izzie into one of the special fairy thrones that Billy had made, gilt carved frames, blue plush upholstery. ‘And look at one of these nice books . . .’ She opened up a copy of The Queen’s Knickers. ‘There we are. This is a very funny one. Yes. Exactly . . . Well, now, I’ll go and make us a treat.’

  And what could she do, Ella thought, as she spooned miniature marshmallows onto a mountain of whipped cream, trying to squash down the disappointment she always felt at being jerked so suddenly out of that other world, the one that she’d been making with words, just moments ago? She’d got in a good hour and a half, anyway. That was better than nothing. And Laura was a lovely woman, someone who’d become a dear friend over the last year or so. Ella knew that she’d do the same for her, if she could, but Laura was struggling. Anyone could see that. On her own with two very young children. Her husband just up and leaving like that, out of the blue. It wasn’t easy at all.

  She knew what Billy would say. ‘You’re too soft, El. They take advantage of you.’ And sometimes that was probably true. The problem with the shop was that it was in such a central location, all too ideal for easy drop-offs. And the Children’s Corner, Ella’s pride and joy, was a natural draw. She’d designed it this way, of course, with the thrones and the strings of twinkling fairy lights and the dressing-up box and the blackboard table with its pots of coloured chalks and – everyone’s favourite – the three iPads loaded with the latest children’s titles. But she hadn’t quite envisaged how popular it might be for parents looking for potential babysitting.

  ‘I wouldn’t care if the people who dropped their kids off here ever bought anything, the buggers,’ Billy would grumble, picking his way through a knot of noisy children.

  ‘Well, it gets people in, makes the shop look busy,’ Ella would say. ‘And it’s lovely for Grace.’ But she knew what he meant. Running a bookshop wasn’t the easiest way to make money.

  Now Izzie waved The Queen’s Knickers at her, expectantly.

  ‘OK, darling,’ Ella said. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  2

  To dream of someone who is dear to you: Sleep with an item of the person’s clothing under your pillow.

  – Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams

  Fabia struck a match and moved between the tealights in their mercury glass holders, humming to herself softly under her breath as she lit each one.

  She still hadn’t got used to how suddenly dusk fell in California. Out on the shop’s wooden porch, the strings of multicoloured bulbs had already flickered on and the cut-paper decorations fluttered pink and orange and yellow in the glow from the mock-Victorian gas lamps. There were nets of white fairy lights wrapped around the trunks of the palm trees all along Main Street. It gave Fabia that Christmas feeling.

  Except that it wasn’t Christmas yet. These were the weeks leading up to Halloween and, most notably for the traders in San Diego’s Old Town, the Mexican Day of the Dead.

  She wished she could share all of this with Ella. All Hallows’ Eve, or 31st October, meant only one thing to Fabia – Ella’s birthday. And it didn’t seem right that she should be here, lighting candles, making her shop look festive for other people, whilst her daughter and granddaughter were on the other side of an ocean.

  ‘Go,’ David had said. ‘Book yourself a ticket. Go and be with them.’ But that didn’t seem right either. David was working long hours at the university hospital. She wanted to be there when he came in from work. And who would take care of the shop?

  ‘Close it,’ David said, smiling. ‘Take a couple of weeks off. When was the last time you took a holiday?’

  Fabia tugged at the hem of the dress on the mannequin in the shop window, smoothing the silk so that it fell just so. Then she folded a piece of ribbon around the waist, pinning it expertly with a crystal brooch in the shape of a spider. The spider’s eyes were made of little chips of red glass and its diamanté legs were hinged at each joint so that it could hook itself cleverly over the collar of a dress or a coat lapel. It was a lovely piece and she’d thought about saving it as a gift for Ella – except that she knew that it would probably languish at the bottom of her daughter’s drawer. Ella would never remember to wear it. She smiled to think of Ella on her last visit, leaning into the wind at La Jolla Cove, her crazy brown hair whipping across her face, a beach towel knotted any-old-how around her shoulders. Despite herself, a sad little sigh forced its way between her lips.

  She was proud of what she’d managed to build in the three or so years since she’d started up here. Fabia Moreno, San Diego-style was, in many ways, so much better than her shop in York had ever been. Certainly more lucrative, anyway. There seemed to be a larger appetite for what she could do here. Perhaps it was simply that the climate leant itself so much better to the wearing of dresses. The shop had been full of a steady stream of customers – a mix of locals and tourists – since its opening. They cooed over Fabia’s carefully crafted confections, stroking the silks and embroidered cottons, and savouring the opportunity to have clothes made as one-offs or altered to fit.

  ‘Darling,’ they said.

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘So English.’

  Fabia would smile. Life seemed full of such ironies. Here in the States, being different seemed an advantage. In England, she’d always felt uncomfortable, a foreigner, an incomer.

  ‘Penny for them.’ Rosita’s face appeared at the shop window, her voice muffled by the glass.

  Fabia threw the door wide. ‘You wouldn’t want to know.’

  Rosita rubbed at her arms in her pink lambswool sweater. ‘Try me,’ she said. ‘Getting chilly out there now.’ She stomped her sheepskin boots.

