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

interested in this sorry tale. You’re not planning on writing a book, are you?’

I laugh. ‘Oh my God, it would make a good book. I shall call it How the Other Half Live. But no. I’m just… It’s so different to my experience of life. I can’t imagine just accepting that my wife was shagging someone else.’

‘I’m never going to ask her to leave him, am I? I guess I’m a safe pair of hands.’

This gives me a mental picture that’s a little disturbing, so I try not to think about it. ‘But why don’t you try and find someone you like? Wouldn’t that be better?’

He turns back to the screen. ‘What’s the point? It’s too late. I’ve fucked it all up.’

‘But have you? I don’t understand why you think that. You’re perfectly nice, aren’t you? Obviously grumpy as hell, but you might cheer up a bit, you know’ – I look up as the door opens – ‘if you were getting laid regularly. Good afternoon,’ I continue smoothly, ignoring his snort of amusement as I greet a couple of tourists who have pushed through into the shop. ‘Just let one of us know if we can help at all.’ A man of about my age, and his teenage daughter, mutter the usual British embarrassed shop murmur about ‘just looking’.

I watch them as they look about. The girl has the most spectacular hair, a perfect, glossy low beehive, like something Mandy Rice-Davies might have achieved before a day in court. I’m impressed and slightly jealous. We get two sorts of customers: people who know what they want and head straight for it or ask immediately, and browsers. With browsers you never know if they’ll buy or not; it really does depend whether they see anything they fancy. This is why I keep saying we should move Local History to the front of the shop. People on holiday like to buy things related to the area. Edward’s not convinced, but I bet it would make a difference.

That evening, as we’re closing up, he says, ‘Shall we get something to eat, then?’

‘Oh, I didn’t think you were serious.’

‘No, I’ll take you out. Where shall we go? What do you want? Fish and chips? We could go down to the harbour.’

‘The chippy on the corner? I’ve never been in there.’

‘Come on then,’ he says. ‘Don’t bother sweeping up, I’ll do it later.’

‘What about the pots?’

‘They’ll be fine.’

I fetch my jacket and duck my head through the strap of my bag, and we walk down through the square to the harbour road. It always seems odd that there’s a harbour; the town isn’t exactly on the coast. There are just a few boats, and lots of boatyard buildings and winches and stuff. There’s no harbour wall or sea defences because it’s more like a river than the sea, although it’s tidal and they call it a bay. There’s a kiosk that sells ice cream, and tea and crab sandwiches, and a fish and chip shop, traditional with a Formica counter, and nothing to sit on while you’re waiting but the tiled windowsill. There are two picnic benches outside and a furious sign telling you not to feed ‘the fecking gulls’.

Edward buys us both a fish supper and we take our paper parcels of fish and chips further along to where there’s a wall just right to sit on, with a more pleasing view of the river. He empties sachets of vinegar, ketchup and mayonnaise from his pockets and we eat hot chips with cautious greasy fingers.

‘How am I going to eat fish without cutlery?’ I fret, and he produces a fistful of wooden chip forks and a Swiss Army knife.

‘There you go, princess,’ he says, and I snort with laughter.

‘I know, la-di-da, eh?’

‘And you say I’m the posh one.’

‘I suppose you ate all your food with your fingers growing up.’ I crunch a piece of batter. ‘Or gold knives and forks.’

‘Gold’s not very practical for cutlery – too soft.’

‘Oh, I suppose. Silver? Like my spoon?’

‘There was silver cutlery. Only for high days and holidays.’ He fights with a sachet of ketchup. ‘Damn. Oh, there we go.’

‘Not every day?’

‘No, Sheffield’s finest for the rest of the time. Grandparents’ wedding cutlery, I think.’

‘And eating all your meals off’ – I search my brain for the name of an expensive china manufacturer – ‘um, Sèvres?’

‘There is some Sèvres, but it’s not a whole set. Royal Doulton, the everyday stuff. And some Villeroy and Boch that my mum bought Dad as an anniversary present once. Hideously eighties, be fashionable again soon, I should think.’

‘Do you miss all that?’

He wipes his fingers on his handkerchief and opens a can of Coke, which fizzes excessively. ‘Bugger.’ I watch him slurp at it, amused. ‘Christ, no. Not at all. It’s absurd, living in a giant house you can barely afford to heat. And twenty bedrooms mean nothing when you all hate one another.’

I lick mayonnaise off my thumb. ‘Did you really all hate each other?’

‘Well, maybe not when I was very small. Before my grandfather died. We were closer then. Or it seemed like we were. I don’t know what happened. Maybe my parents fell out of love. And they thought their sons would be, you know, nicer and less frustrating. Perhaps.’

‘Your mum gets on okay with Charles, though?’

‘Only because they rarely see one another.’

‘Oh.’

He stares out across the bay for a moment, and then turns back to look at me. ‘My mother was a raving beauty, you know. Friends with all the right people, parties, holidays on yachts, dancing all night, champagne, blah blah. They lived a wild life before I was born.’ He pauses. ‘Have you ever read Like a Pendulum Do?’

‘I have, but not for years.’

‘Yeah, well, you know the one who dies of an overdose? Lady Elspeth? Based on her.’

‘No way.’ I drop a chip, distracted.

‘Yep. And Johnny Meltram’s Mick Jagger.’

‘I knew that. So is any of it true? Obviously she didn’t die of an overdose.’

‘Close