Getting passport photos taken at the key-cutters down the road the other day was a truly momentous occasion for all of us.
‘Imagine getting to fifty-five and never having owned a passport,’ Dad had marvelled, turning the strip of pictures over in his hands.
I had mine done too because Mum said I should be prepared for any eventuality, but I can’t see how it’ll get put to use any time soon. Devon’s alreadywayout of my comfort zone as it is, let alone hopping on a plane to some exotic destination.
So, to sum up, no, they don’t need me. It’s a feeling I’m becoming increasingly familiar with this summer. Even Daniel got over my bookshop news pretty sharpish and came straight over when he finished his shift, bringing a suitcase for me to borrow.
‘What’s this?’ I said, opening the door.
‘In case you change your mind. I’m here to witness the packing.’
‘Change my mind?’
‘Mm-hmm.’ He wheeled the case past me and bumped it up the stairs into my room. As usual he’s got me pinned pretty accurately. I’d spent a few sleepless nights catastrophizing about all the things that could go wrong and hoping I’d get a phone call to say there’d been a mistake and the bookshop wasn’t mine after all. In fact, that would have been a massive relief, if I’m honest, but Daniel wasn’t having any of that. After he had filled me in on the latest instalment of his long-running battle of wills with a young trainee nurse, Ekon-something-or-other, fresh out of college and not enjoying taking orders from the only slightly older Daniel, he went through the clothes I’d picked out for my trip with a critical, amused eye.
‘There’s the seven and a half hour drive to consider, first of all,’ I told him while he ransacked my wardrobe. ‘And it’ll probably be closer to ten hours in our old banger of a van. And that’sifI even survive the drive and I don’t accidentally end up on a ferry to Calais or something. You know I’m not great with maps.’
He just laughed at my driving concerns so I switched tack. ‘Then there’s the till and the money side of things,’ I confessed. ‘Maths anxiety isA Thing.’
Daniel was tipping out a bag of old t-shirts onto my bed and picking through them like the fashion maven that he is. Cruelly, he chucked most of them onto what he’d designated the charity shop pile. I quickly rescued Mum’s ancient Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt and shoved it behind me for safe keeping.
‘Tills do all the counting for you though. How can you go wrong?’ he shrugged. I could tell that a split second later he was struck by the memory of me ballsing up the money last Christmas when I was needed in the bakery to help with the Christmas cake orders while Mum went on a rare shopping trip with Auntie Anne. Somehow I managed to lose about fourteen quid that day and even when Dad went through the till receipts he couldn’t figure out how I’d managed it.
‘Granted, your command of numbers is… inimitable,’ he said, ‘but honestly, how much money’s a little bookshop going to take in one day? You can’t make much of a mess of a few quids’ takings, can you? You can repay any disparities with your wages anyway.’
‘That’s the thing,’ I cried. ‘There are no wages. Any profits go straight to the shop charity, they’re not mine. So I’d literally be swindling the shop if I made mistakes!’
‘You’re going a bit blue, Jude. Can you breathe, please?’ He’s so matter-of-fact, it would be annoying coming from anyone else. Stuff like that comes easily to Daniel but he’s never judged me for being hopeless with arithmetic. ‘Listen, you’re capable and competent, you’ll be all right. Just have a backup calculator by the till and make sure you write down everything you sell on paper, to be on the safe side.’ He’d come to sit beside me, bringing a bundle of clothes with him. ‘What’sharderto sort out, Judith Crawley, is the mystery of your wardrobe. Consider please, Exhibit A.’
He was holding up four pairs of what I call my ‘Oxford bags’; loose trousers in tweedy materials or cotton, a sea of wide-legged beige, twill and pinstripes. He dropped them on my lap. This was followed by two waistcoats, one that used to belong to Grandad – pretty sure it was part ofhisfather’s demob suit (it’s got a gorgeous, snatched Forties-style waist) –and another I found in a charity shop.
I’d bought them after watchingAnnie Halland falling head over heels for Diane Keaton’s seventies androgynous style. I even raided the wardrobe for Grandad’s ties and wore the whole thing combined with skinny shirts and Mum’s brown leather belt and – I’m embarrassed to admit this now – a taupe, nineteen-eighties bowler hat that used to be Daniel’s mum’s and was destined for the bin until I rescued it.
Looking at my everyday wardrobe chucked on the floor now it’s more reminiscent of a scarecrow than Diane’s cool Anglophile style, but six years ago, starting uni, it conveyed exactly the preppy, straight-out-of-the-pages-of-Brideshead Revisitedlook that I was aiming for, even though my never-behaves-itself flicky bob and five-foot-not-very-much curvy frame belie the fact I’m not the willowy, quirky aristo’ I wanted to portray myself as.
That’s exactly how I rocked up on my first day at uni, thinking everyone would be sartorially experimental like me and I was horrified to find my classmates all wearing leggings or sweats, but I’d stuck with it – ditching only the hat. It was A Look and I’d invested the only money I had in it and I’ve worn it every day since.
‘Can I say something?’ Daniel was humorously biting his lip and doing that amused-with-himself head wobble thing that he does, so I knew he was going to say it anyway. ‘This whole bijou, button-down shirts and brogues business? Do youreallyfeel like yourself in it?’
‘Well, sort of…’ Yup, pinned, as usual. Now that Mackageddon (the word seems to have stuck) had me questioning everything I’d previously thought was glamorous and appealing, I was beginning to realise those clothes were wearing me and not the other way around.
‘You don’t really want to stay here, do you?’ Daniel said suddenly, giving me a level look. ‘Passing up the first opportunity for a bit of fun that’s come along in ages?’
I sighed and let my shoulders slump. ‘I’ve never been anywhere on my own, and I’m almost thirty, it’s pathetic… and it’s scary.’
Daniel nodded. ‘All those years you gave to your Gran, well… they’re over now. She’s off doing her thing. It’s your turn. You know, I always wanted you to come to Spain and Ayia Napa with the nursing lot, and that time I went to New York, remember?’
Of course I remembered. I’d longed to go too but it was never an option for me, so I’d told myself, and everyone else, that I was needed at home, possibly more than I really was, especially recently when Gran’s been so mobile and fit. Maybe I was using her as a bit of an excuse, towards the end.
Daniel had squeezed my hand and smiled. I’m sure he knew what was going on in my head.
‘Let’s see what we can do with this stuff, eh? Maybe you’ll find your style this summer, if you just let life happen to you a bit, go with it?’
I’d nodded and felt sure I was going to cry until I saw Daniel rummaging in the half-packed suitcase and pulling something out. ‘Seriously, Jude, braces?’ He twanged them straight into the charity shop bag.
‘Hey! I liked those.’ This was met with an incredulous laugh and so I’d rammed the bowler hat down onto his head and we laughed away the rest of the day, trying new outfit combinations and working on something that better suited a bookseller, literature lover and holidaymaker-slash-brave-adventurer setting out alone for the south west coast.
And that’s how I ended up here, at three a.m. on a Saturday morning in the middle of August, standing by Dad’s van, engine running, suitcase in the back, ready to leave.
