I look away, aware of my swollen eyes. I have been preparing for this. Everyone in the village will have heard about Phyllidabeing carted off in an ambulance. There are only seven hundred residents in Brookbank, many of whom are retired and have plenty of time for neighbourly discussions about other residents’ illnesses. ‘Not great,’ I say.
‘Well’—his lips move into a gentle curve of sympathy—‘keep us posted, won’t you?’
‘Of course. Go sell some houses.’ I force a smile as he moves off.
I feel heavy with sadness and terrified about Phyllida’s prognosis and yet I still manage to push my key into the door of the shop as if everything is fine. I feel overwhelmed at the idea of facing these questions, and I wonder what Phyllida was up to with this unfathomable request in her letter.
Inside, I am hit by a wall of cool air. The granary’s huge slabs of stone are great for insulation. I turn on the lights and take out the wooden signboard that announces our shop. I move the legs until it balances across the uneven pavers. The old-fashioned gold font on dark timber is enticing for collectors and curious literary types, or those who like fossicking for second-hand treasures.
The Bookshop of Buried Pasts
Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday: 10 am–4 pm
I stop to breathe in the beauty of the summer morning. The exterior of the shop faces a patch of grass that is home to an old oak tree. Magpies warble. I close my eyes and catch the staccato duet of a pair of bellbirds.
I hurry back inside, immediately cocooned in echoes of my childhood. The dusky blue bookshelves, the contemplative air,the silent slumbering of thousands of books. I move between the rows of shelves to the back of the shop. There are three connected small rooms and stairs to the upper level, which has lovely exposed beams and small circular holes in the walls, used as ventilation for grain storage two centuries ago. Now they function as tiny porthole windows set a metre deep into the stone. I turn on the lights and head back down.
Monday will be slow, which is good because I don’t want to face people today. Sunday is the busiest day in the village, when hundreds of tourists from Sydney tootle through the countryside and wander up to Brookbank’s quaint little cheese factory (a converted weatherboard house) that is strangely famous for its ice-cream scoops. They poke around in the gift shops and art gallery and move on to the antiques emporiums scattered through the district. Organic takeaway coffee is sipped upon timber park benches beneath the shade of huge deciduous trees that are straight out of an Enid Blyton novel. People are nostalgic for an earlier, simpler time (albeit a cleaner version with gourmet offerings and designer handwash in the bathrooms) and Brookbank is pleased to provide it for a price.
But for as long as I can remember, Phyllida has refused to open the bookshop on Sundays, despite the bounty of trade. Perhaps it was because she was a single mother raising David when she opened the shop in the seventies. But I’m not sure why she hasn’t taken advantage of the trade in more recent years. She has a way of smiling and changing the subject when she doesn’t want to discuss something.
I wheel our bargain bin of old books outside. A flock of white cockatoos screeches in the branches of the oak, shimmying andswaying. Tammy is arranging a display table in front of her gift shop next door. ‘Morning, Lottie. Any treasures in there today?’ She points to the bargain bin.
‘Actually, I got in a few new books on witchcraft last week. Haven’t sorted them yet. But they’re right up your alley.’
‘Oooh,’ she says wistfully. ‘I wish. But I can’t even afford to look in case I’m tempted. Nobody’s buying candles at the moment.’ She gives me a gentle look and takes in my bullfrog eyes. ‘We’re all keeping our fingers crossed for Phyllida. You okay?’
‘Allergic reaction,’ I say, blinking quickly. ‘New mascara.’
Tammy is not fooled. She pats my shoulder then disappears into her doorway.
Inside the shop I am alone again, hollow, overwhelmed by the musty scent of old books in faded tones of burgundy and green and blue. I switch on the lamp behind the counter and watch the dust motes rise through the gloom and dance along the timber shelves, landing on embossed leather spines. I feel untethered, and yet pierced by the knowledge that Phyllida Banks, a woman far more like a mother to me than my own, was trying very hard to tell me something important in the letter she left.Find Francis.You will soon have the means at your disposal.
Who on earth is Francis?
