The Bookshop of Second Chances Jackie Fraser (ebook reader macos .txt) 📖

‘I think you should leave yourself an open door though. In case you change your mind.’

‘Ugh. Let’s just get on with it.’

I shovel random things from the bathroom cabinet into a box. I’d already taken all the things I use regularly, but there’s Halloween make-up and occasional-use false eyelashes and – will I ever need any of this?

‘Just pack it,’ says Xanthe patiently. ‘You can decide if you want it when you unpack in your new house.’

‘Ha. Whenever that will be.’

I pack three winter coats I haven’t worn for ten years and my leather jacket. I fill a box with fabric. Chris and Susanna are sleeping in the spare room – some kind of moral thing, I assume. It would be a bit much, wouldn’t it, for them to sleep in our bed. I don’t like to think about whether they’ve been doing that, anyway, for all these weeks or months or years.

But I guess this means I can have the bedding for the big bed. That’s mine – or at least, I bought it, with the money from a bonus. The mattress cost nearly a grand. All the king-size sheets go in a box and we fold the duvet into one of those vacuum-pack bag things. Four pillows, half the pillow cases. Three tablecloths. The second-best towels – they can have the new ones, a gift last Christmas from Chris’s sister. How magnanimous of me. Xanthe empties my clothes from the wardrobe into a suitcase and tips the contents of drawers on top of the clothes. Stockings, socks, slips and nightdresses; my fancier underwear, none of which I’m likely to need ever again, let’s face it. Scarves and jewellery, hair slides, curling tongs and T-shirts.

‘So much stuff,’ I moan, weakly.

‘Come on. Half done,’ she says.

We take the bed apart, exposing acres of dusty carpet, an earring. Xanthe stoops quickly to pick something up, but not so quickly I don’t see it: the torn half of a condom packet. She pushes it casually into the pocket of her jeans and neither of us says anything.

We wrestle the mattress downstairs.

‘I’m going to take the little bedside cabinet,’ I tell Chris, who is sitting tensely in the dining room. He nods, silent.

That’s everything from upstairs except books. I’m exhausted. At least being busy stops me crying.

He’s put all the photographs of us in a box.

‘Don’t you want any of these then?’ I’m upset about that, to be honest. But he looks haunted, and says, ‘I just can’t – I’m not in the right place to do photos, Thea, I’m sorry.’

‘Okay. Shall I leave them? We could do them later. I mean, please don’t throw them away–’

‘I’ll put the box in the wardrobe,’ he says. ‘Take what you want though.’

‘I’m not sure I can look at them either.’ It’s easy to pack my photo albums from before I met him, but who gets the wedding album? This is awful. I’m almost inclined to say it’s the worst day of my life, but I think that happened already.

We come to an agreement about the occasional tables. I pack my great-aunt’s china but leave our wedding-present saucepans and the champagne glasses we only bought in December. I take my records – yes, I still have my records – and my CDs. The books are overwhelming.

Xanthe makes tea, and we all sit, slightly awkward, at the kitchen table to drink it. There’s a vase I’ve never seen before on the table, full of daffodils from the garden. My daffodils, that I planted.

‘I’m not sure I can do any more today.’ I look down at my jeans, which are furred grey-brown with dust.

‘You don’t have to,’ says Chris. ‘I mean, it’s mostly books now, isn’t it? You can do the books whenever you like. Or I could do them. If you wanted.’

‘I expect I should just get on with it. I don’t want it hanging over me.’

‘Give me a box then, and I’ll do some.’

He wants me gone, and who can blame him?

I’m thinking, trying to remember what else needs to be packed. ‘Sewing machine. And my bike.’

‘Okay,’ says Xanthe. ‘I’ll get your bike, shall I? Garage keys,’ she adds, holding her hand out to Chris. He gets up and lifts them off the hook by the back door. We bought that in Cornwall; it’s shaped like a mushroom. The house is full of things that remind me of other, better times, but I can’t take them all with me – it’s not possible. And would it help? Probably not. I take a pair of fused glass hearts from a nail by the fridge and put them in my pocket. I open the cutlery drawer and say, ‘You’ll need to get a new garlic press. I’m taking this one because it used to belong to Polly Watson’s granny.’

I shared a house with Polly Watson twenty-five years ago, and I never met her granny. However, the garlic press is part of my life, and I want it.

By the time we’ve finished, I feel like I’ve run a marathon, or walked the length of the country, or something. The thought of unpacking all of this into a storage unit and then one day packing it all back into the van and on to a mysterious and unknown home makes me want to cry and never stop.

‘If you think of anything else,’ says Chris, ‘just let me know. And I’ll give you some money, for the sofa and the dining-room furniture, and–’

‘Good,’ says Xanthe. ‘Maybe you should write that down? It will save any hassle later. When my dad left, my folks didn’t sort anything out. They still moan about it now. You know, someone else’ – we all know who she means – ‘might tell you you’re being overgenerous. I don’t think you are – I think you’re being very reasonable, which is great, but stuff changes. You’ll forget what Thea’s like. You might get resentful.’

He frowns at her. ‘I don’t think–’

‘I know. But seriously. Just write it down.’

‘All