The Bookshop of New Beginnings: Heart-warming, uplifting – a perfect feel good read!. Jen Mouat

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СКАЧАТЬ hadn’t any money for the bus, but anyway, she felt safer walking than she would on the night bus with the drunks and weirdos. When she arrived on the Cottons’ peaceful, sleeping, suburban street only a mile from her own dark, uncared-for tenement, she was a mess: hair in rattails, stark white face, eyes like holes burned in cloth. No wonder Dan had looked so shocked when he opened the door, his father appearing behind him, rumpled and helpless, with glasses askew. Kate remembered, despite the overriding cold and fear and loneliness of that night, the warmth of Dan’s hand as he pulled her inside, as he put his arm so gently around her and guided her into the kitchen; the concern and anger on his face as he sat across the table from her listening to her story, while Ally made lumpy hot chocolate and Fergus buttered toast, and Emily sat as close to Kate as it was possible to be. Later, Jonathon had driven her to the tenement to check on her mother – passed out and snoring on the sofa – and collect her things. She had stayed with the Cottons for a week, begged them not to call social services upon her return; she didn’t want to be taken away from Emily and the brothers. From then on, she spent most of her time at the Cottons’ house anyway, and it was worth putting up with the occasional night with her mother to preserve her sanctum.

      It was the first time Kate had asked for anything. She had shown the Cottons the worst of herself and they hadn’t shunned her. Kate – hitherto so closed and wary, so protectively curled around the shame of her home life – had opened up like an unfolding flower.

      It was the first the Cotton siblings had glimpsed of the reality of Kate’s life; the first they knew of any lives lived like hers: without refrigerators filled with an endless availability of food, or nagging parents complaining about picking up laundry, but always remembering to pack lunches or sign forms for school trips; homes like Kate’s that were not warm and safe, where adult responsibilities and fear came much too soon. This enlightenment was sobering and all four Cottons became fiercely protective from there on in.

      Kate hadn’t been afraid after that because she had never again felt alone; their acceptance sparked new confidence in her, and helped to determine a different course. Afterwards, she joked that the brothers were as much hers as Emily’s, to which Emily was wont to reply that she was welcome to them. At thirteen, Emily was at the age to despise her family: Dan was supercilious by dint of being eldest; Fergus was a pain in the neck, always playing practical jokes and taking the piss; Ally trailed after Kate and Emily like a lost puppy most of the time; and Noah was too young to be of any use.

      Kate wouldn’t have traded them for anything.

      Kate hovered in the hall, memories of that miserable night, and others, too close for comfort. This was the home of her heart, these were the Cottons; and she couldn’t remember their beneficence without feeling fragments of that old pain.

      It was frightening, this change, turning her back on everything she had cultivated and embarking on a path so uncertain, but it was also exhilarating, necessary. Kate squared her shoulders as she descended the last two steps. She had been the chameleon all her life, forced to adapt, to make her own way. She’d managed to secure a place at university to study art, bolstering her mediocre grades with a heap of hard work and a little help from Emily; left Lily and the tenement and all they represented behind to forge a new life in America – playing the part of someone confident and carefree from the outset and being surprised when everyone seemed taken in by this new incarnation.

      Emily was in the kitchen, making noisy dinner preparations. Kate stood in the doorway for a moment and observed the scene of domestic … well, bliss wasn’t precisely the right word … with a smile. ‘Need a hand?’ She wasn’t sure what Emily was making, but it seemed to involve using most of the utensils and pans in the kitchen.

      ‘Oh, hi. No, I’m good thanks. Sit and talk to me by all means. Do you still like Bolognese?’

      ‘Yes.’ Kate studied the unique array of ingredients on the bench. ‘But are you quite certain that’s what you’re making?’

      ‘Well, a version of it. I just chuck everything in.’

      ‘So I see.’ Kate slid into a seat at the table and looked around the room. Besides the unfolding dinner carnage, the room was clean, but cluttered; she hadn’t taken the time to look around properly earlier, too preoccupied. She studied a pinboard neatly arranged with little slips of paper, thick black pen in Emily’s hand marking out instructions and appointments: a manual for getting through the day. Alongside that was another board of photographs, each carefully labelled. Kate rose and went to study the board. If not for those labels it might have been any ordinary display of family pictures, in an ordinary kitchen, rather than a glaring reminder of Lena’s illness.

      These photographs were recent and she eyed them with interest, updating her mental picture of them all. ‘Tell me about the boys,’ she said, tapping a photo showing all five Cotton siblings – at an airport by the looks of things, if backdrop and baggage were anything to go by. Fergus was in the middle, his red hair vibrant and a grin on his face, his arms spread wide to pull all his siblings into the frame of the picture.

      ‘The boys? There’s not much to tell really. They’re the same.’

      Kate laughed. ‘They can’t be; it’s been six years.’ The boys in the picture were men now, every one; only Noah, the youngest, still clung to the vestiges of boyhood.

      Emily dumped a can of tomatoes into the strange concoction in a pan on the Aga. She gave it a cursory stir and turned to look at Kate, frowning as she tried to summarise six years in a single sentence apiece. The first came as a blow to Kate, though she hadn’t any right to care. ‘Well, Dan got married a couple of years ago. He and Abby run the farm together and Abby’s pregnant with their first child. Noah lives with them just now; he’s working on the farm this summer – he was having a hard time at home. He got expelled from school. I can’t believe he’s seventeen, can you?’

      Kate thought of the boy she had known, a gentle, shy eleven-year old. ‘No. Wait … expelled?’

      Emily nodded. ‘It’s a long story and one you should hear from him. He’ll probably tell you, he always liked you more than the rest of us. He won’t talk about it,’ she added with a scowl that suggested it was an ongoing battle.

      Kate put this knowledge aside to be considered later. ‘What about Fergus?’

      ‘Went to Australia eight months ago. He’s having a ball. He and Dan had a falling-out over the running of the business. It was always Dan’s farm – Lena gave it to him to run when her last tenants pulled out – and Fergus’s interference didn’t go down too well. Ferg’s happier setting out on his own anyway. Alistair’s fine. He’s in London. He got his law degree and now he’s working towards making partner in his firm. We barely see him.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘You know what it’s like, everyone’s busy.’ Her tone was brisk as she turned her back and stirred the saucepan’s contents again.

      ‘You’re scattered, aren’t you? I suppose it was stupid to think you’d all still be here.’ In contradiction to her words, Kate felt discomfited. ‘I suppose people move on,’ she said vaguely.

      ‘Yeah, like to New York.’ Emily couldn’t help herself.

      Kate conceded the point. ‘Fair enough. It’ll be great to see Dan and Noah again. I’m glad they’re here. I missed your brothers almost as much as I missed you.’

      Emily turned to look at her. ‘I was right here,’ she said. An awkward silence fell. She had no right to mind, really; Kate might bear the brunt of the blame for being the one to flee the country, but strictly speaking Emily left first; though there wasn’t anything to СКАЧАТЬ