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

‘If there’s no electricity…’

‘Yeah, the other beach houses down there have ’leccy. I could get it hooked up, but I prefer it without. My father got the plumbing sorted. For which I’m grateful, obviously–’

‘Look at the sky,’ I interrupt, ‘isn’t it amazing? I mean it’s not like it’s rained all the time since I arrived, but bloody hell, it hasn’t been like this.’

He laughs. ‘No, it isn’t often this hot. Although there are plenty of fine days. The weather moves quickly up here; it’s unusual for it to rain all day.’

We’re driving through farmland, mostly; fields of cows, fields of sheep. I’m still surprised by how rural it is. The road runs along the coast, so it’s salt marsh on one side and fields on the other.

Eventually we turn off the main road, and then turn off again onto a track between brambly hedges, and then onto another, rougher track. I glimpse the sea across a field. I’m genuinely quite excited.

‘All caravans down there,’ he gestures. ‘They have a shop, so you can get milk if you need to.’

‘Don’t they ruin your ambience?’

‘Can’t see ’em from the Shed, and the holiday people don’t come down here; it’s quite a walk, and they’ve got their own beach. Get some dog walkers. Sometimes you catch people peering through the windows, or they sit on the bench; I don’t care, as long as they don’t make a mess. Sorry,’ he adds as we bounce over a particularly rough patch and I grab at the dashboard. ‘Here we go, this is us. Would you be a darling and open the gate for me?’

I climb out of the car and cross the track to the mossy five-bar gate to my right. There’s a piece of painted slate attached to it which just says Maltravers as though that’s the name of the house. I slide the bolt and push the gate open. There are trees, short and twisty, windblown; on the boundary, a lichened, ferny drystone wall. I step out of the way so he can bring the car through, and look over towards the hut, or shed, or house. It’s black creosoted wood, single storey, the front door on this side, neatly painted in emerald green. It opens onto the wide swathe of weedy shingle where he’s parking the car. There’s a window on this side too, covered with a wire grille. So far, I can’t see the sea, although I can hear it. Another, smaller shed with double doors, newer-looking, stands over to the left.

Edward’s out of the car and heading towards me. ‘I’ll unlock and show you round. It’ll be dark because I’ll need to take the shutters down.’ He fiddles with the door, leaning his shoulder into it. ‘And it sticks… Oh, there we are. Come in.’

I follow him into a shadowy hallway. The still air feels dry, and it smells of warm wood, dust and wood smoke. The smell of a hot shed reminds me of the summer holidays, days spent at my friend Tara’s. Playing in the shed was forbidden, for some reason, but we’d creep in there while her dad was at work; unfolding the sun-lounger, pretending it was our house, ignoring the lawnmower and the spades and forks.

‘Careful,’ he warns, opening another door, ‘there’s a step down. Wait here a moment.’

He disappears behind me and I peer around, stranded in the half-dark. Light creeps round the edges of the shutters, so I can just about see some sofas and a chair, a table against one wall, a wood burner. I hear the whoosh of something sliding, and then the room is full of light.

‘Oh, wow,’ I say, feebly. The whole of the front wall, more or less, is glass, half of it sliding open when he unlocks it. Outside, brilliant green lawn, rocks, ocean. I can’t see the beach, because it’s lower than the grass, but I can see the rocks that curve round, forming the bay, and the sea itself. The sky and the sea are equally blue; there’s not a cloud to be seen. The wooden-walled room has pine tongue and groove, like a chalet. There are pictures, a bookcase. The chair I noticed earlier is the pair of the one in the shop that Edward sits in. One of the sofas is a tiny mid-century two-seater, upholstered in nubby blue fabric, with skinny angled legs, while the other is a huge fat four-seater that probably cost a fortune when it was new. It’s covered with tartan blankets. There’s a sink on the same wall as the burner, and an old sideboard with a marble top, similar to the counter in the shop. On the wall above the sink there’s a cupboard, and three open shelves with plates and cups and bowls. Pans hang from the wall.

‘Bathroom – I use the term loosely – is back through the hall and off to the left. There’s a bedroom as well but I always sleep in here, or out on the grass,’ he says. He watches me as I look at everything. ‘And that’s all there is to it.’ He shrugs. ‘Obviously it’s all about the beach.’

‘Oh yes! The beach!’ I hurry out onto the lawn and across the grass. It falls away to a tight curve of yellow-brown sand, alexanders and sea kale, great slabby heaps of rock, washed up piles of kelp and bladderwrack, patches of shell and pebble. A pair of gulls watch me from a silvery-pale branch of driftwood. In the bay a solitary orange buoy bobs in the waves. It’s pretty much perfect, like something from the Famous Five. I turn back to the Shed, where he watches me, grinning.

‘It’s beautiful. How splendid.’

He’s pleased, I think, that I like it. He nods, smiling. ‘Let’s get things sorted before it gets too hot. Tea?’

‘It’s much too warm, surely,’ I say, surprised. ‘Won’t the burner make it unbearable in there? Are you going to