Phil looked pained. ‘Anna. I’m not into singing, you know that. I got the builders to soundproof that cellar for a reason. I love Chloe more than anything in the world, but even I realise she’s no Mariah Carey. Apart from the mad demands. How bad are we talking?’
‘She’s . . . pretty good,’ said Anna, trying to be fair. ‘And she won’t be on her own,’ she added. ‘There’s the other three, whoever they are at the time.’
Phil clattered his spoon in the empty dish. ‘It’s not really the point, though, is it?’ he said, looking thwarted. ‘She acts as though she’s twenty, but at the end of the day she’s still my baby. If I go, I’ll only wind up being on telly myself for lamping the judges when they don’t let her win then and there. To be honest, I’d rather be the mean dad who wouldn’t let her audition than have her upset. I couldn’t bear it.’
Anna put her arms round him and kissed his head. ‘You big softy. It’s not in any way a reluctance to spend all weekend in a queue with thousands of other Chloes?’
‘Don’t.’ He closed his eyes and made a worryingly convincing ‘soul-singer wobbly hand’ gesture that made Anna wonder whether he’d been telling the truth about never watching talent shows.
She sank down onto the chair next to him. ‘I don’t want to see Chloe upset either, but it’s literally all she talks about. If you don’t let her go, she’ll only demand to fly out for American Idol. Don’t let it turn into “Mum loves me more than Dad” again, with a side order of “Dad thinks I’m a crap singer but Mum believes in me and my Journey”.’
‘It’s typical of Sarah.’ Phil rolled his eyes. ‘Chloe’s got her exams coming up. Sarah should be telling her to concentrate on those.’
‘Then tell her she can go if her mocks are good. Or if she comes with me to read to her granny, or helps at the shop or something.’
‘You are so sensible.’
‘It’s all relative.’
‘Yeah, well, I bet Sarah’s put her up to this. She was just like Chloe at that age, doing all the school musicals. She was Sandy in Grease. Spent all day walking round the school in her PVC trousers “to get into the part”. All we boys thought about was how she got them on and off.’ He paused and looked stricken. ‘I hope Chloe’s not wearing anything like that.’
Anna put the final plate in the dishwasher and said nothing.
It was hard to imagine Sarah in PVC trousers, or being fifteen, for that matter. Anna had only met her a handful of times, but she’d always been perfectly groomed, the ideal HR woman. That was the strange thing – Anna never felt jealous of Sarah and Phil’s marriage. What gave her twinges were his references to their shared parenting, before the divorce. The births, the first steps, the tooth fairy. Stuff she’d never get to share, even though from now on, the girls would be in her life.
‘I hope she can sing better than her mother,’ said Phil, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Sarah never hit one single note the entire concert, but no one noticed. She wore the PVC trousers for weeks. They got the part before she did.’
There wasn’t much Anna could say to that, and she was struggling to come up with a response that wasn’t nosy or jealous-sounding when Lily called through from the sitting room.
‘Anna!’
‘Yes?’
‘Pongo wants his story now, please.’
‘Tell him to get ready for bed first,’ she called back. ‘Then we’ll have a chapter. Two if he makes sure you do your teeth properly.’
Phil looked at her, his mouth open. ‘Pongo wants a story?’ he repeated. ‘You’re kidding me. How did you manage to get Lily onto bedtime stories?’
‘Not sure,’ she admitted. ‘But Pongo seems to love them.’
And Lily did too. They’d now nearly finished One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Anna had even found Lily reading to herself one morning.
‘Do you want to join us?’ she asked.
Phil’s mouth curved and she could tell he wanted to say yes. But he shook his head gently.
‘No, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s your thing. And I don’t do voices as well as you do.’
Later on, upstairs, when she was reaching the end of the chapter and Lily’s heavy eyelids were drooping while Pongo snored beside her, Anna looked up and caught Phil watching her from the half-closed door.
He smiled and put a finger to his lips so she wouldn’t stop, and stood listening as Anna finished the part about the puppies rolling cleverly in soot to disguise their tell-tale spots. It always made her cry, so she was making a significant effort to keep it together.
