‘Hornsea pottery, then?’ She’s more abrupt this time.
‘Umm.’ I scan the shop hoping to remember seeing shelves devoted to crafts, but it’s not ringing any bells.
‘It’s my first day, you see?’ I’m explaining, and she’s crumpling her lips at me, losing patience, when Jowan appears bringing the sunshine and fresh air of Clove Lore with him and I’m flooded with relief.
‘Nothing on Hornsea,’ he says, softly, ‘but there’s some nice old Meakin trade catalogues at the back under the sign that says “House Beautiful”, third row down.’
I watch the lady’s expression melt into a charmed smile under Jowan’s gentle gaze and she shuffles off amongst the shelves.
‘Thanks, Jowan. I haven’t quite got to grips with where everything is yet.’
‘You’ll get there,’ he reassures me. ‘So, the fellow arrived late last night, everything OK?’ Jowan squints around the shop looking for Elliot. He’s obviously still not convinced he isn’t a bit shifty.
‘He’s in the café, and from the sounds of it he’s doing a roaring trade already.’ There’s been a steady thrum of chatter and cutlery clinking for a while now and every so often Elliot’s deep voice makes its way to me out here. I let him get on with it, happy to focus on the task at hand – running my bookshop. ‘I,um, I didn’t actually know he was coming. My ex didn’t passthatdevelopment on to me. Didn’t mention Aldous either.’
Jowan’s eyes widen. ‘Ah!’ He stares at me, probably trying to decide what to do next. ‘Are… those things going to be a problem? Iuh, I can talk to the charity committee, see if we can move one of ’em, or both of ’em? Be easier to move the man than the dog, mind.’
‘Oh no, don’t,’ I protest, worried more for Jowan, who looks deeply concerned at the idea of evicting Aldous, than I am about my already surrendered fantasy of a solitary holiday. Maybe he thinks I’ll kick up a fuss, one-star the place on Tripadvisor. I rush to reassure him. ‘It’s fine, now that I’m getting used to things. Honestly. But, Jowan?’ I ask, tentatively. ‘There was one thing I was wondering. Is Aldous really OK sleeping in that window and fending for himself around town all evening? Wouldn’t he be happier at the B&B with you?’
We both look over to his spot on the sill where Aldous is snoring loudly. There are a couple of bluebottles trapped in the window and buzzing around his head but he doesn’t seem to have noticed.
‘Tried that,’ Jowan sighs. ‘He couldn’t settle, howled all day long and broke his heart, he did.’
‘But why? You’d think he’d be lonely here at the shop, away from his owner?’
Jowan’s eyes crinkle and he smiles but there’s sadness in it. ‘This is his home. Isolda and I lived here since before we were married. It was her bookshop, you see? And her mother’s before her. Isolda brought Aldous here as a rescue puppy and we had years together, our little holy trinity, she called it. But my wife passed away, two and a half years ago now, Christmas Eve it was. Poor little fella’s been pining for her ever since. I think he’s waiting for her to return. In truth, I think we all are. Isolda was the kind of woman you couldn’t believe would do such a thing as die, but it happened all the same.’ Jowan’s eyes dim but his lips still curl into a smile beneath his bristles.
Don’t cry, I tell myself, but there’s a lump in my throat. I’ve a horrible tendency to burst into tears at other people’s sad stories when it’stheirpain I should be focusing on. I gulp and we both look at Aldous again. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.
The ladies in the shop are clucking over recipe books now and I doubt anyone’s going to buy anything at this rate, but that’s OK, Jowan wants to show me something anyway. He takes a book down from a shelf, above which is painted the words, ‘“Death is an ascension to a better library”. John Donne’, in a gold curly script. Jowan hands me the book.
‘Did your wife paint that?’ I ask.
‘She did. She loved Donne, loved this shop.’ He smiles as he instructs me to turn to page one hundred and thirty-eight.
I do as I’m told and there’s a passage marked down the margin in the lightest, spidery pencil. I find I’m reading aloud but getting choked up again as I do.
When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
Jowan’s eyes are sparkling again when I meet them. ‘Aldous and I are just waiting for our scattered leaves to be bound up again…’ He tails off, reaches for the book in my hands and returns it to the shelf. ‘This one’s very expensive, on account of my not wanting to sell it. It was Isolda’s favourite. But it’s there for folks to read should they wish.’
That does it, I really am going to cry. Jowan doesn’t seem to mind the tear on my cheek. ‘But you live at the B&B now?’ I press, with a sniff. ‘You didn’t want to live here in your bookshop?’
‘Isolda forbade it, worried I’d haunt the place, mooning around, frightening the customers. It was her idea to share the shop with other booksellers, let them get a taste of how happy we were for twenty-five years. So I moved back to the B&B my family have always run. But Aldous, he won’t budge.’
‘The clothes!’ I blurt suddenly. ‘In his bed?’
‘Yep, they were hers. Bring him some comfort, I hope. It was the vet’s idea.’
I suddenly get the overwhelming urge to cook chicken soup for the poor bereft mutt. Jowan pulls a tissue from the box on the counter and hands it to me. ‘No crying in here, Jude. This is the happiest place on the coast. Don’t go feeling sorry for me.’
‘Just these, please!’ The voice cuts our conversation off and I’m faced with my first real customer. Not the teapot lady, but one of her group. She’s holding her purse open ready to pay. I try not to look at Jowan as I ring up the books. Each has a price pencilled inside the cover page, but as I jab the numbers into the till I find the digits start to swim a bit. This always happens when I’m faced with lots of numbers, but it’s worse when I’m being watched.
‘Need a hand there, Jude?’ Jowan’s already around my side of the desk, and there are more women queueing behind the first, all with a book or two in their hands, all looking impatient and making sure I’m aware their bus leaves the visitors’ centre in twenty minutes.
Jowan reads the prices aloud to me while I hit the keys and I only mess it up and have to start again three times, which isn’t that bad, is it?
Eventually, they are out the door, carrying away their treasures. It all happened too hurriedly to write down what they bought so I’ll have to rely on the till being correct for today. ‘Thanks,’ I mumble, knowing full well Jowan’s peering down at me, wondering why I can’t simply read prices and then make my fingers type those same numbers into the keypad without losing track of them or hitting the wrong keys and getting flustered.
