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‘How did you get in?’
Thea had walked into the shop early the following morning, having seen the twins off to school on the school bus before setting off herself straight away to Aldeburgh in Jenna’s car. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin when she’d entered the shop and heard a loudmeow. At the back of the shop, sitting on the counter near the till, was a black and white moggy. The cat stood up and stretched.
Staring at the cat, Thea thought it was lucky she’d decided not to bring Winston. He’d whined something awful when he’d realised he was being left at home alone, but Thea had promised him she’d only spend half a day at the bookshop and would be home by lunchtime. She’d felt a little foolish talking to him, knowing he didn’t understand a word, but it made her feel better all the same.
She really wanted to spend all day, but she had the next two weeks; she had decided to stay on even if Mark came back at the weekend. She wanted to spend as much time as possible sorting out the bookshop for Jenna.
She didn’t want Winston under her feet that day while she got herself organised. But she intended to take him with her the next day, along with his dog bed, and some treats, in the hope that he’d settle down in a quiet spot and spend the day sleeping, mostly, in between walks to the beach.
She rather fancied having lunch out in one of the little cafés on the high street, and thought she might do that before going back to Jenna’s and taking the dog our for a walk. Afterwards, she would visit her sister.
Thea didn’t have pets, but she was getting the idea that as with children, your day could tend to revolve around them, and their needs – especially as she realised they needed a routine.
Thea frowned when she thought of the itinerary she’d found scribbled on a piece of lined paper stuck to the fridge door. She guessed it was Mark’s handwriting, with things hastily scribbled on a note before he collected her from the train station and handed over the keys – and responsibility for his children – for the week.
When she’d visited her sister in hospital the previous day, she had expected Jenna to be firing commands left, right, and centre about how to manage her house and the kids. That was Jenna – rather a control freak. But Jenna had had other things on her mind – the baby, for one. And possibly Mark.
It was unlike Jenna, but she hadn’t been talkative at all. So Thea had done all the talking, reassuring her that the twins were fine, and she’d stay as long as her sister needed her. She didn’t mention that it couldn’t be longer than two weeks, because that was the longest she could be away from her job. Thea was on annual leave, so her time there wasn’t open-ended – as much as she’d like it to be.
Although she’d barely set foot in the bookshop, Thea could tell she was going to enjoy rolling up her sleeves and getting stuck in, even if it meant cleaning to start with. She had loved this bookshop as a child; she remembered hiding in corners and losing herself in her favourite books.
Thea walked up to the cat and gingerly held out her hand. ‘Hello. Well, aren’t you a friendly cat?’
Dickens rubbed his head against her hand, letting Thea stroke him. Perhaps a window was open a crack and the cat had found a quiet spot out of the rain the previous night. There had been a thunderstorm, and quite a downpour, which had woken Thea up. She’d lain there in the early hours, thinking about the bookshop.
She was dying to ask her sister about the bookshop, and who she was meeting there, but hospital visiting hours weren’t until the afternoon. However, Toby had told her that he couldn’t say anything to his mum, because then she’d want to know how Thea had found out about her late-night rendezvous with some guy.
Thea smiled when the cat started to purr. Staring at the black and white cat, a memory stirred. ‘You know, my dad had a cat who used to live in the bookshop with us.When we moved out of the flat upstairs into a cottage nearby, we took our cat to the cottage, but the cat ran away. Do you know where we found him?’
Dickens mewed.
‘You want to know?’
Dickens bumped her hand with his head, wanting more strokes.
Thea gently tickled him under the chin. ‘He made his way back to the bookshop. So, that’s where we left him with food and water bowls, because our little black and white cat’s home was here.’ Thea stared at the black and white cat. She could tell he was old because his fur was grey around his muzzle, and so were his whiskers.
Thea suddenly had the most bizarre thought. She shook her head. ‘Nope, that is utterly ridiculous. You are not him – are you?’ She couldn’t remember what had happened to that cat. She knew they hadn’t taken the cat with them to London. ‘You haven’t been living in this bookshop, all that time – have you?’
Of course he hasn’t, thought Thea. She imagined that when Toby had been letting himself into the shop with his mum’s key, the cat had somehow got in and hidden. Even so, now Thea was thinking about their cat from years ago, she felt she would like to know what happened to it. She decided she’d ask Jenna.
She didn’t know why she was bothering. ‘You can’t be him, can you? If you were, you’d be ancient, for a cat.’
Before Thea rolled up her sleeves and started cleaning, the first thing she decided to do, like any good archivist, was take an inventory and see exactly what was on the shelves.
Thea walked up and down between the narrow bookshelves. There were an awful lot of books there. She didn’t know where to begin. ‘Easy. I’ll start with taking stock of how Dad organised the bookshop. There must be some system.’
By lunchtime, Thea had discovered she was wrong – there was no system. Not one she could fathom, anyway. The books appeared to be shelved in no discernible order; not alphabetically, by subject matter or by year – or even by fiction and non-fiction. By lunchtime, all she had discovered was, ‘It’s a mess. How did he work like this? And how on earth did he sell anything?’ If someone walked into the shop looking for a particular book, exactly how would her father have found it?
Thea put her coat on and walked up to the cat. He’d been sitting on the counter all morning, watching her. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of all this – can you?’
The cat mewed at her.
‘I need some help.’ She thought of Toby. He could help out at the weekend, but that was just two days. She could feel that her idea of turning the bookshop around into a shop that actually enticed people in and made money was already looking like a pipe dream.
Thea slipped on her coat and grabbed her bag. There was no good in sitting here with the cat, hoping for inspiration. She needed to go away and think about it.She was considering phoning Edward and letting him know what she’d discovered – that her mum hadn’t sold the shop after all.
But was it something her mum wanted Edward to know?They were good friends, but if Edward already knew, surely he would have mentioned it to Thea. That meant that for some reason, her mum didn’t want her friends to know. Thea imagined why; everyone thought she’d moved on and accepted that her husband wasn’t coming back. This was proof she still hoped he was out there somewhere and might return.
