The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (e books for reading txt) 📗

dishwasher with Angus, the plumber. His sister, Jenny, is the local vet, and also Alastair Gordon’s famous fiancée. It’s a very small place, this. Cerys, who owns the Old Mill with her girlfriend, Jilly, tells me to be careful what I say, and to who.

‘Just because everyone’s related,’ she says, ‘and you never find out until after you’ve said something awful. I was always putting my foot in it when I first moved here. If they’re not related, they went to school together. It’s a nightmare.’

I believe her, and am suitably circumspect. I’m cautiously constructing a social life, which thus far has involved attending a talk about Kirkcudbright artists at the town hall, and the opening night (or private view, I suppose?) of an exhibition of quilts at the Old Mill. Alastair was there and he introduced me to his fiancée Jenny, rather surprised, I think, that I hadn’t yet put the Lodge on the market and headed back to England. Jenny has dark hair, cropped into a pixie cut, and fiercely bright blue eyes. She’s forthright and efficient; I like her a lot. I talked to them for ages, about art and crafting; it was an unexpectedly fun evening.

I’ve made quilts in the past, most recently for Jasmine, Xanthe’s daughter, who had a ‘bedroom redesign’ for her tenth birthday; and I discover that Great Aunt Mary must have made them too. There aren’t any at the Lodge, but one of the drawers under the bed in the spare room is full of neat piles of fabric, fat quarters, ready to be turned into patchwork. I wonder who she gave them to, once she’d made them. I don’t know much about Mary, who died about ten years ago, and nothing about her family. Her sewing machine is much better than the one languishing in my storage unit though, so I’ll be keeping that. I think she probably made all the curtains at the Lodge; they’re certainly handmade and much better than I could ever manage myself.

I’m still going through Andrew’s things – mostly paperwork now. It’s all quite tidy, nothing like the nightmare I helped Angela deal with when her dad died. He’d really never thrown anything out and we grew quite hysterical over bank statements from the sixties and receipts for long-discarded white goods and the unsteady stacks of Razzle and Men Only. Fortunately, there’s nothing like that at the Lodge. I could probably have done it all by now if I’d focused, but I’ve decided not to rush. Most of it is pretty straightforward; I’m putting anything interesting to one side, and not being too strict about what counts as interesting. He did keep a lot of things that were probably unnecessary, but of course the older something is – especially if it’s ephemera – the more interesting it becomes. I arrange all kinds of bills and receipts neatly on the table and take photographs for my Instagram. They prove popular with the font-obsessed and lovers of what you might call ‘local design’, from back when everything in your town was owned by some chap you went to school with, or his father. Back in the days when phone numbers had three digits, and everything was typed on a typewriter by a woman employed for the purpose. When my mother was at school, they made you choose between doing O Levels (for the academic girls who might go on to college) or Shorthand and Typing (for those who would need a job until they got married).

Andrew also wrote notes – I suppose it’s a memoir, really, although it’s quite scrappy. Some of it is handwritten and some of it typed (and he must have done that at work, I suppose, or dictated it; there’s no typewriter at the Lodge); there are a couple of notebooks and a pile of loose pieces of paper. There are stories about his parents and grandparents (and I have to remind myself that I too am descended from these people, with their almost unimaginable lives), childhood tales of poaching and general japes, and a whole list of dinners and dances, along with dance cards and menus. It’s not exactly scintillating, but whose life is? I like his gentle stories. And it’s not like nothing ever happened to him; after all, he and Mary suffered the worst a parent can imagine when they lost their daughter. I don’t know if he wrote about that – if he did, I haven’t got to that bit yet. I might be avoiding it. You know that feeling where you might start crying and never stop? I’m trying not to get myself into a place where that might happen. I’d rather read about nineteenth-century furniture from Dumfries, and Baldochrie during the war.

As time passes, I’ve been wondering if I should get a job. Nothing too strenuous. Making sandwiches, or serving in the baker’s or something. Just something so I meet people and have something to occupy myself.

I ask Cerys to let me know if she hears of anything, making it clear I don’t expect her to employ me. I don’t think I’d be very good in a café to be honest; I’m not sure could sustain that level of cheery service.

‘Did Jenny find a new receptionist?’ asks Jilly. ‘Since Pam’s at the school now?’

‘Kirsty Macdonald took it, didn’t she?’

‘Oh, aye, of course she did.’ They both look at me, considering. ‘I heard they were looking for someone at the farm shop.’ Jilly straightens the labels on the cake stands by the till.

‘That’s a way out, mind,’ says Cerys.

‘It’s not that far really. Maybe I should give them a ring.’ I like the farm shop, with its neat shelves of fancy jams and chutneys, beautiful displays of locally grown and reared produce and excellent bread.

‘You’re staying up then?’

‘Oh, just for the summer. Or I might not, if I can’t find anything.’

‘Och, there’ll be something,’ Jilly says, reassuring. ‘If it’s not a career you’re after.’

‘I find I don’t much