‘I suppose it is. What are you getting at, Rads?’
The innocence of her wide eyes and little mouth drawn into an angelic ‘O’ was spoiled somewhat by the smear of jam up her cheek and Joy’s slowly dawning realisation that the square was no longer empty.
The gull lifted onto yellow legs at the approaching footsteps. Radia was trying hard not to grin in recognition at the man and woman she’d met yesterday and told to come back today.
‘Morning! Open, are we?’ the woman – all Cleopatra fringe, big dangly earrings and arty dungarees – wanted to know.
Her husband – thinning hair and thick take-me-seriously specs – was taking a lot of interest in the window display.
Radia was already preparing her mum. ‘Last night, Monty’s friends said the shop was a charity, didn’t they? They need to sell books, don’t they, Mummy? To stay open forever?’
Joy’s eyes snapped to Radia’s, who very much knew what she was doing by reverting to ‘mummy’ at this crucial point in her plan.
‘Nice to see you again,’ the woman said, looking in the door at Radia, then back to Joy, a little perplexed. ‘Is itnotyour opening day?’
‘The till’s working, isn’t it, Mummy? And the books are on the shelves. I think the bookshopisopen.’
Joy watched her daughter in amazement, before forcing a smile. ‘Of course. Of course, we’re open. Please come in.’
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ Radia spread her palms wide. ‘Not yet. You have to cut something. Like when they opened the big white place? When they made the tiny sandwich things? Remember?’
Joy had to laugh. ‘You mean the Microsoft place in Denmark?’
Only Radia would remember the canapés at a corporate opening. The CEOs had cut a huge red velveteen ribbon over the revolving doors, corks had popped, and within an hour she and Radia had been in a cab on their way to the airport and onto Joy’s next posting.
‘I’ve this?’ the woman, who hadn’t even made it up the steps, offered, pulling a long red strand off a ball of yarn in her bag.
Radia was beyond thrilled as the woman, Enola, and her husband, Geoffrey – Radia had taken pains to ask their names before the ceremony began – held the wool tight across the doorway and Joy offered Radia the scissors so she had her hands free to snap the picture on her phone. Again, Radia had insisted.
‘You have to say, I declare the Borrow-A-Bookshop officially re-open,’ Joy whispered in her daughter’s ear, and as Radia repeated the words and took quite a few goes at snipping through the red strand, everyone cheered and the gull flew huffily off.
‘Now we’re going to sell these people books,’ Radia told her mum as the pair of them stood by the till and watched Enola and Geoffrey pore over the neatly shelved titles.
‘So this is what you wanted to do today?’ Joy whispered back.
‘Yes, definitely this,’ Radia said, grinning. ‘I want to be a bookshop helper.’
And that was how the Borrow-A-Bookshop was finally brought back to life after its long rest. The murky flood waters, the rescue helicopters, the tears and all the months of hard work, red tape, paperwork and plasterwork, were all forgotten entirely as these first browsers scrutinised the colourful spines and shuffled their way slowly along the stacks, their heads tipped to the side, all concentration, hunting out that special book they simply couldn’t leave without.
Even Joy was a little swept up in the novelty of it all as other shoppers dropped in over the next half hour. She told Radia she wished they had some champagne to serve. Radia decided they’d offer everyone strawberry squash instead.
They’d asked if it was OK to take another picture of Geoffrey as he paid for his book – the very first sale through the new till – and he’d generously smiled and held up his mid-century copy ofDublinerswith its gaudy dust jacket. Just as he was about to pay, Enola staggered up to the counter and dropped down a great pile of art and craft books on top of his James Joyce, saying they’d take those too.
When Radia misread the numbers on the till as seven hundred and twenty pounds they’d been charmed and made jovial remarks while Joy charged their Visa with the grand total of seventy pounds and twenty pence.
‘A bargain,’ Enola said as they left, wishing them luck with their new shop.
Neither Joy nor Radia spoiled things by telling them it actually wasn’t their shop – they were only borrowing it. Instead they turned back to keep an eye on the other customers from their spot behind the counter and toasted one another with a clink of their strawberry-squash-filled mugs.
By the time the morning rush was waning and customers were looking disappointedly at the door to the café with its sign – written by Radia – that said ‘Not open YET’, it was becoming obvious, at least to Radia, what they needed to do next.
‘Now we have to open the café.’
‘You’re kidding, Rads! We’re not here to actually run the place. Plus, I’ve got the website to work on and all the security stuff to install.’
Radia didn’t say anything, only looking conspiratorially at Charley fox by the till, communicating telepathically their plan to have the best bookselling-and-café-opening-holiday anyone’s ever had, ever.
Joy shouldn’t have been surprised that afternoon when, as soon as she’d turned the ‘Closed’ sign on the door, Radia dragged her across the shop and into the café, demanding her mum bake her something.