Lily rewarded her performance with a loud snore.
Anna put the book down, turned Lily’s nightlight on and tugged Pongo’s collar to take him downstairs. She felt conscious of Phil’s eyes on her, and hugged the moment to herself, hoping this would go some way to rebalancing Chloe’s strop earlier.
See, she wanted to yell, and point at the tranquil scene. It could be like this!
Phil said nothing, but put his arms around her as she closed Lily’s bedroom door to the exact inch-gap she insisted on. He pulled her to his chest and kissed her forehead with a tenderness that Anna found almost too painful to bear.
11
‘A rescue pet, a champion race dog and a faithful companion – Best Mate, Brighteyes, Paddywack wherever he is, whatever his name – in Born to Run teaches every reader that there is always hope, just around the corner. . .’
Laura West
On a personal level, Michelle hated Valentine’s Day – in her opinion it was for teenagers and people in the first twelve months of a relationship only – but from a sales point of view, it was one of her favourite days of the year.
She bought plenty of ad space in the local paper for both her shops, and the results were gratifying. Home Sweet Home ran out of everything pink and heart-shaped a whole week ahead of time, forcing her to bring out the new range of quilts she’d been storing in the upstairs flat. They sold out too, which only made her more excited about her bedlinen hunch.
But Anna had an even better Valentine’s Day in the bookshop. ‘Calorie-free’ book bouquets sold out, as did the ‘Read Your Own Romantic Hero’ kits for the single. She and Michelle came up with a window display of chocolate hearts, which customers could buy for their Valentine. Each one then ‘led’ to a special Valentine’s gift in the shop – meaning they were able to get rid of a lot of second-hand poetry, as well as a number of Guess How Much I Love You? and Winnie the Pooh type kids’ books, too.
All in all, it was a pretty good week for Michelle, marred only by a big padded card from ‘an admirer’ who didn’t bother to change his handwriting or obscure the Kingston postmark. She had to trail over to the sorting office to collect it because it wouldn’t go through the door, and then field a phone call from her mother enquiring as to whether she’d ‘got any cards this year?’
Michelle thought about lying and saying no, but knew that would only result in the card being re-sent. She didn’t dare say ‘I got lots’, either, in case that got back to Harvey too. Instead, she told her mother that yes, she’d got Harvey’s card and that Owen had opened it, along with the stack of cards he got himself.
That bit was true. Owen received about seven, most of them purchased in Home Sweet Home.
After a brief burst of romantic spring sunshine, the weather turned gloomy, and the shadows seemed to return to the nooks and crannies. One morning, Kelsey refused to cover Anna’s school-run hour in the afternoons, the hour when a new melancholy settled over the shop.
‘There’s something in there spooking me out,’ she said, coming into the bookshop reluctantly. ‘I’ve heard noises. In the back room.’
‘What sort of noises?’ Michelle stopped fixing silk flowers onto a pile of book bouquets and gave Kelsey her ‘Don’t mess with me’ stare. Kelsey was prone to funny feelings, which usually came on when she sensed hard work approaching.
‘I don’t know. Like someone’s in there. Watching me.’
‘Are y
ou sure it’s not Rory moving around upstairs?’ asked Anna, tidying up the coffee cups from the children’s corner.
The gaggle of mummy friends had just left, but not before Anna had persuaded them to buy handfuls of Christine Pullein-Thompson books by arguing that it was cheaper than a real pony. ‘It could be his son.’
‘Yeah, he could be assembling a playpen,’ said Michelle sardonically.
Anna gave her a reproachful look. Since Anna had come running back with the unexpected news that Rory the Bookworm was actually Rory the Love Rat, he’d become something of a talking point in quiet moments. As neither Michelle nor Kelsey would play Anna’s ‘what did the Famous Five grow up to be?’ game, they’d taken instead to musing about what tragic or dramatic circumstances had led to an otherwise respectable man like Rory walking out on his pregnant girlfriend.
