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

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СКАЧАТЬ looked at her friend anew and stifled her surprise. Noticed that Emily, clad only in her towel, had knobs of bone in place of rounded flesh. Her ribs popped out like bicycle spokes and her legs were too thin. Kate raised her eyes to Em’s face and saw for the first time the hollowness of her cheeks, the way the bones jutted and protruded around her eyes. Sadness and turmoil had stripped her of flesh, a diet not to be recommended and, honestly, it didn’t quite suit Emily. Kate thought she better suited her softness and curves. ‘Of course,’ she said softly. ‘Take whatever you want.’ She measured the new, slender Emily with a dressmaker’s eye. ‘Actually, I have a maxi-dress that would look great with your hair.’ She rummaged in her suitcase and produced the sundress, patterned teal and bronze in a bold flower print. She found a pair of sandals and handed these over too. ‘Put them on,’ she instructed. ‘Let me see you.’

      Emily departed, smiling, with her loot. Kate stepped into the shorts and zipped them. They sat loose on her hips. She was vain enough to be glad that her last spray tan was holding, her long legs were still golden and smooth. She shoved her feet into a pair of red thongs – flip-flops, she reminded herself and the name sounded childlike and cheerful, evocative of half-baked summers, buckets and spades and cheap, plastic crab lines from the pocket money section of the newsagent.

      She smiled to herself, loving the onomatopoeia of the word as she flipped and flopped around the room, brushing her hair and putting on the white-gold bangle Ben gave her for one birthday.

      Emily looked good in the dress; she knew it and couldn’t help smiling. For once she carried herself with confidence, a self-assured tilt to her chin. She twirled, enjoying the diaphanous swirl of her skirt around her calves. The dress was soft and floaty, tight over the bust and flaring from the waist. Gold sandals peeped out from under the hem. ‘You look amazing,’ she said, only a little disgruntled that Kate had made an ugly pair of shorts look so good.

      They linked arms and walked down the stairs together, following the clink of crockery that signalled a presence in the kitchen. Emily paused by the mirror in the hall to examine her reflection again, fiddling with her hair, and Kate proceeded into the kitchen alone.

      She was tentative as she entered the room, not wanting to startle Lena, a little afraid that Lena might have forgotten her again. But it was not Lena she found in the kitchen, clattering crockery and making a messy breakfast, scraping a chair across the flagstones and banging down a bowl of cereal in a puddle of spilled milk. It was a young man – a boy, Kate realised, paying him closer inspection: a boy with the Cotton features and the eyes of a child she used to know, tucking into a breakfast of builder’s tea and Cheerios.

      ‘Noah!’ she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. Here was the physical evidence of her six-year absence. There was not such a huge difference in Emily between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-seven, and physically Dan had changed little; but between eleven and seventeen, one changed beyond recognition; as indeed Noah had – from boy to nearly man. He still had the lanky frame of a teenager, skinny in places, burgeoning with muscle in others. He wore the uniform of his generation: jeans riding low, T-shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch. He had the bed-head look of someone who didn’t really care about his appearance. His eyes were clear and bright, and his skin scrubbed and clean, with only a few pimples, a faint shadow where he had begun to shave, a crescent of fatigue smudged beneath each eye as if he hadn’t slept much; but he possessed the resilience of youth, and on him the look was endearing and boyish.

      He looked up from his cereal. ‘Kate,’ he said with excited inflection. ‘Dan said you were here. I came over to see for myself.’ He glanced down at his bowl and gestured with his spoon. ‘And because I needed breakfast.’

      ‘Dan doesn’t feed you?’ Kate asked, pulling out a seat and sliding into it. She wanted to hug Noah, but she felt too awkward; for him it had been a long time. What memory did Noah have of her after all this time? Eleven was formative, hovering on the brink of teenagedom, with childhood memories lingering long.

      ‘It wasn’t the lack of breakfast,’ Noah explained, digging his spoon into the soggy mess of cereal. ‘It was the fact that Dan seemed to feel the best accompaniment to it was a morning lecture.’

      Kate smiled. ‘Was it deserved, this lecture?’

      Noah considered. He chewed and shrugged with easy grace. ‘Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I had to sit and listen to it.’

      Kate filed away his response to think about later. There was something lost and fragile about Noah; she thought back to what Emily had told her about his expulsion, and Dan’s acerbic comments about him getting drunk with his mates. ‘Did you have a good time last night? You were out with friends, right?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘So, did you have a good time?’

      He shrugged again. ‘Yeah. You know. It’s really good to see you. We’re all glad you came.’

      ‘Oh?’ Kate was a little taken aback.

      Noah nodded. ‘You’re here and everything is going to be different for Em.’

      The kitchen door swung open and Emily entered. ‘Hey, Noah,’ she said, ruffling her brother’s hair as she walked past. Noah recoiled, scowling, as if this were a common annoyance. ‘What you up to?’ Her tone held a sing-song cadence that seemed to irk her brother.

      ‘What does it look like? Eating breakfast, talking to Kate.’

      Emily gave him a measured look. ‘I mean, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be working? Dan’s your boss, you know.’

      ‘Like I could ever forget.’ Noah pushed his cereal bowl to one side and stood. He went over to the kettle, filled it and put it on to boil again. ‘Tea?’ he offered, glancing over his shoulder. ‘I made Lena one. She’s already out in the garden with Bracken.’

      ‘Is she all right?’ Emily’s voice grew sharp.

      ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t she be? Tea?’ He turned away from his sister and aimed the question at Kate.

      ‘Sure. Thanks.’ Kate knew there was no point asking for coffee; this was Bluebell Bank, where no one could go longer than an hour without another cup of tea, and coffee was considered the devil’s own drink.

      ‘So,’ Emily persisted, again with the bright, enquiring lilt that seemed to so irritate her little brother. ‘Tell me why you’re not at work.’

      ‘Because if I’d had to spend another hour in Dan’s company we would have hurt each other. Abby doesn’t need the stress of that in her condition.’

      Emily made an impatient, teacherish noise. ‘You really should make more effort with him. Like I said, he’s your boss. He pays your wages.’

      ‘That doesn’t give him the right to tell me what to do with my life.’

      She frowned. ‘Actually it does. You do live under his roof and you’re only seventeen.’

      Noah filled the mugs with boiling water. He crossed to the fridge and took out the milk carton. There was something deliberate about his movements. Kate watched them both, dismayed at the skin of tension that flexed and rippled between them. She cast around for something to say to ease the atmosphere.

      ‘If you’re not working today,’ she said, with sudden inspiration, ‘what are you doing?’

      ‘Getting over СКАЧАТЬ