Radia missed the idea of her aunt more than the reality, thought Joy. She could only have the thinnest sense of what she was like, it had been so long since they’d been in the same room together. This sent Joy’s heart plummeting again.
The whole party had stood for some time admiring their work. Jude had cried and had to be comforted by Jowan who, misty-eyed himself, had read everyone an excerpt from a John Donne poem in a very old book that had survived the floods. When he was finished, everyone applauded before being hushed by Joy desperately gesturing towards the dozing Radia’s bedroom door.
Jowan placed the Donne right at the top of the poetry shelves, saying he’d priced it higher than anyone would ever be willing to pay for it because he never wanted it to leave the shop, but he wasn’t opposed to customers reading it.
‘Like a library?’ Radia piped up sleepily from her bed, and everyone groaned and winced. Joy slapped a hand to her forehead.
Jowan admitted in a whisper he’d never been one to chase sales. Bookshops, he said, ‘are a place where folks should be able to browse and pass the time of day, even if they don’t have the money to buy.’
Joy wasn’t sure that was a great business model, but she kept it to herself.
Jude insisted on a group picture for the website and a bleary-eyed Radia scrambled from her bed in her pyjamas to be in it. That girl never missed anything important.
‘You can add pictures to the website, right?’ Jude asked, setting the camera timer on her phone.
‘Sure,’ Joy replied, knowing she couldn’t post this one. ‘I’ll start work on the website in the morning. But let me take one with just you locals,’ she insisted. ‘Without me and Rads in.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Jowan told her, gathering the very sleepy Aldous up inside his jacket for the shot. ‘You’re locals too.’
Had Radia not been whispering very earnestly in Monty’s ear as he crouched beside her, the little girl would have been thrilled to hear herself described as a local.
They all smiled for a photo which Joy knew she could never share online, just in case she was recognised and tracked down.
After they’d all left and she was tucking Radia back under the covers, she asked what she’d been talking with Monty about.
‘His boat,’ Radia told her dreamily. ‘He’s going to take us fishing. Not crab catching butproperfishing in the sea.’
Joy only kissed her and let her hold on to the delusion. There could be no more cosy chats with Monty Bickleigh, that was for sure. No more group photos and spilling of life stories. It was getting harder, the holding it all back and protecting their bubble, but she’d have to resist the niceness of feeling included.
Now that the shelves were stacked, she could shut the door and keep themselves to themselves until it was time to leave.
The feeling of Monty’s kind eyes upon her, and the way he praised her like she was someone capable of receiving praise, like she wasn’t a broken, awkward, terrified thing, all of that would have to remain a memory. A souvenir of the night she was happy in a beautiful, cosy bookshop that smelled dreamily of smoke and charcoal, paper, honey cakes and wine. She couldn’t have any more of it, no matter how nice it had felt. So she clambered into Radia’s bed beside her and reached forThe Borrowers.
‘Let’s read for a bit, yeah?’
That night Radia Pearl fell asleep smiling.
Chapter Thirteen
To prove she really was committing to giving Radia a lovely holiday, Joy had dressed early that morning in her yoga pants and the faded ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015’ T-shirt that Sean had hated and, out of an odd sense of defiance, she now wore whenever she got the chance.
‘What’s happened to your normal clothes?’ Radia asked, rubbing her eyes in bed.
‘I’m not working this morning. We can do anything you want. What do you say? We could go to the beach? The donkey sanctuary? I have it on good authority there’s a fudge stall up at the visitors centre?’
Radia hadn’t fancied any of those, preferring to stay put in the shop. She had, however, insisted her mum open the door as soon as they’d eaten their toast so she could peer out into the little sunny square, which she did every few minutes until Joy started getting suspicious.
‘OK, what are you up to?’
‘Nothing, just looking.’
Joy joined her at the door and looked out at the empty square too. A sleepy gull on a rooftop opened one eye to watch them.
‘And Mum? It was fun having a party, wasn’t it?’ Radia said, thoughtfully.
Joy had to admit it was.
‘It’s fun when there are people in the shop, isn’t it?’
