‘Here you all are,’ came the voice once more, accompanied by the sandy hair and weathered face of Jowan, the bookshop’s owner, his pearl-drop earing bouncing off his jaw as he smiled. ‘You don’t have any cheddar on you? Dog’s got a nose full of somethin’ good,’ he asked Radia, making her giggle.
Radia told him about Monty’s big fish, and Monty waved from his spot over the coals.
‘I’m glad to meet you, at last,’ he said, offering Joy a hand and apologising for not visiting sooner. ‘I’ve been distracted helping Minty with her wedding plans up at the Big House.’
Joy told him she’d already met his wife and she’d looked extremely busy, to which Jowan only nodded diplomatically, and the three stood around the little beige dog who was now flat on his back having his belly scratched.
‘Does hereallylike cheese?’ Radia asked, and Jowan told her how, long ago, that was all he’d eaten. ‘Well, that and scones and chicken soup! His favourites. But Elliot’s got him on a diet these days, and he’s all the better for it.’
Radia wanted to know if Aldous ate his soup with a spoon and Jowan chuckled, crouching down beside the girl, telling her all about how Elliot had saved Aldous’s life with an operation on his tummy.
Eventually, the smoke got too strong for them so they left Monty to get the flames going and headed around the corner and back inside the shop. Jowan led the way, but made them stop abruptly just inside the doorway while he took in the piles of books.
‘Long time since I’ve seen the place lookin’ like this,’ he told Joy.
Radia, now carrying Aldous in an awkward kind of doggy stranglehold that he didn’t seem to mind, pricked up her ears, thinking Jowan looked like he was about to say more. A wistful glaze had passed over his eyes, but he only swallowed hard and ran a hand down his beard.
Joy knew it wasn’t very generous of her, but she was glad he hadn’t regaled them with a story about his shop. They were here to shelve the books, not to get all emotional about things.
‘You’ve got a tattoo!’ Radia told Jowan, gaping at the faded blue anchor that stretched from his thumb across the back of his hand.
‘I do.’
‘Because you’re a pirate?’
‘I am,’ he told her, crouching again. ‘Only, don’t let on to anyone. They’ll be pesterin’ me for my treasure map again.’
‘I found a book about pirates,’ Radia said, setting Aldous down and taking Jowan’s tattooed hand, pulling him through the piles of paperbacks towards the under-stairs nook where she’d arranged the children’s books messily in piles, according to the colours of their spines.
Joy heard him remarking how that was such a clever idea and they should be shelved just like that. ‘Jus’ like a rainbow.’
Within moments, Radia had Aldous on her lap on one of the beanbags, with Jowan reclining on the other one holding Charley fox on his knee, the four of them enjoying the pictures in a 1960sPirate Tales for Children.
Joy watched them from a distance. She couldn’t help thinking of her own father reading to her when she was Radia’s age and just getting to grips with phonics. Her favourites had been her Ladybird books, with the spotty inside covers. Her younger sister Patti (short for Patience) loved them too.
The urge to pick up her phone and leave her sister a voice message – the closest they got to direct communication these days – gnawed at her.
She pulled the phone from her pocket and scrolled to Patti’s last message, received over a month ago now when Joy and Radia were back in their London flat for a few days between jobs and only a few miles from Patti’s place in Richmond, where she lived with her two flatmates.
She clicked on the message and listened again.
‘Joy, it’s me. I hope you’re both doing OK. I have no idea what time zone you’re in but I hope you’re getting this. There’s something I wanted to talk with you about. Nothing major, and Mum and Dad are totally fine, so don’t go worrying. They’re on their way back from Portugal, actually. Loved it, apparently. And they miss you both, of course. Not that they told me to say that. I’m not interfering or anything. I just think they do miss you.Um, uh, right, sorry, that’s not what I called to say. Listen, give Rads a big squeeze from her favourite aunt, and I’ll talk to you soon, OK? Call me. Or text. Or anything. I’ll be here. OK, love you lots, kiss kiss.’
Joy had sent her a voice message straight back, letting Patti know they were both fine and that she was busy as always – and that was it, she didn’t want to let on that they were so close to home, knowing Patti would be round like a shot.
It had hurt not to tell her, but in those rare moments when they returned to the flat, squeezing through the door piled up with takeaway menus and important letters, there was always laundry to do, dentist and doctor appointments to catch up on, contracts to look over and the next sets of flights to book. By the time that was all sorted out it was time to leave again, or at least that’s how Joy justified it to herself.
And if Patti knew they were back at the flat, there was a slim chance she’d let Mum and Dad know too, and Joy just couldn’t deal with that. Maybe they’d want to meet up after all this time apart. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t. She didn’t know which scenario was worse, and she really didn’t want to find out.
It was easier to text her parents now and again, never disclosing where they were exactly, sending the occasional picture of Radia. Her mum would text back about how much Radia was growing, and that was pretty much it. Economical, to the point, very little in the way of trust or truth-telling.
Patti understood all this, of course. After the big falling-out, she – the youngest of the family – had been the only one to try making amends. Just as Radia was turning five months old, Joy’s little sister had got in touch and told her she couldn’t lose her again, but she also didn’t want to be a go-between.
Joy understood how it only caused upset if Patti talked about her sister and niece at home, and so, as far as Joy could tell, she didn’t mention them anymore. But still, now so much time had passed, and with Radia overshooting school age, she could feel it: the building expectation that they’d go home for good.Thatwould be the thing Patti wanted to talk with her about.
Patti must somehow know that Joy was thinking about the school place open to Radia. It would be just like her to offer to help with school runs and pick-ups, anything to encourage her to go back home. But that all felt like far too much unsafe intrusion into The Joy and Radia Bubble. Still, Joy missed her sister terribly.
Retreating to the low café doorway, she recorded a furtive message.
