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Callum turned on his heel and looked at her. ‘Oh, I’m still interested.’ He wanted to find out more about The Gossip Girls. He was convinced there was more to them, and their story, than they were letting on.
Chapter 49
‘I still can’t believe it’s my last day,’ said Toby, looking miserable.
‘You have to go back to school tomorrow, Toby. Besides, it’s not your last day at the bookshop. It’s Tuesday tomorrow, and you only have to get through to Friday, then you can come back at the weekend.’
‘Yeah – right!’ he replied sarcastically.
‘What does that mean?’ said Thea, turning around and eyeing her nephew, who was helping them clear a corner of the bookshop to make a seating area, like Callum had suggested. They were going to bring the old sofa into the front of the shop and make a little cosy corner for people to sit with a book, if they liked, before deciding whether to buy one.
Callum eyed Toby, but refrained from saying anything. He had an idea as to why Toby was being sarcastic about the next weekend.
‘What do you think about having a coffee machine?’ Mabel asked. ‘I think it would be nice if people could sit with a drink too. It’s a very nice little coffee machine. Of course you’d have to provide the pods – is that what they call them? It was very thoughtful of my family to buy me one for my birthday, but I’m not a coffee drinker myself. It’s such a shame for it to go waste. I was going to donate it to the charity shop, but I think you should have it in the bookshop.’
Mabel was sitting on a chair in an alcove by the window, sipping a cup of tea from the china mug she’d brought with her and enjoying overseeing the proceedings. She’d invited herself in this morning, and hadn’t left all day.
‘Do you still want that old standard lamp in the charity shop window that we haven’t been able to sell?’ asked Mabel.
Thea said, ‘Yes, please, Mabel. We want this to be a proper cosy corner, reminiscent of someone’s living room. And your idea of having a coffee maker sounds rather nice too.’
‘Good, I thought so.’
Callum eyed Mabel. During his research in the library over the weekend, he’d spent hours at that microfiche machine until he’d hit upon two articles. There was an article on the bookshop from twenty-five years earlier on the disappearance of one Henry Cavendish. Included in the article was a grainy photo of a family of four, with a young woman in her thirties standing with her husband and two girls. The two girls in that grainy image matched the photo he’d found in a wallet in the back of his father’s desk drawer in his study at home.
If Callum had had any doubt that they had the same father, he now knew for certain, because the man in the photo was undeniably a younger version of his father, Henry.
Thea had no clue that they shared the same surname. For years, ever since he left for America, Callum had been known by his stage name, not his given name – Cavendish.
It wasn’t very Scottish, but then neither was his father. It was his mother who was Scots. But that was beside the point. The point was that his parents – especially his mother – had insisted that he did not use his real surname if he was going to be an actor. And they didn’t want to be photographed, or talked about, by their famous son across the pond. They’d always been a quiet, private couple. He could well understand that the world he moved in was not for them.
Although he’d respected their wishes, he’d always thought it was because they were not interested in his career, or his success, or were embarrassed that he’d become an actor. But now he knew the real reason – they had something to hide. Or more to the point, his father did.
But it was his mother who was the one who had insisted he adopted a stage name. Was that just a coincidence, so he didn’t embarrass her in front of her friends if his career flopped? Or was it something else – was it because of Henry? The question on Callum’s mind wasdid she know?He still suspected she did.
The article about Henry’s sudden disappearance wasn’t the only discovery he’d made, sitting for hours at the microfiche machine. He’d been rewarded by a small article about another family who’d lived in the bookshop decades earlier.
Callum had found something on The Gossip Girls. They hadn’t lied about growing up in the bookshop, but they had omitted to mention one significant fact. They’d had a brother. And his name had been Henry.
Callum had sat back in his chair at that point, realising the reason the sisters had been jumping around for joy at the prospect that Henry was still alive. He was their brother. No wonder they had been overjoyed at the news. They obviously wanted to find him, see him again.
When Mabel had first walked into the bookshop that morning, surprising Callum, he had been worried that she was going to spill the beans about the photo. But thinking about what he’d discovered, he realised that they’d waited so long for news of their little brother that they were hardly going to risk Callum disappearing before he kept up his end of the bargain and eventually told them where Henry was. He guessed that Mabel was there to keep a close eye on him.
He was still wondering why neither of them had mentioned that Henry was their brother. Had they been estranged? Callum looked at Mabel, who was watching Thea and Toby. Mabel had no idea that he was related to Henry, but she knew that Thea and Toby were Henry’s daughter and grandson. It was little wonder that he’d caught her staring at them affectionately. But they had no idea who she was – Thea’s aunt.
Even though Henry had disappeared from their lives when Thea was nine, wouldn’t his sisters have kept in touch with his family? The fact that Thea clearly had no clue they were related confirmed his suspicions that Marjorie and Mabel must have been estranged from their brother for many years.
It was no surprise that they desperately wanted to find him. Callum expected that after Henry had disappeared, regardless of what had caused that estrangement, they deeply regretted not having the chance to repair their relationship with their brother.
Callum stared at Mabel. The sisters still had no idea that reconciliation may no longer be possible. Would Henry even remember his sisters, Mabel and Marjorie?
‘But what about Katie?’
Everyone turned to look at Toby, Callum included. He felt sorry for him, but his constant whining about the inevitable return to school tomorrow was getting on everyone’s nerves.
‘How can we come here at the weekend? Look at last weekend. Dad was meant to come home from London, he’d promised, but then he had a work thing.’
Callum caught Thea grimacing. He wondered if she didn’t believe it was a work thing at all.