6
FRANCIS
NOW, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, ENGLAND
Francis sits on the sofa, tapping one impatient finger against his thigh. It is the dreariest of winter days. Cold, damp, grey. He should go for a walk, but nothing stirs him to do so. He turns sixty today. The thought causes him to slump into the cushions, but only for a moment. No need to slouch just because his back is sore. His very first nanny used to chide him constantly:Shoulders back, hold your head up.He had done it too, even when he preferred to be bent over a book. He was seven when they’d retired Nanny Pam, the week after his mother’s death. She’d been moved into the dower house to tend the roses; consolation he supposed for having suffered through three generations of Fitzhenry children.You were the least troublesome of them, Francis, she’d often told him as she faded towards the grave;I loved you best. It had been hard to tell with Nanny Pam, any maternal warmth kept well hidden beneath her enormous bosomand her impenetrable Scottish accent. Still, he had passably decent posture, according to his physiotherapist, and probably Nanny Pam to thank for that. Also for the timely arrival of Dorothea—her hastily located replacement—the doting presence his seven-year-old self had sorely needed.
He considers the evening ahead, feeling vaguely nauseated. His cousin is holding ‘a little drinks do’ for his birthday, quite against his wishes.Oh, Frankie, don’t be such an old curmudgeon!she’d chastised. Araminta is quite aware that he doesn’t like to be around people. She’s simply being obtuse with this gathering she’s arranged. He doesn’t know who’s coming, but he can guess. It turns his stomach.
Francis hasn’t always been so reclusive. Once he’d been quite a friendly sort. Occasionally he’d had flings too, but he’s been staunchly single for nearly two decades. He has a romantic’s view of the world. The right person will show up at the right time. He knows it. He also knows, as he enters his seventh decade, that some say he might prefer to lower his standards to hurry the process along. He doesn’t prefer. He justknows.
Darling,Araminta often blathers,you won’t meet anyone if you sit at home!His cousin should stick to polo or whatever else it is she does when she isn’t running the business. His love-life is perfectly safe in his own hands. The person of his dreams is unlikely to appear at any of Minty’s little soirees. God help them if they do, because he won’t be there to save them. Apart from tonight. Hard to dodge a party in your honour, particularly when there are embossed invitation cards. The ghoul factor is a drawcard for guests, he supposes. Frankie Fitzhenry, back at the scene of his horrific childhood.Good evening, My Lord,lovely to see you again. Just admiring the jolly good portrait of your great-grandfather—the twelfth viscount—over there by the Christmas tree. A Leighton, is it? Any news in recent years on that terrible business with your father?
It’s been the same all his life, the references to that awful day. God, he hates that house. He looks out the window—past the lake and across the potager gardens—towards the towering monolith of his childhood home. Bleddesley House. Beyond the low picket fence of his own little house, tourists are wandering towards the gift shop.
Few people know he lives on the grounds. He converted the old stables into his private accommodation when Araminta wanted to open a polo school and build something world-class for her horses next door. Moving into this cottage made sense, given he spends large parts of his time at his bolthole in the Italian countryside, preferring not to suffer the English weather where possible. But sometimes the hankering to be anchored back in the happy part of his childhood—before it all fell apart—overcomes him and he spends a month or two wandering the banks of the river, pottering in the grounds, thinking of the love he once had.
He uses these times to catch up with the few people in England he still cares for. And, of course, he is forced to have meetings with Araminta, who runs the business for him and likes to keep him in the loop. He pretends to care about the house and the business: Historical Society gatherings, cafe shenanigans, garden shop sales and house tours. But Bleddesley House is of little interest, except as a sort of mausoleum to the cherished memory of his mother. He has no desire to actuallyenter its draughty, dark hallways and cavernous rooms. Still, tonight he must.
There is a knock at the door. ‘Yoo-hoo, where’s the birthday boy?’ Araminta’s voice rings out as she lets herself in.
‘Happy birthday, Frankie!’ She whooshes across the room and envelops him in a hug. He breathes in her familiar scent of sandalwood and orange blossom.
