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

is definitely windswept. It’s strange to arrive somewhere knowing parts of it might become familiar, but you don’t know which bits. I always feel like this on holiday, wondering which road I’ll drive along most frequently, which shops I’ll go in, where I’ll buy petrol.

And then here we are in Baldochrie, finding somewhere to park outside the rather grand Victorian town hall in a little square of neat stone houses. There’s a church, a war memorial with a kilted soldier and proper shops: a Co-op, an antiques shop, two cafés, a chemist. Daffodils, long over at home, are still dancing in the churchyard. It’s quite nice, old-fashioned. Nothing exciting, obviously, but I’ve seen some sad little towns where everything’s boarded up or for sale and it’s not like that. There’s a butcher’s and a baker’s and everything.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Xanthe. She gazes through the raindrops on the car window. ‘Imagine living here.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ I say. ‘Although I can’t think there’d be much to do if you were a teenager.’

‘Jesus. Nearest nightclub fifty miles away, probably.’ We both shudder. ‘And I’ll be bringing some much-needed diversity to the scene,’ she adds. ‘There’ll be people here who’ve only seen black women on the telly.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘Betcha.’

‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘there’s the solicitors’. A large square Georgian building with three steps up from the pavement, statutory brass plaque and a boot scraper.

‘Exciting. Are you excited?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose so. It’s odd.’

‘I’ll go and have a coffee. You don’t need me to come in with you, do you?’

I hesitate. ‘I guess not.’

‘It’s nearly eleven,’ she says. ‘Come on.’

It’s windy, a handful of raindrops blatting against the windscreen. I pull on my jacket and smooth my skirt, crumpled from two hours in the car.

‘You look very smart and responsible,’ she says. ‘Text me when you’re done. I’ll be in’ – she looks across the road – ‘that one. The Lemon Tree.’

A terribly pleasant-looking middle-aged lady looks up as I close the door behind me.

‘Good morning,’ she says. ‘Now, you’ll be Mrs Mottram?’

I nod in agreement. A little sign on her desk says she’s Mrs McCain. I look round at the room I’m standing in, a large entrance hall, black and white marble tiles. Perhaps a little chilly for Mrs McCain. I can smell an electric heater of some kind, and suspect it’s under her desk, keeping her legs warm. An impressive staircase of polished dark wood curves upwards, the desk tucked in beside it. On the wall beside her there’s a large and rather gloomy portrait of a young woman in white satin, draped on a sofa.

There are three doors, one to my left, and two on the right. White-painted, elegant. A large vase of daffodils sits on the desk, along with a telephone and computer. Between the two doors on the right, a cushioned but backless piece of furniture, a bench, long enough for two or three people to sit on. Above it, a huge mottled mirror, which has probably been there since the house was built.

Mrs McCain smiles at me. ‘I’ll let him know you’re here. Have a seat.’

I haven’t time to though, as the door on my left is opening and here’s Alastair Gordon, hand out in greeting. ‘Mrs Mottram. It’s good to finally meet you.’

He’s much younger than I was expecting. In fact, I suspect he’s rather younger than me. And he’s reminded me that I might have to change my name. Should I? I’m not going to be Mrs Mottram for much longer. How does that work? How do you decide?

As we shake hands, I’m confused and tongue-tied. I follow him into his office, and accidentally say, ‘I thought you’d be old. I mean – I’m sorry – you said you were friends with Uncle Andrew.’

‘We weren’t at school together or anything,’ he says, amused.

‘No… Even if you were old,’ I say, ‘you couldn’t be as old as him and still be working. I was just expecting you to be older. Not that it matters. Oh God, now I’m just… Do excuse me.’ I laugh. ‘Everything’s rather unexpected.’

‘Have a seat,’ he says. He offers me a drink, asks about the journey. We talk about the traffic and the roadworks and he opens his office door and asks Mrs McCain to make some tea. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a PA. I doubt I’ll ever find out. I almost ask him but, really, I need to control this urge to just say whatever comes into my mind.

I feel a bit awkward, partly because Xanthe spent quite a lot of the journey wondering about Mr Gordon, and we laughed a lot at her imaginings, mostly because he was bound – guaranteed in fact – to be very different to her daydreaming. And he is, I suppose, because we thought he’d be dark but he’s blond. He is quite good-looking though, if you like people who look posh, which I always pretend I don’t. They have good bones, don’t they, and tend to be attractive; it’s centuries of breeding. He’s probably only thirty-five or something though.

He comes back to his desk and sits down. ‘My father was Andrew’s solicitor before I was,’ he says. ‘I’d known him since I was a child. I gather you didn’t know him that well, yourself?’

I shake my head. ‘Hardly at all. The whole thing has come as rather a shock.’

I look around, surreptitiously searching for the obligatory photograph of wife and children. I can’t see any but, then again, these days people have their kids as wallpaper on their PC, don’t they, rather than a framed photograph on their desk. There’s a small painting of a dog though, on the wall by the door. A Golden Retriever. The room has a fireplace and beautiful plaster cornices, and shelves in the alcoves on the fireplace wall, filled with boxes neatly labelled with surnames. One of these, with HAMILTON, A F & M G written on it in beautiful handwriting, sits