I’m quickly discovering that everything creaks, too. The vertiginously warped floors and the creaking sounds give me the feeling of being at sea in a strange old ark full of books.
I have to flick lamps on as I go, to illuminate all the dark cubbyholes and crannies.
Nothing is bright, except for the dried flowers in clay jugs that are dotted around the shop. Everywhere else there are the colours of old mahogany and lead paint in sage, faded burgundy and ochre. Then there’s the leather and cloth book bindings – also a sludgy palette of greens, reds and black. The whole effect speaks to me of times long ago, the easy passing of the seasons, and hours happily lost engrossed in books Up-along – or is it Down-along when you’re in the middle of the slope? Whatever. This place is heavenly! Happy chemicals buzz through me. This must be what pure joy feels like.
The spiral staircase creaks as I drag my case up, huffing and puffing as I go because I was not expecting a workout at the end of my long day’s travelling. Bathroom, avocado-shell green. Nice and retro, spotlessly clean.
Behind a flimsy sliding door is my bedroom which, it turns out, comprises two single beds shoved together and a few hooks on the wall for clothes, and that’s it. There’s no room for anything else up here under the pointed hat of the roof. But there is a lovely big box window with a long cushioned sill inside to curl up on, and there’s a view of the stormy sea and sky. A perfect reading spot.
I snap a few selfies on my phone and send them to Daniel with a heart-eyes emoji and he instantly pings an ‘OMG!!!’ back at me.
My stomach starts telling me it’s time to find something to eat. Going down the spiral staircase is easier than going up I find, but just as creaky.
I trip over the raised threshold and into the little sunken kitchen area at the very back of the shop and my heart swells even more. Well, I say ‘kitchen’… There’s a crazed Belfast sink with no plug, an old gas stove with a tin kettle – the whistling kind – on the hob, and there’s a metal tea caddy with ‘1/6d’ printed on the lid. That’s it, it’s officially nineteen fifty-two in here.
Mercifully, there’s a modern fridge in the corner and a table set for two by the window with a view over higgledy-piggledy slate rooftops below.
I clear away one of the place settings, wondering if this was the work of the previous guests, the spy-novel fans? Like everyone else they were expecting a couple to move in for the fortnight.
‘It’s only me, I’m afraid,’ I say to the cool air as I put the dish away in a lemon-yellow cabinet that looks like it’s been here since the middle of last century. I’m struck by the thought that this must be the café kitchen as well as the place I’ll make my own meals. ‘Not much of a café set up,’ I mutter to myself, peering out at the shop floor. There are a few chairs scattered around the bookshop but nothing resembling an actual cosy café. I resign myself to making my scones in here and to the fact I’ll likely only have a few customers looking for food in the coming days. What a pity.
The realisation only takes the shine off my happy new situation a tiny bit. Filling the kettle, I still find myself sighing contentedly. My nerves have calmed considerably now that I’m here among the books and nobody’s watching me settling in. I can take the rest of the evening to adjust and unpack, no hurry whatsoever.
As the gas ring whooshes into life beneath the kettle, I’m trying really hard not to think about how much Mack would have loved this place. He’d raid those shelves and leave with bags full of lovely old books and he’d probably only ever read a handful of them. And there it is once again – the pang of humiliation at being taken in by him, and my embarrassment about being so green. He must have taken one look at the stars in my eyes and known I’d fall for his privileged baloney. He had the readymade bookish life I longed for, all afternoon tea and lazy evenings reading poetry on antique armchairs. But that wasn’t mine. And, looking back, it was all illusory. I didn’t belong there. I haven’t really belonged anywhere other than at home with Gran.
But this bookshop is soaked in old-timey bookishness; it’s just the kind of place I used to dream about visiting as a kid and – I can’t help squealing a bit as this thought really hits home – thisisall mine.
I revel in the strange feeling that I might actually belong somewhere for once (even if it is just for a fortnight). My name’s in the guest ledger by the till. I’m fully paid up. This really is my little kingdom and I don’t have to please anyone but myself for fourteen whole days.
The kettle whistles, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I’m happy to find a carton of fresh milk in the fridge alongside two strawberry tarts. There’s a Post-it note stuck to the dish.
With love from Charles and Enid. These did a roaring trade in ‘our’ café!
Enjoy your stay, x
p.s. We found Aldous to be far less troublesome than we were led to believe. Just keep him supplied with chicken broth and cheddar butties and he’ll pretty much keep himself to himself.
Aldous again! I’m not going to let whoever this picky customer is worry me right now. Not when there’s a fresh pack of Devonshire cheese in the fridge and a loaf in a brown paper bag (nice one, Charles and Enid!) and my stomach is growling with hunger. I have everything I need to survive the night.
I’ve just got settled on a kitchen chair with my cuppa and am about to take a bite of my doorstop sandwich, when I hear it – a sort of sniffing, scuffling sound. I hadn’t had this place pegged as haunted (it’s got such a cosy, calm feel to it) and I’m not going to give in to the panicked thoughts racing through my head which are saying,what if it’s rats? Or mice? Mice are marginally worse than rats because they’re so tiny they can poo in the sugar bowl or run right up your pyjama sleeve while you’re sleeping!
That’s when I peer through the kitchen door into my shop and notice the messy jumble of rags dumped on a pile of blankets in one of the larger window alcoves overlooking the sea and I leave the sandwich and cross the shop floor to inspect it.
Is it an abandoned art project? Some kind of felting or macramé? Whatever it is, it’s getting shoved in a cupboard or, better yet, chucked in the bin. I’m only feet away when I realise the bundle of beige scraps is definitely the source of the noise and it’s moving. Snoring, in fact.
‘A dog? How did you get in here?’
It’s only now I notice there’s a largish cat flap in the shop door.
I give the scruffy bundle a tentative poke and it shifts, revealing a pale brown nose and snuffling nostrils, but it doesn’t open its eyes.
I’m on my way to the till to grab Jowan’s phone number to ask whether he’s left his mutt here and somehow hasn’t realised (how is that possible?), when it strikes me.
‘Oh no.’ I turn back, reach for the blue collar around the dog’s scruffy neck and reveal a nametag baring the legend ‘Aldous’. How could I not know the shop comes with a resident dog?
Ah!Mack! Were there other emails from the bookshop trust he was supposed to forward to me? Maybe it didn’t occur to him that I’d like to know I’d be sharing my holiday with a scruffy… ‘Well, what breed of dogareyou, Aldous?’
He doesn’t answer and I back away into the kitchen again. I watch him sleep for a while. Only once I’m halfway through my sandwich does he move, stretching in his raggedy bed. He lifts one lid and eyes me lazily, spots the sandwich in my hand and immediately hops off his window perch.