  ‘You have no idea.’ Fabia pulled a face. ‘Seriously. You Californians. You don’t know what cold is. I was standing on the deck this morning in just my cotton robe. In the middle of October. In England, I’d be wearing two pairs of socks and a winter coat.’

  Rosita grinned. ‘Socks? I’d love to see that. Bet you’ve never worn socks in your entire life.’ Her eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘But how are things over there? In York? Made up your mind about visiting yet?’

  ‘No.’ Fabia shook her head. ‘And it’s not like me to be this indecisive but, well, I don’t want to be in her way. You know how it is. Maybe Ella doesn’t want her Mamma around for her birthday celebrations. I never really know what she wants, to be honest, even after all these years.’

  Rosita rolled her eyes. ‘Daughters, huh? I’ve always thought sons would be so much easier. That is, once they got past the throwing-t
hemselves-out-of-trees-and-beating-one-another-up phase.’ She shook her head. ‘But then they wouldn’t be half as much fun, either. And of course, sons grow up, get married, move away. You lose them in the end. But daughters will always need their mothers, don’t you think?’

  Rosita’s daughter, Gabby, owned a beauty salon in LA. Just last month, Rosita had brought her into the shop where she’d cooed over 1920s embroidered kimonos and bought up silk scarves and beaded evening purses as gifts for her friends. Fabia had liked her immediately.

  ‘But how come you never told me how beautiful this girl of yours is?’ she’d said as Gabby flicked her glossy black curls and pulled a face.

  ‘Oh, she’ll do, I suppose,’ Rosita had winked, beaming with pride.

  ‘That’s the thing, Rosita,’ Fabia said now. ‘I’m just not sure that Ella does need me anymore. I mean, in some ways, me coming out here was the best thing. Ella is different. She’s changed. She’s more confident. More independent. She has her own life now, completely separate from me. Perhaps I’m just a nuisance.’

  ‘Dio mio.’ Rosita pretended to cross herself. ‘Are you kidding me? We’ll never be free of our girls.’ She held out a paper bag and grinned again. ‘Anyway, I came over to give you this. Compliments of the season. It’s the first one. Made it today. I wanted you to have it.’

  Fabia opened the bag and drew out a small flat package wrapped in brown paper and pink and white twine, the trademark wrapping from Rosita’s shop, the San Diego Tinsmith.

  She tore the paper and the gift glinted in her palm. A bird, the breast and wings brightly painted in ruby and emerald with a tail made of long feathers of delicately punched tin. It twirled and flared from her fingers as she held it up to the light.

  ‘It’s exquisite. You’re so clever.’

  ‘It’s a quetzal, the sacred bird of Guatemala, where my mother comes from. It’s something new I’m trying this year. I was looking through some old photos and I remembered that we had Christmas ornaments just like it when I was a kid.’

  ‘Quetzal.’ Fabia tested the word on her tongue. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent god, so the legend goes,’ said Rosita. ‘The Indian people, like my mother, think of the quetzal as having magical powers. It should never be caught or caged.’ She smiled. ‘I love the long, green tail feathers. Somehow, it reminds me of you.’

  Fabia laughed. She nodded towards the framed poster behind the counter, her younger self in her favourite stage costume of emerald feathers and crystals. ‘Thank you, Rosita. Thank you so much.’

  She hung the bird from one of the fake cherry blossom branches that she’d arranged in a vase on the counter to display choice pieces of jewellery. It nestled among the diamanté necklaces and glass beads.

  ‘There. He looks right at home.’

  Rosita laughed. ‘So. Any chance of a coffee?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’ Fabia pulled back the curtain on the alcove at the back of the shop where she kept her little stove and poured fresh coffee beans into her grinder.

  ‘Great.’ Rosita nodded her approval. ‘And I’ll just have a little rummage through your rails here, if that’s OK? Moises is taking me out for dinner tomorrow. I can’t remember the last time we went out, just the two of us. I want to look nice.’

  ‘In that case, cara, I’ve got just the thing for you.’ Fabia pointed to a seventies wrap-dress in chartreuse silk jersey, hanging from one of the hooks on the wall. It was cinched in at the waist with a belt of the same fabric, finished with a large enamelled buckle in the shape of a panther, black and gold with jewelled amber eyes. She watched Rosita rub the buckle between her fingers.

  ‘Perfect, don’t you think?’ Fabia reached up and slipped the dress from its hanger, laying it in Rosita’s arms. ‘It came in just this morning. I could have sold it three times over already. But the minute I saw it, I knew that it was yours. I’ve been keeping it for you. Now, what about shoes?’

  3

  To summon someone who is special to you: Wrap an acorn in a piece of their apparel, sleep with it for seven nights and then take it into the woods. Hide the parcel in the roots of a tree or dig a hole and bury it. Walk around the secret spot seven times sun wise, calling your beloved’s name.

  – Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams

  ‘I hope she enjoys it.’ Ella laid the receipt in the man’s palm, along with his change.

