Page 3 of The Vanishing Bookstore
He gave a curt nod. ‘Apology accepted. I’ll have a think and get back to you, take care Dora.’
And with that he swept out of the shop, leaving behind the lingering scent of aftershave. The door chimes whipped against each other furiously.
She sat down on the chair, which was still warm from his body heat, ashamed of her behaviour. What had come over her?
She looked around; she hadn’t felt right all day. In fact, she’d been feeling off for a while now. It was a strange feeling. Not quite anxiety. She felt as if something was missing from her life. As she stood up the skin on the back of her neck began to crawl.
She went back to the bouquet and began to finish it off by hand, tying the stems together. The door opened and her relief was palpable. It was Mabel Hastings, the old lady who lived above the shop, in an equally tiny flat as Dora’s shop. Mabel smiled at her and Dora threw her arms wide open and rushed towards her.
‘Happy Birthday, Mabel, have you had a lovely day?’
Mabel was the best hugger that Dora knew. Dora’s Aunt Lenny, who she lived with, wasn’t much of a hugger at all. She was an independent soul, who’d always wanted Dora to be self-sufficient herself. Dora had to make do with stealing hugs from Mabel as often as she could.
‘I’m all the better for seeing you. Do you want to come to the bingo later? We could win this time with my birthday luck.’
‘Mabel, I love you but I’m not going to the bingo with you even if it is your birthday. You know how rubbish I am, last time I shouted house when I didn’t even have a line and I thought the whole room were going to beat me to death with their bingo dabbers.’
Mabel’s eyes crinkled as she giggled. ‘Yes, you are quite an embarrassment. Okay, how about coffee and cake at the café before it closes?’
Dora picked up the huge bouquet and passed it to Mabel. ‘Now that sounds more like it. Happy Birthday.’
Tears pricked at the corners of Mabel’s eyes. ‘Oh, Dora, you shouldn’t have, I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can and yes I should. Come on, if we take them in the café, they’ll realise it’s your birthday and they might throw in a free cake.’
She let Mabel out first and locked the door behind her, taking one last look around the shop that she loved so much.
The Café was across the cobbled alley. It was brightly lit against the now gloomy autumn sky. Dora had asked the owner, Mason, why it was called The Café once, and he’d replied he didn’t have the time to think up a fancy name for it when that’s what it was. She hadn’t argued with him, it made sense.
As they walked through the door into the industrial-style shop the aroma of freshly ground coffee hit her nostrils like a steam train, and she smiled. Maybe this was what was missing from her life. Coffee, chocolate and fresh flowers were her favourite scents, and as she navigated Mabel and her gargantuan bouquet of flowers to the biggest table in the corner, she smiled to herself. George’s aftershave was now added onto her list of favourite scents. It was a good job she’d never see him again, despite how good he smelled. She had firmly lost his customwith her outburst. Crossing to the counter, she ordered two large hazelnut lattes and the last two slices of Victoria sponge cake. She would just have to console herself with lashings of buttercream and jam after losing out on what was probably the biggest order she’d have taken that week. God knew she could have done with his custom.
She felt better now that Mabel was here. She liked being around her; she was wise, with a stoic energy, full of advice. She was a comfort, not that Dora could understand why. She had her shop, she had a life here in London. But she always felt a little lost. If only she could figure out what the missing ingredient was, her life would be pretty perfect.
2
Lenora English, or Lenny to her family, had known early this morning that something was looming on the horizon. It had been the damn rabbit that had started it. She’d been almost out of the car park, driving home from her shift at the hospital, when it had darted across the road right in front of her car. She’d had to slam her brakes on, narrowly missing it. Making sure no one was watching she then had to jump out of the car, make a sign of the cross on the road and spit into it (which was most unladylike), while walking backwards to her car, praying the security guards weren’t watching her strange behaviour on the CCTV monitors in the office.
When she got home and decided to make herself some scrambled eggs for breakfast, the lid had fallen off the salt grinder as she’d taken it out of the cupboard, spilling salt all over the gleaming white marble worktops. Of course, she’d thrown a pinch over her left shoulder with her right hand, but it had unsettled her even more. Then a few hours later came the phone call she had been dreading.
She was sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked under her as she whispered down the phone to her sister Sephy, afraid thatDora may walk through the doors any moment and hear the conversation that wasn’t for her to know about. At least not yet.
‘How poorly is she, Sephy? Give me a timeline. What does she have left? Months, weeks? For the love of God do not say days.’
‘If you answered your mail occasionally, Lenny, you would have known this was coming. What’s taking her so long this time, why is she not even the slightest bit suspicious of her heritage? It never usually takes her this long, has something gone wrong, do you think? Has she forgotten everything? Lost her memories completely? Maybe sending her away was a bad idea. I hoped this time it would make the difference.’
‘How long has Lucine got, Sephy?’ Lenny replied, her tone firm.
‘You’re the doctor, if you were here, you would know. I can’t say for certain. Come home, Lenny, you can’t avoid it forever. I think you’re using Dora as an excuse not to come back. Well, it’s no good. I think she may have a couple of months if we’re lucky, she’s holding on to see Dora.’
‘But she hasn’t even started the process. Do you remember the last time we did it, when she wasn’t ready for it, and how difficult it was to get her to escape from that dreadful asylum? It gives me the shivers just thinking about that place, those poor people covered in lice and screaming from dawn until dusk. She’s a lot more fragile than the rest of us. More important.’
‘I know she is, and it was so horrid that she ended up locked in that awful place for months. It was lucky for her that you found her and managed to help her get out, but what are we to do? Each time it takes her longer to come back to us, I fear it’s not right. Something is awry.’
Lenny sighed, thinking that you could take the girl out of the 1600s but you’d never take the 1600s out of the girl. ‘Tell Lucine I’ll be there in a few days; I’ll bring Dora too.’
‘What will you tell her?’
‘I don’t know, I’ll think of something.’
