The September breeze was warm enough not to worry that she wasn’t wearing much at all, although she kept slightly to the side of the door frame out of sight of passers-by. She didn’t need strangers to see her in her nightie. ‘I didn’t know what else to do I’m afraid.’ But in the long term, she had the developer making a very good offer. She had the letter waiting for her in the letter rack and all she needed to do was get in touch with them to get the ball rolling. Then she would never have to see or think about the bookshop again.
‘You did what you thought was right,’ said Iris. ‘And that’s okay.’
Bonnie knew what it was like to be without work, without an anchor. And Iris had never been anything other than a pleasure to be around. Howard had always found the same. She felt bad that whatever decision she had made so far and whatever change was about to come would alter things in a big way for Iris too.
‘You could always team up with me?’ Iris suggested with a cautious smile.
Bonnie wasn’t about to admit that the thought of going inside the bookshop filled her with dread. It was bad enough with her own reminders here; she barely coped with those. Yesterday she’d been looking for some dental floss in the back of the lowest bathroom drawer and her hand had fallen on something soft. She’d pulled out Howard’s shaving brush. He hadn’t used it for years, instead favouring the speedy method of squirting foam into his hands, lathering it up and spreading it over his chin and upper lip. She’d sat hugging the brush, like she was some kind of lunatic, a brush that had been stuffed into the recesses of their bathroom drawer. She’d thought he’d thrown it away when they moved. What a crazy thing to keep. She wanted to ask why he had, but of course she couldn’t.
‘I’m not a book lover,’ said Bonnie simply. ‘Me teaming up with you would be silly.’
‘You don’t need to be a book lover.’ She shrugged. ‘Just good at keeping things tidy, chatting to customers.’
She was only trying to help but there was no way Bonnie was going inside the bookshop ever again. Did she have to spell it out to Iris? ‘I’d better go and take a shower.’ She moved to close the door.
‘Bonnie…’ Iris’s voice stopped her before she could get away. ‘I know you’re not sure what you’re doing with the shop. But how about I go in there and make sure everything is as it should be?’
‘Well, I?—’
‘I know there were a few boxes in the stockroom that are still taped up and need unpacking, and we didn’t leave the story corner particularly tidy after the last session. I definitely didn’t sweep the floors as I always do. It means you won’t have to worry about it.’ She smiled. ‘Howard was a stickler for leaving everything perfect so that if anyone was to peer in the window it would be as enchanting as ever. You know he always wanted the glass at the front cleaned to draw people to the shop – not that it needed to be any more enticing…’
And as Iris carried on talking about Howard, the bookshop, her memories of the pair of them in there together, it almost made Bonnie fall to her knees picking up on someone else’s grief. Because that’s what it was. Howard had touched other people’s lives not just hers, but she hadn’t really been able to see it, not even at the cremation.
She almost wanted to engage in conversation with Iris about Howard and yet at the same time she wanted to make her stop. She was depleted of energy, of enthusiasm and zest for anything at all.
Howard would be so disappointed to know she’d closed his bookshop without any warning, and so with Iris still talking, Bonnie made a snap decision. It was the only way to get rid of this woman.
She leaned around the door and lifted the bookshop keys from the hook where she’d put them ever since Iris dropped her spare set round once the sign was placed in the window.
‘You want me to check on the shop?’ Iris asked as Bonnie dropped the keys into her outstretched palm.
‘That would be lovely.’
‘And what will I tell people? Should I explain?—’
‘You know what, you can reopen.’ Again, anything to make her go away and leave her in peace. ‘Yes, reopen. It’s the right thing to do. You know, until I decide on what to do with the place. Don’t order more stock, not yet. Concentrate on selling what you have.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’ll all have to go.’
‘What do you mean?’ Her face fell. ‘Are you going to sell?’
‘I would imagine so.’
Iris didn’t look too panicked but then the reality seemed to dawn. ‘You’re planning to sell to the developer.’
‘I… I don’t know what else to do.’
‘I understand.’
Bonnie wasn’t so sure she did, but how could she bear to keep something that had become so much a part of Howard?
And now she was desperate for Iris to go. ‘Howard always said that if we wanted a week away he could trust you with running things at the bookshop. You’ll be fine.’ Please, just go.
‘He did train me up on everything, I suppose.’ But she didn’t look confident and told Bonnie, ‘The thing is, I can only work a certain amount of hours; it won’t cover the times Howard used to put in.’
Bonnie, drowning in her own grief, had quite forgotten other people’s circumstances it seemed. Iris couldn’t do really long days because she had a daughter with special needs who was semi-independent but still needed a lot of help from her mum.
Howard and Bonnie had never had a family. It was just the two of them until recently. And now it was just her. After her first marriage ended, Bonnie was wary of getting too serious too quickly. She knew straight away that Howard was the one, but she didn’t want to marry, not for a while and he respected that. She got her first job as a nurse and they moved in together and for a while they stayed that way. When they eventually married when Bonnie turned thirty they were both blissfully happy as a young couple with no responsibilities. The baby conversation came soon after their wedding but despite trying for a couple of years nothing happened.
When they were in their mid-thirties they contemplated adoption but settled on fostering and for ten years on and off they took in children of varying ages for short periods of time, doing their best to give whoever was in their charge a good home and stability before they found their forever home. Some of those children stayed such a short while that saying goodbye wasn’t terrible, but others stayed longer and it was heartbreaking to have to say their farewells. That was why they eventually stopped and decided it would be just the two of them from then on.