Michelle had no sympathy. She could tell Rory was the sort of man who’d read a book on breastfeeding then tell his wife she was doing it wrong. Kelsey had limited sympathy (‘I saw this thing on telly about men who aren’t ready to parent because they’re still basically children themselves . . .’). Only Anna came up with more compassionate reasons why someone kind enough to visit an old man in a residential home might leave a pregnant woman, and even then, Michelle could tell she was only saying it because Anna was fundamentally incapable of being mean.
‘It’s the back room, it’s definitely not upstairs,’ Kelsey insisted. ‘I’ve heard things, and I’ve gone in, and there’s nothing there.’
‘When was this?’ asked Michelle, preparing to get forensic on her.
‘The other afternoon, after you went to get Lily. I heard something move in there, but when I went in, there was no one there. Just a copy of Tom’s Midnight Garden on the floor. Right in the middle of the floor.’ Kelsey’s eyes were round.
‘No,’ breathed Anna. ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden?’
Michelle turned to Anna for clarification. ‘Is the book significant?’
‘You mean you haven’t . . . ? No, of course you haven’t read it. It’s about a ghost,’ said Anna. ‘And a little boy who goes through a haunted garden and meets a little girl who . . . I don’t want to spoil it,’ she concluded. ‘You should read it.’
‘I’ll put it on my list. Look, Kelsey,’ said Michelle, ‘if there is a ghost, it’d be Agnes Quentin, and she’d be leaving out books on How to Run a Bookshop.’
‘I don’t want to be in there on my own.’ Kelsey’s expression turned stubborn. ‘Although I’ll do it if Owen will sit in with me . . .’
‘No,’ said Michelle and Anna at the same time.
‘I prefer Owen where I can see him,’ added Michelle.
Kelsey folded her arms. ‘Well, then, you’ll have to ask Gillian, and she’s been talking about getting her local priest in to spray it with water or whatever you’re meant to do.’
Michelle sighed. ‘Great.’ What had she told Gillian? If Kelsey wasn’t such a perfect dowsing rod for the 15–24 customer base, she’d think very hard about diva behaviour like this. Especially when Becca was turning out to be a very astute retail student.
‘I’ve got to go, Michelle,’ said Anna, checking her watch with a frown. ‘I’m supposed to be taking Lily straight to a doctor’s appointment and you know what they’re like if you’re late.’
‘Go,’ said Michelle. ‘Don’t worry about coming back. I’ll close up here tonight. And you,’ she said, pointing to Kelsey. ‘You get back next door and sell some stuff.’
Kelsey grinned and tottered out on her jelly heels.
‘See you later!’ Anna grabbed her bag and dashed out.
‘I’m expecting a headless horseman, at the very least!’ Michelle called after them.
When they’d both gone, Michelle wandered around the bookshop, tweaking some of the displays and tidying the shelves here and there.
She didn’t actually mind spending an hour or two in the bookshop. It was a nice space to be in now, of course, but the quiet time gave her a chance to spin her secret plans for its next incarnation – without any danger of being lectured about the sanctity of reading by Anna.
She’d been thinking about the bookshop all week. Michelle spent most Friday nights combing through her accounts, checking for fluctuations, fast sellers and dead wood, with the same fascination that she used to apply to the Top 40 at school, and although the bookshop figures were a lot better than she’d expected them to be, they were still only just nudging into the black. Not enough to justify keeping it going as a bookshop after the year was up, and maybe not even until then.
Anna’s infectious enthusiasm was keeping the shop ticking over – her handmade posters, her impromptu book discussions, her recommendations – and some of it was down to basic local curiosity. But Michelle’s instinct told her that she’d have to find some way of supporting the books if she wanted to keep hold of the shop. If it closed before then, Rory might decide to take the moral high ground and re-let it to someone else.
Michelle fluffed up the pile of mohair throws – ‘reading blankets’– by the door, and chewed her lip. The blankets were providing a very useful bump in the shop’s profits. She’d been at a trade fair in York the previous weekend, and had nearly bought the entire stock of a rugmaker who created beautiful bedside rugs from recycled remnants. Something like that would be easy enough to slip past Anna’s eagle eye. She could put some down on the sanded boards, maybe a basket of them by the counter.
