‘Hey Patti, it’s me. How’s the event organising going? I hope you’re looking after yourself properly, not working all hours. And I hope Mum and Dad are OK. We’re fine. Rads is doing fine.’ Joy glanced across the shop. Jowan was swishing an imaginary cutlass in the air and they were both making pirate cries. ‘Actually, Rads is probably happier than she’s been in a while.’
‘So this is where the party is?’ interrupted a cheerful voice from all the way across the shop. Joy’s nerves jumped at the sudden appearance of the two men in the doorway. Seeing she was on her phone, the one that had spoken had his hands spread out in apology already.
‘I’d better go, love you too,’ she told the voice message before quickly hitting send.
There wasn’t time to tell her sister she was doing a tech installation in a bookshop. That’d tickle Patti. She loved to read. She was a bigger nerd than Joy, except Patti was born with all the creativity and spontaneity, while Joy got all the practicality and shyness. Though that hadn’t stopped them being best friends as kids. The thought heightened the sorry ache within her. She stuffed the phone away into her black pinafore dress pocket and walked towards the newcomers.
‘We didn’t mean to sneak up on you,’ one of the men said; a slight, tall man with a gentle Polish accent.
‘Ah, Izaak, come in!’ Jowan called from the nook under the stairs.
He didn’t, however, come inside, waiting instead for Joy to recover herself and offer him her hand.
‘I’m sorry, I was calling someone… I’m Joy.’
‘The IT expert,’ said the other man. ‘Pleased to meet you. I am Leonid.’ This man’s accent was stronger, Russian for sure.
As the three shook hands, Joy noticed the matching gold bands on their ring fingers. These two matched in other ways too. In their energy, she thought, and the way they waited patiently for her to sweep them inside. Neither moved until she’d said ‘welcome’ – it had come out awkwardly, hammering home the obvious fact that she wasn’t used to playing hostess.
‘We brought some cake, made with honey from our new beehives,’ Leonid told everyone, making Radia abandon her new pirate friend and storm the gap-toothed Russian man.
‘You havebees?’ she demanded, eyes ablaze.
‘I have a garden full of bees and beehives and camellias. Will you visit one day with your mamma?’
Radia told Leonid she’d definitely be doing that, while eyeing the tin in Izaak’s hands so hungrily he immediately lifted off the lid for her, revealing a big brown sponge cake shaped like a crown, pre-cut, all grooved and glistening.
‘You’ve heard of Polish honey cake?’ Izaak asked, as Radia reached into the tin, lifting a slice.
Her mouth was too full of cake to answer, so Joy had to tell him how Radia wouldn’t remember it but she’d tried it as a toddler and adored it.
‘That was when we were setting up computers and phone systems in a trendy new hotel in Poznan. It was interesting actually because the room keys were iPhones and they were pre-loaded with all the apps you needed for your stay and I did this clever little bit of check-in-desk coding that meant guests didn’t have to queue for anything and… Oh!’
Joy realised that in her nervous state she’d been banging on about her job and looking conceited while she did it, probably.
Sean, after a few months of feigning interest, had begun telling her she bragged too much about her work and that it was selfish to assume other people were interested.
‘Sorry,’ she said now.
Izaak didn’t look like he’d minded, or maybe he was just being polite?
‘My mother is in Krasnik,’ he told her, as though glad of the opportunity to mention her. Joy wasn’t sure where in Poland Krasnik was, so she said, ‘Is she? That’s nice.’
Again, the words came out stilted. These people were going to think she was odd, or rude, or both. She definitely knew theexpectedthing to say would be, ‘You must miss her.’ But she’d heard strangers say this about her own parents and it only made things awkward, and then, sensing there was more to it than just Joy having to work away from her family, people expecteda story.
Thankfully, Radia helped draw his attention away by demanding both men tell her all about the bees. Just as they were explaining that they worked for Minty as her ticket-booth operator and general handyman (Izaak) and head gardener (Leonid), Monty stepped inside asking if he could wash his hands and announcing that the fish would be ready in about twenty minutes so everyone had better get on with the book shelving if they were going to get it finished before dark.
This threw everyone into a flurry of activity. Jowan offered to shelve the poetry, while Radia insisted Izaak help her in the Children’s section. Leonid chatted away with them from Gardening and The House Beautiful, which ran on to include Arts and Crafts.
Joy gravitated towards General Fiction, where Monty joined her. Its shelves took up much of the shop and spread from the display table by the door, running along the wall towards the low entrance into the café. It was shadier there, away from the little porthole windows by the till.
‘How are we doing this, then?’ Monty asked.
‘Well… alphabetically,’ she tried.
‘I suppose that should have been obvious.’ He was smiling, like a well-adjusted person would, not pained or awkward like her. Joy wished she had some of his calmness around strangers.
‘Thank you for bringing the fish,’ she blurted, not knowing what else to say.