  ‘Me too.’ He pushed the coins into his trouser pocket, placing the paperback, which Ella had wrapped so carefully in the pale blue paper covered with tiny gold stars, at the bottom of his backpack. Wrapping was a kind of magic. She’d learned this from Mamma, of course. It made things special, transforming an ordinary item into something extraordinary. Later, this man’s girlfriend would cut the ribbon and tear off the paper with anticipation. She would hold the book – a collection of contemporary reworkings of fairy tales – in her hands and it would seem not a last-minute panic purchase but a carefully considered gift.

  ‘Thanks for your help, then.’ The man turned to go, lingering for a moment at the small display of local interest titles by the door – maps, guidebooks, local history.

  Ella glanced at the clock and then down at her laptop, now tucked safely under the counter. Five minutes to five.

  She made herself wait, watching the man as he strode across the courtyard and out onto Grape Lane. If she closed up now, before anyone else could come in, she’d have another precious hour before Grace’s bath time. Grace had been tired and crotchety after the morning’s mermaid adventures and then a couple of hours spent playing with Izzie in the Children’s Corner. Billy had gone to buy sausages from Braithwaites and then taken them both back to the flat for an early tea.

  ‘I’ll drop Izzie off with Laura,’ he’d said. ‘You see if you can grab a bit of writing time.’

  Ella tried to think her way back into the scene she’d been writing that morning, before Laura’s visit. She could already feel it slipping away from her. She felt the familiar mix of shame and frustration. Billy was only trying to help, she knew, but sometimes it just made her feel more pressured. He didn’t understand that she couldn’t always drop back into the writing like that, as easily as snapping her fingers. But she had to try. She had to push through this.

  She came around the counter, ready to turn the sign to Closed, and that was when she saw the woman.

  She was standing peering up at the shopfront. She looked uncertain, as if she were plucking up the courage to come in.

  Ella’s heart sank. It was always this way. The last-minute Saturday customers were what Ella dreaded. They always stayed longest, wanting to browse, killing time for a train, perhaps, or they were just a bit lonely.

  The woman had seen her now. She looked startled. Ella opened the door wide, forcing her best smile.

  ‘Were you closing? I’m so sorry. I –’ The woman’s voice was half snatched away by a sudden gust of wind.

  ‘No, no. Come in. Please.’ Ella hung on to the door, gesturing the woman through.

  As the customer brushed past, Ella felt the air crackle between them, caught the faint scent of grass after rain, the woody fragrance of moss. The back of her neck prickled. Great. This was just what she needed. It had been a very long day indeed and now her imagination was playing tricks on her, picking up on Signals that weren’t even there.

  ‘Welcome to Happily Ever After,’ Ella found herself saying. ‘Can I help you at all? Or are you just looking?’

  Her voice sounded too loud in the quiet of the shop.

  ‘Oh . . . I’m definitely just . . . just looking.’ The woman’s face flushed and she fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her bag. Ella noticed her blue tweed coat, slightly too large for her tiny frame, and the toes of her sturdy brown walking boots, which were flecked with mud.

  ‘Well, if there’s anything I can help you with, just give me a shout.’

  She smiled and the woman smiled back.

  Ella turned
and, to give the customer some space, she began to walk a line of shelves, running her finger along their spines, taking comfort, as she always did, in their solid shapes, the smell of the paper. She selected one – a slim volume scattered with engravings of wild plants and flowers – and began to leaf through it: dog-eyed daisy, lady’s slipper, brideswort, coltsfoot, mallow . . .

  The woman cleared her throat. ‘Um, excuse me. There is, actually, something I’m looking for.’

  Ella closed the book, retraced her steps. The woman had taken out a pair of reading glasses and was peering at her over the top of the lenses.

  ‘Yes. One of those dream dictionaries. You know. A good one. Not one of those books that say, “Dream of your teeth falling out and you’ll meet a handsome stranger.” ’ The woman blushed. ‘I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. But I’m looking for something with a bit more, um . . . substance.’

  Ella felt her breath catch.

  There it was again. That humming in the air. The shiver that seemed to pass right through her. This was all getting a bit much. She should have closed up when she had the chance. She was on edge today. She really wasn’t herself.

  She laid the book in her hands aside and pointed to a large and extravagantly carved bookcase up against the wall. ‘This is our Psychology section. Billy’s . . . my husband’s pet project. There’s Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and then Jung, of course, and then all kinds of other things, some of it a bit obscure, to say the least. But I’m sure you’ll find something useful there.’ She gestured to one of the leather armchairs and plumped up a red velvet cushion. ‘And please. Feel free to make yourself at home. Take as long as you need. I can make you a cup of coffee, whilst you’re at it?’

  The woman looked flustered. ‘Oh, it’s late. I don’t want to impose.’

  ‘You’re not. Not in the slightest. I was just making another cup for myself. Coffee and books go together, don’t you think? At least, that’s always been the idea here at Happily Ever After.’ Ella pointed at the shining Gaggia machine and the shelf of white cups. ‘And I don’t know about you, but I need something to keep me going at this time of day. Now, let me guess. This is a little game of mine. For you, I think, something milky, perhaps with a hint of sweetness? A latte? With a splash of mocha syrup?’