The display table of poetry would have to go. Michelle tried to think about how she could justify that to Anna, then made the executive decision to do it herself. Then and there. Anna might not even notice.
She scooped off the books and was preparing to move the table, when she heard a noise in the back room and stopped. It sounded like a book falling off a shelf.
Michelle put the table down and looked round for signs of an embarrassed customer. Only one customer had entered since she’d been in, and they’d left obviously disappointed that she wasn’t Anna with a series of recommendations, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone lingering in the back. That was the thing about having those comfy chairs in the back room – they encouraged people to sink in and stay there for ages, reading.
Michelle wasn’t normally a nervy person, and often stayed in Home Sweet Home after closing for hours on end, rearranging displays, but the idea of someone lurking in this shop with her was unsettling. Something about the books, maybe. Next door was so clean and calming, like her own house, but the bookshop had a different atmosphere. More thoughtful, more . . . layered, somehow. Less hers. More likely to have shelves with lives of their own, tipping books out at her to catch her attention.
Michelle told herself not to be so ridiculous and walked slowly towards the children’s section, letting her heels click on the wooden floorboards to give whoever it was a chance to hear her. The last thing she wanted was to give some poor old dear a shock. Dusk had fallen quickly in the last few minutes and suddenly the shop was quite dark.
But when she peered into the back room there was no one there. The two battered leather armchairs were empty, the Union Jack cushions flat and a few big picture books scattered on the table between them.
Must have been the pipes, she decided, tidying the books back into the fruit crates and plumping up the cushions with quick, fierce thumps. Something falling down the chimney: a bird’s nest, maybe. Michelle made a mental note to talk to Rory about the last survey. That was the trouble about taking over a place like this, you were never as confident about the building as you were when you’d bought it and renovated it yourself.
In fact, she argued, it was probably just him, making a noise upstairs. Maybe he’d got the abandoned wife hidden in a cupboard up there. Like Bluebeard.
Pleased with this selection of rational responses, Michelle went back to the desk and got her notebook out of her bag to review the day’s to-do list, and jot down her thoughts about lambswool blankets.
The noise came again. Something f
alling, clattering onto the floor, and then scratching.
Michelle’s heart gave an undeniable thump in her chest, and her skin crawled. That was definitely coming from the back room. That wasn’t upstairs.
And there was nothing in the back room. Just as Kelsey had said.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said aloud. Who was she going to call? Ghostbusters? Rentokil?
Michelle got up again and clomped across the floor, hoping to send whatever it was scuttling back into the woodwork. As she went, she hit the switch and flooded the back room with light, but that only emphasised the very unsettling fact that it was totally empty.
Lying on the floor, though, face up, was a book. Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Michelle felt a chill run through her and adrenalin flooded her bloodstream.
Behind her, the doorbell jangled and she nearly cricked her neck spinning round to see who it was. When she saw a figure standing in the doorway, her throat closed up in panic, but then the shape coughed and an irrational relief swept over her. Ghosts didn’t cough.
But before the relief died down, a second, more visceral panic clutched her stomach. Was it Harvey? Had he been watching outside the shop, waiting until it was empty? Waiting until she was on her own?
‘I’m sorry, I’m going to be closing in a few moments,’ she said, her voice rather higher than normal as she strode towards the door, ready to slam it in his face if she had to. He wasn’t coming into her house, and he wasn’t coming into her shop either.
‘Closing? I thought you were of the “Stay Open Till They’ve Bought Something” persuasion,’ said a Scottish voice. ‘Mind if I come in?’
As he stepped into the light, she saw that it was Rory, his scarf wound round his neck in a college-y fashion and his battered briefcase in one hand. He was smiling at her hopefully. Probably after a free coffee, she thought. Probably run out of milk.
‘I’m still about to shut,’ she said. Her voice wobbled. ‘Did you want something in particular?’