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

cup of tea or anything like that. I’m not sure if anyone ever goes up there, except, I presume, Lara and his other ‘friends’, although mostly I think he goes to see them.

It’s a large flat, two storeys, big enough for a whole family, easily. And it’s lovely. The sitting room overlooks the square and is high-ceilinged and light, south-facing, two huge sash windows, massive sofas and a marble fireplace, paintings; books, of course, everywhere. I’ve noticed a couple of times, on evenings when the light was right, that you get a beautiful slice of sunset across the parquet. There are rugs, and a beautiful Edwardian plantstand, a fat barley-sugar twist in mahogany, with a brass pot containing a large aspidistra. I’d love to live here. I’ve even looked to see if there’s anything similar available on the square with a view of the rooftops, despite quite liking the lack of stairs at the Lodge. I like having a garden, as well, and there wouldn’t be one if I lived in a flat. Edward has a garden, but that’s because he owns the whole building. I asked him once where the money came from – it’s not like selling books is massively lucrative – and he looked rather hunted, before admitting he and Charles had both inherited ‘quite a healthy amount’ from their grandmother, his mother’s mother. Apparently that sort of inheritance was acceptable because it didn’t come with a title or acres of land. When I looked unconvinced, he just reminded me, rather sharply, that he was a hypocrite. And I suppose I am, too; it’s not like I’ve never inherited anything.

The dining room is grand, with an elaborate plaster ceiling, and a huge circular mahogany dining table that has enormous feet. Matching sideboard, massive mirror over the dark stone fireplace. The kitchen is long and narrow, with windows in two walls and a table at the back, a big chipped butler’s sink and a built-in dresser. The walls are dark green, the cupboards are white, all handmade, and it’s full of stuff, tons of pans and plates and jugs and things hanging up everywhere. It’s untidy but comfortable. He likes cooking, I think, although he has no one to cook for. There’s a whole shelf of cookery books, and piles of them open on the table.

The window is open, as he suspected, so I pull it closed. There’s no sign of Holly Hunter but her dishes are empty, so I fill one with biscuits and one with fancy cat food. It looks like something you could easily eat yourself, with a bit of toast. It amuses me that he’d buy such a thing. HH is elderly – twenty at least – he’s had her since he first came back from university. I refill her water bowl and then go to check the other windows.

I’ve never been up the third or fourth flights of stairs, since they lead only to the bathroom and the bedrooms. I realize I’m almost tiptoeing. The stairs up to the second floor are not as wide and sweeping as the lower ones, and instead of bookshelves they’re lined with framed prints and pictures.

It does seem a shame that Edward lives here by himself. Perhaps he’ll ask Lara to move in, I think cynically. I can’t imagine she’d like it, although I may be doing her a disservice. Apparently, she didn’t like the Shed though, when he took her there last year. She complained pretty much the whole time. No electricity or hot water, he must be mad et cetera. ‘I think she’s a bit glam for the Shed,’ I said, when he told me.

I wanted to ask about her, how long they’d been seeing each other, how ‘official’ she was, when they met, whether he’d slept with her sister… but I didn’t. I did ask if she was his ‘type’ and he said he didn’t have a type. I said, ‘except for “people who’ve been out with your brother”?’ and he told me to fuck off. Which was fair enough.

At the top of the stairs I pause. Two closed doors and two ajar. And one open – the bathroom, all clanking but beautiful Victorian sanitary ware, with lots of plants and a heap of white towels abandoned on the floor. Clean though, for a bathroom used only by a man. He doesn’t have a cleaner or anything, or at least I’ve never heard him mention one. He must do his own housework. I can’t picture him dusting but I guess he must do.

I assume the closed doors are to the spare bedrooms – and a quick poke of my head round the doors confirms this. Neatly made beds, unusual lack of stuff. The others must be his bedroom, and the study. He writes. As one would expect.

‘Shit poetry,’ is what he said, when I asked him what he wrote. It can’t be that awful, though; he’s had some published, apparently.

His bedroom’s at the front, over the sitting room. It’s surprisingly white, and surprisingly tidy, although there’s an unsurprising pile of books neatly stacked beside the door. And the window is open, so at least there was a purpose in coming up here. I fight with the sash, which is open at the top. They’re never easy; I wonder if they worked smoothly when they were new, but I’ve never used a new sash window, only ancient ones with fraying ropes and overpainted pulley wheels. I manage eventually and fasten the screw, pulling the curtains closed, which means I then have to grope my way back past the bed in the gloom.

It does feel quite odd to be in his bedroom. Bedrooms are personal, aren’t they? His dressing gown, darkly tartan, hangs on the back of the door, and there’s a white-painted chest of drawers with a mirror above that does for a dressing table and houses odds and ends, cards and photographs. I hesitate and then flick the light on so I can look