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‘I can’t hear you,’ Marjorie lied. She could hear her all too well, even over the sound of the kettle boiling. She did not want to talk about the bookshop. If Mabel ever found out that she had betrayed her years earlier, that would be the end of their close bond as sisters, and friends. Marjorie had to make herself breathe slowly. Just the thought of the truth coming to light, even after all these years, had her heart beating furiously in her chest as though she was going to have a heart attack. It didn’t matter how much time had passed; she couldn’t imagine her sister would forgive her for what she had done – or more to the point, what she hadn’t done. She just knew that no amount of apologies would heal the rift.
‘Marge – where’s my tea?’
‘Coming right up!’ Marjorie called out. She walked out of the back room, carrying a tea tray. Even though they were at work, and the facilities were basic, they never skimped on their after-noon cup of tea.It has to be done properly, otherwise there’s no point doing it at all, thought Marjorie as she set the tea tray down on the desk in front of them. She picked up the tea strainer in one hand and the teapot in the other, and poured a cup of freshly brewed tea.
‘The way …’
‘… tea used to be,’ Mabel chimed in, speaking along with her sister.
‘You can never get a decent cuppa in one of these new-fangled cafés. They just don’t know how to make a proper cup of tea.’
‘I know,’ said Mabel, pouring some milk into her delicate china teacup.
‘Biscuit?’ offered Marjorie, holding up the plate of rich tea biscuits, along with some digestives.
‘I say, this is a bit of a departure,’ said Mabel picking up a chocolate digestive. ‘What’s the occasion?’
Marjorie avoided eye contact. She always had a packet stashed in a secret drawer out back that Mabel didn’t know about. She’d scoff several while she was making the tea – one rich tea was never enough as far as Marjorie was concerned – but if she did it in front of Mabel, her sister would be on her case about her weight.
Today, for the first time, Marjorie shared her chocolate bis-cuits, and owned up. ‘There’s a packet in one of the kitchen drawers.’ Since Marjorie was the only one who made tea, she didn’t think Mabel would find them.
‘You had chocolate biscuits all this time, and you didn’t think to offer me one?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Really, Marjorie. You haven’t changed, have you? Still hiding things from me.’
Marjorie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked defensively, suddenly afraid that her sister knew. She looked towards the front window, eyeing the bookshop, knowing that it was an irrational thought; neither of them had ventured into that bookshop for years. There was no way her sister would have found it.
Mabel said, ‘I’m talking about when we were children and I’d be reading a book, and you’d steal it, and hide it from me.’
‘Oh, right. That.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because I wanted you to play with me and you always had your head in a book.’
‘Well, was it any wonder, Marjorie? I mean, we did live in a bookshop.’
They both fell silent, glancing across the cobbled square at the old bookshop where they had grown up. It had changed little over the years, although its name had. When their father ran it, it had been called The Fantastic Book Emporium.
Mabel picked up a chocolate digestive and stared into space, lost in a memory of yesteryear.
‘Mabel, you come straight back after you’ve been to the shop. Do you hear, young lady?’
‘Why does she get to go? I’m the eldest. I should go.’
‘I need you to stay and mind the shop, Marjorie.’
Mabel threw her big sister a devilish grin. Marjorie usually got to do everything. Go to the shops, go out to play, leaving Mabel in the boring bookshop – at least, that was what she had thought before she discovered that the bookshop wasn’t boring at all. There were adventures to be had, amazing facts to learn, and wonderful places to escape to, all within the pages of those books. It had just taken her until she was eight years old to discover that fact – which was just as well, because there were few adventures to be had outside, unless you were old enough to go to war.
Sometimes, Mabel wished she had been. She had been only three years old when the war broke out, and that was all she’d ever known; blackout curtains, and air raid shelters, and the little box containing her gas mask. She hated that thing. It made her feel claustrophobic, trapped. But she never left the shop, which was also their house, without it. Not until that day, when she was going out on her own to collect something special from the butcher’s shop for a very special guest. They were going to be welcoming their very first evacuee.
Mabel was so excited that she could barely contain herself. She’d hardly slept the previous night, tossing and turning, much to her older sister’s annoyance. They shared a bedroom in the eaves upstairs, both sleeping in the double bed their parents had slept in when their mother was still alive. Their father slept on the couch in the makeshift sitting room at the back of the shop.
Mabel couldn’t quite believe that from that night, there’d be a woman living under their roof with them. She wondered what she’d be like. She hoped she was young, like her mum had been. She hardly remembered her mother – just that she had often told them off. Father had explained that it was because she was sick, and so, so tired – too tired for energetic, loud children under her feet. But then she had always read them bedtime stories, and tucked them in at night. And sometimes, when she hadn’t been feeling so bad, she had sung to them.
As she skipped out of the bookshop door, Mabel decided that she didn’t want to think about her mum. She’d overheard a conversation on the telephone between her father and someone from the church, who organised the evacuees, and had learned that the woman would be bringing her child with her. She didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy. She hoped they were younger; then she wouldn’t be the youngest anymore.
