Page 4 of The Battle of the Bookshops
This time he paused for Jules’s response, but she pretended not to have heard, looking out the window as if the view were the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. Clearly Terry knew nothing of the history, and she had no desire to inform him. She only hoped Flo was going to be able to contain herself.
Predictably, though, Flo, demonstrated no such tact or diplomacy: “There’s nothing venerable about that family’s history,” she enunciated haughtily. “They represent nothing other than a dynasty of thieves and scoundrels. And I do believe I am right in saying that the young man to whom you refer is not a single jot better than the rest of them.”
Even the ebullient Terry got the hint after that, and the rest of the journey was carried out in uncomfortable silence.
Getting Flo safely out of the car and into the shop was no easier than it had been at the other end.
“That’s the guilty spot,” she announced, pointing with her good arm to the high stone step leading into the shop doorway. It was worn down in the middle from hundreds of years of feet passing over it and was also, Jules noted, coated in bright green algae.
“Arse over tit, I went,” Flo continued. “Of course it was market day, so there I am on the ground with my skirt up and my knickers showing, making a right exhibition of myself in front of a rapt audience, just my luck... Although I have to say, people were marvelously kind.”
Jules, looking up, saw the culprit immediately: a broken gutter right over the doorway, meaning that even now, with no recent rain, there was a steady drip of water onto the step. The constant moisture had rendered it as slimy and slippery as a block of ice. It might already be too late for Flo, but a gutter repair, a scrubbing brush, and a bucket of bleachy, hot water were going to be essential if Capelthorne’s was to avoid being sued by an injured customer.
And it wasn’t just the gutter that had deteriorated since Jules had last looked. How long had it been? All the infrequent trips back to Middlemass had been cursory, with barely a moment spent in Portneath other than her arrival at the station. And that was despite the shop and Flo’s flat above being a home from home for her as a child. Now, at last, there she was, seeing the little shop anew. Jules had always loved the many-paneled Georgian windowpanes, with their rippled glass that twinkled in the sunlight like a beaming smile, but the glass was dull and dusty now, the glossy scarlet window frames cracked and peeling. The hand-painted sign above the windows proclaimed the simple legend “Capelthorne’s Books” picked out in loopy gold italics, with “est. 1925” smaller, in the right-hand corner. It was faded now, with bare wood showing in parts.
This Aladdin’s cave of book-treasure—the little shop in the heart of the high street that stretched crookedly down the hill from thecastle to the sea—had gone from being a jewel and a landmark to something that spoke of fatigue and decay. It looked weary. Spent.
Jules blinked back sudden tears as she took the key from Flo and fumbled with the lock, the past flooding back as muscle memory kicked in: a little turn to the left with the key, push it in firmly, and then fully to the right. Yes, the shop—and Aunt Flo—had been a haven for her once. With a feckless mother who was rarely in the house when Jules returned from school, Jules had been delighted when she got old enough to leave Middlemass Primary and start attending secondary school in Portneath. Then, rather than catching the first bus home, she would trot down the hill to Flo’s shop most days, slipping in through the door in relief, with the shop doorbell announcing her arrival.
Flo would immediately break off from whatever she was doing to greet her, interrogating her about her day, insisting that she take her schoolbag and climb the three flights of stairs to the little flat on the top floor where, on the tiny, Formica-topped kitchen table under the window, there would be a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits or even a slice of homemade cake.
Refreshments eaten, Jules would do one of two things: If Aunt Flo’s wise counsel was required to decode a friendship trauma or bolster confidence after a school test that had not gone as well as Jules hoped, then she would return to the shop to bask in the sunshine of her aunt’s praise, outrage, sympathy, or whatever was required to heal the hurt. If, on the other hand, things had gone well that day, then she would settle straight down to her homework, rushing to finish, because what Jules usually craved was reading time.
In the flat’s cozy sitting room, tucked into the eaves, with its angled walls and its low ceiling, the little upholstered window seat that overlooked the bustling high street was her domain. In it, wrapped for warmth in a checked wool blanket from the back of thesofa, Jules would sit, alternately reading and quietly watching life pass by in the busy street below. The last of the sun would stream in through the window, lighting up the dust motes in the air like fireflies, and Jules would be restored, losing herself in books so familiar it was as if the characters became her friends: Jane Austen’s Emma, Becky Sharp fromVanity Fair, Jane fromJane Eyre, and the swashbuckling Katniss fromThe Hunger Games—all vibrant, brave young women living lives that seemed so much more vivid and relevant than Jules’s. The window seat became a portal to other worlds. Flo called it Jules’s “book nook” and made sure Jules could spend time in it whenever she needed.
