Page 10 of The Bookshop By the Loch

Flora Simmonds and her collection of compatriots were standing a few feet away from me, after emerging from the nearby shoe shop.

They had noticed the sign too and were as appalled as I was.

“What on earth…?” gasped Flora. “Did any of you know about this?” There was a collective shaking of heads.

The man who had just put up the sign, had already scrambled down from his ladder and was beating a hasty retreat to his car.

Flora did her best to accost him, but he was sheltering inside his white Volvo, the words Carter & McKinlay Estate Agents running along each side of the vehicle. Without so much as a backward glance, he threw the car into first gear and shot off.

Flora finally noticed I was standing next to her. “Did you know about this, Lexie?”

“No,” I managed, my throat tight. I stared through the bookshop windows at the rainbow array of book spines, feeling thrown. “No, I didn’t.”

Trevor Newman had just finished tidying underneath the counter and I couldn’t see any customers milling around inside despite the fact there was an “open” sign in the window.

On seeing the swell of shocked faces gathered outside the entrance, Trevor emerged from his shop. He took an apprehensive step backwards, as questions were flung at him from every direction. “Why are you closing down?” “When did you make that decision?” “What on earth are you doing that for?!”

He raised his hands, as though trying to deflect them. “One at a time please!”

“Why are you selling up?” persisted one of Flora’s friends. “Book Ends has been part of the community here for donkeys’ years.”

Trevor’s huge dark eyes were woeful behind his John Lennon spectacles. “Believe me, it hasn’t been an easy decision.” He glanced over his bony shoulder, as though to check the bookshop was still there. “It’s not the same since I lost my darling wife, Naomi. I’ve struggled on for the last three years, but the early starts, not to mention the passion… It’s just not there anymore.”

My heart gave a jolt of empathy for him. It was like listening to my grandpa talk about my grandmother. But the loss of the bookshop, a comforting, familiar and traditional sight in our high street, would be a very difficult one for the town to come to terms with. It had opened the year I was born.

“And Tamsin isn’t interested in taking it over?” asked the same woman.

Tamsin was Trevor and Naomi’s only child, now married and living in Sydney with her husband and three children. “No. She has her interior design career and her life in Australia and has no interest in taking over the bookshop here.”

More images of me and Grandma Pattie marvelling at the book covers together shimmered in front of my eyes. Then I saw myself in there as a blushing, awkward teenager, serving customers behind the counter and taking every opportunity I could to marvel at the new books as they arrived.

“So, you’re closing down so you can retire?” I asked, not able to conceal the wobble in my voice.

He nodded. “Yes, Lexie. I think it’s time.” He thrust one thumb behind him. “Sales haven’t been what they were for a long time now. What with online shopping and the supermarkets selling paperbacks, it seems like I don’t have much choice.”

Flora rolled her eyes. “Well, I think the Bracken Way community should have been informed first, before you took such a momentous step.” With a purse of her lips, she and her friends marched away back up the high street, muttering like the witches in Macbeth.

Poor man. It couldn’t have been a decision he had taken lightly. Anyone would have thought he had decided to close down Book Ends just to spite Flora Simmonds and her cronies!

I lingered, watching a myriad of emotions cross Trevor’s face. He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and surveyed the closing down sign again.

“Are you alright?”

He watched the chattering tourists as they ambled past. “Ach. I’m not so sure about that.”

I followed him inside the bookshop, leaving behind the echoes of children’s laughter, the trickle of traffic and the throng of tourists.

The interior of Book Ends was a world away from the crumbly castle and shimmery loch shore. The shop smelled of beeswax and vanilla.

Heavy dark rosewood bookcases ran the four sides of the shop interior, broken up by Formica cream tables and chairs and a couple of squashy bean bags.

The wooden counter, also in rosewood, was situated along the back of the left wall.

Light, playful jazz interchanged with Scottish bagpipes through the concealed speakers. The place hadn’t changed at all.

Trevor observed me out of his gold-rimmed, round spectacles. “Anyway, enough about my woes. The Bracken Way gossip machine tells me you’re going to be around for a while.”

I hooked my straw bag from my shoulder and dumped it down by my feet onto the scuffed, hardwood floor that looked like it was desperate for some tender loving care and a slick of varnish. I let out a defeated sigh. “Yes. Three months. I’ve taken all the leave I’ve built up at work. I don’t know how I feel about going back.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I was overlooked for the role of senior commissioning editor. They gave the role to an American high-flier.”