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

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СКАЧАТЬ Six

Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-one

       Chapter Twenty-two

       Chapter Twenty-three

       Chapter Twenty-four

       Chapter Twenty-five

       Chapter Twenty-six

       Chapter Twenty-seven

       Chapter Twenty-eight

       Chapter Twenty-nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-one

       Chapter Thirty-two

       Epilogue

       Copyright

Chapter One

      The musty scent of old books was both damp and dry. It clogged Kate’s nose and throat as soon as she stepped over the threshold, but was not entirely unpleasant. The bookshop was an old stone building set back off the main street of Wigtown, along a narrow alley dog-legging between shops; a crazy-paved path wove through an explosion of dense, free-spirited shrubbery. The shop was an unprepossessing place at first glance, viewed through a curtain of drizzle and wreathed in grey Solway mist. A peeling, hand-painted sign pointed the way to a barn filled with books, the interior almost invisible through its dirty windows. Floor-length, rickety metal shelves and overflowing tables filled up the space with no order, no arrangement, no rhyme or reason as yet; just precious words, mouldering and haphazardly stacked.

      Into the midst of this muddle stepped Kate Vincent, just off a transatlantic flight. She was travel-weary, bemused, still to fathom exactly how came she to be here.

      Behind the antique counter sat Emily Cotton, wearing a cable-knit fisherman sweater and a loopy scarf of pink and gold. Kate had made this for her, parcelled it up and sent it across the Atlantic – her attempt to resurrect a friendship feared long dead. She got a polite thank-you note in reply – Emily was well brought up that way – and that was their last communication. Until the email.

      Emily’s dark head was bent over a book, her lips moving as she read. She had an unhealthy indoor pallor and blue crescent moons of fatigue beneath grey eyes, which, when she glanced up at the sudden intrusion, seemed dull and lifeless. A weird beam of half-sun pushed through the murk and lit her face as she stared at Kate. It transformed her, burnishing her wiry curls to copper, turning her grey eyes mauve and luminous. There was a moment of confusion; then a howl of surprise and delight as she flung herself off her stool, exclaiming, ‘Kate, you came!’

      It was a month since the email, composed and dispatched under the influence of three-quarters of a bottle of Merlot. A summons, a plea to an old friend in time of need. Emily had begged for assistance with this hasty new enterprise of hers, this ill-conceived ploy – at least melancholy and Merlot combined to make it seem so; in brighter moments it was more like a dream. Her grand, if undefined plan, was to run a bookshop in a town already famous for them.

      Emily’s status as proprietor was signed and sealed, but faced with the enormity of the task ahead – and complete lack of both business experience and, she suspected, general acumen – she needed help. She also wasn’t in the proper frame of mind to be taking on this venture; she had been yo-yoing between delight and despair for weeks now, procrastinating like mad. Most days Emily wandered disconsolately through the cold shop, idly shifting books from one shelf to another; or else buried herself in a novel for a few hours and avoided the hard work, the decisions.

      She hadn’t the heart for decisions; even the simplest of them felt beyond her. Fear and expectation of failure had diminished her, chiselled away at her resolve. Joe was in her thoughts all the time, undermining her and reminding her of her weakness.

      Now – impossibly – Kate had come and Emily instinctively knew that all would be well.

      ‘You came!’ she said again, her voice fading to a whisper of incredulity, as if she doubted the evidence of her own eyes. Perhaps she had conjured this Kate-mirage out of sheer desperation. If that was the case, she really was in a bad way, as her family was wont to believe.

      Emily threw her arms around Kate and felt the incontrovertible evidence of her friend, breathed in her perfume and shampoo – only Kate could look and smell so good after a long flight. Old envy cloaked her and hastily she pushed the feeling away; she didn’t want the reminders of her worst self.

      Kate closed her eyes and returned the embrace, sinking into memories: crystal clear, perfect, untainted for her by disappointment or guilt. They surged to the surface and broke through. The impulsive steamroller embrace – so typical of Emily and her affectionate family – smoothed the awkwardness of the reunion after so long apart; despite Emily’s hair getting in her mouth and her clumsy tread on Kate’s СКАЧАТЬ