How fast the years had flown. And how desperate she had been to ditch her old life and run away, first to university and then to a succession of publishing internships on starvation rations. Finally, she had landed a modestly paid job that allowed her to feed herself, just about. The teenage Saturday job in the shop that Flo had insisted on served her well during that job search, she remembered, persuading her employers of her love of books and early grounding in the industry. Several years on, though, progression had been slow, and recently she had been perturbed to observe doubts about her London life creeping into her head. Was sheevergoing to make commissioning editor? And when—or if—she ever did, would she be able to cope with the even more intense pressure? Even at editorial assistant level, the workload was brutal, and the stress was off the scale. But working in publishing had been her dream and goal for as long as she could remember. Escaping from her small-town roots was part of that, of course. Take the hard-won publishing job away, and Jules wasn’t even sure who she was anymore. But other worries were paramount today. There would be time enough for existential angst later.
Settling her aunt in the seat behind the till and turning the shop sign to “Open,” Jules made an initial survey. It was perfectly obvious Flo could not climb the three flights of stairs to her flat.Even if she could physically drag herself, which Jules doubted, it couldn’t possibly be safe.
“I can sleep in the office,” said Flo, following Jules’s gaze up the rickety wooden stairs. “And I can wash in the customer loo—at least I can when the shop is shut... It’ll be fine. I’vegotto trade!”
At that moment, the doorbell gave its rusty clank, announcing the arrival of the first customer that morning. Flo turned briskly in her swivel chair to greet them.
Rendered obsolete, Jules went to the little room at the back of the shop that Aunt Flo had always used as an office. There was a sturdy wooden kitchen table that functioned as a desk in there, with an old PC, a dusty keyboard, and an ancient monitor that took up half the tabletop. The PC was vital for accessing the database that allowed them to order in any book currently in print. The ability to do that had been the center of the business in the past, but these days Jules knew it was easy for booklovers to get the same service online themselves at the tap of a phone screen. She doubted orders contributed much to Flo’s income nowadays.
All around, there was organized clutter. The in tray on the desk was overflowing with sales catalogs, and a shelf above the desk bore witness to years of accounts, all on paper, in a series of dusty file boxes arranged tidily in date order.
Settled on a cushion in front of the French doors, marooned in a sea of late-winter sunshine, was a shaggy old black cat.
“Merlin!” Jules cooed.
Merlin opened one eye and regarded her benevolently, before closing it again and curling his front paws a little more tightly into his chest. She crouched down and gently smoothed the fur between his ears with one finger, being rewarded with a throaty purr. Merlin had been her friend and confidant as a young cat.Goodness,she thought,he must be nearly twenty now...Again, she felt guilt and regret at the amount of time she had allowed to pass withoutseeing him, selfishly following her own ambitions, not thinking about whom she had left behind. Not that it had gotten her very far, she admitted. No, her guilt was more than justified. Her relationship with Flo had been so one-sided, she recalled with shame, thinking of all the dedication and accommodations she had taken for granted. God, she must have been a right royal pain in the arse as a teen. Now, the tables were turned. Jules was grateful for the opportunity to start making amends.
Sighing, she continued her evaluation of the office. It was actually a rather nice room, leading as it did into the sunny little courtyard garden, shaded now, but glorious on a summer’s afternoon. Inexplicably, the entire side of the room opposite the desk was piled high with garden furniture. The painted wire outdoor sofa and two matching chairs occupied half the total floor space, with a little wire table shoved hard up against them, partly blocking the way to the door.
Hands on hips, Jules looked around thoughtfully. Flo was right, it could work in a pinch. There was a customer loo adjacent to the office and even a tiny kitchenette—hardly luxurious, but maybe...
“Aunt Flo?” she called, popping her head back into the shop where Flo sat, now in solitary splendor again, at the till where Jules had left her.
“Darling?” she replied, twisting around and putting herself in danger of toppling off the chair, or at the very least dislodging the propped-up leg.
“Don’t move!” Jules cried, starting toward her. “I was just wondering why all the garden furniture was stacked up in the office?”
“Oh, well, it was getting a bit rusty out there in the weather. I thought at least it should be inside through the winter. We’ve had a couple of warmer afternoons recently, and I’ve thought about putting it out again, but...”
“So, you wouldn’t mind if I did it?”
“Help yourself, I wish I could give you a hand.”
