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

woods, not much left now. They – we – lived there until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Then we built on the site where the house is now, but you can’t see much of the original building. Anyway, if you skirt the edge of the woods here, the inscribed rocks are just off the track. There’s an outcrop here, but you need to look for the flat bit to the left of that. Not as impressive as Drumtroddan, but you can see it all quite clearly. There’s a cairn west of there and a standing stone too. I think it’s on the map, yes, there you go. On the higher ground above the river.’

‘Wow, nice. I shall have to have a look. Your brother said I could go anywhere on the estate.’ I glance sidelong at him to see how he’ll react to this.

‘Did he?’

‘Yes, so at least I won’t feel like I’m trespassing.’

‘We don’t have trespassing here anyway.’ He shakes his head at me.

‘I know, but it seems odd and I couldn’t just wander about willy-nilly; I’d feel guilty.’

He laughs. ‘Well, you can rest easy if Charles says it’s okay.’

‘Yes. Thank you, I’ll get my maps out when I get home. And can I really have this?’ I wave the book at him.

‘Sure. Are you going to read up about it?’

I nod. ‘I like to learn things. It’s all very different from Sussex – I want to make the most of it. Otherwise when I go back, I’ll be sorry.’

He looks at me for a moment, his expression hard to read. ‘You’re not going back immediately, though?’

‘Oh God, no. No, I’ll stay until September, at least.’

‘Good,’ he says, and goes back to what he was doing.

Today it’s my birthday. I’m forty-four. Cards arrive at the Lodge from Xanthe and Angela and my cousin Sarah and my parents. They’re in Shanghai. They’ve sent something, but my mother doesn’t know when it will get here. There’s also a card from two of the women I used to work with. When I get somewhere with a signal, there will be Facebook messages, I expect. I’ve had nothing from Chris. I tell myself I didn’t expect anything. I open my cards and put them on the mantelpiece. Last year we were away for my birthday. I don’t think about that. And it’s no good complaining you’ve got no cards if you never mention your birthday. No one up here knows, and I’m not planning on telling anyone. It’s just a day like any other.

Maybe I’ll buy myself a steak, or drive to Newton Stewart and have dinner in a pub. A strange pub by oneself isn’t much more enticing than cooking one’s own dinner though. I don’t mind, really; I’d rather be by myself than pretending to have fun somewhere. I wonder what I’ll be doing on my birthday next year. Perhaps I should plan something. Plenty of time for that.

I’m parking in my usual spot outside the town hall when my phone rings. I don’t know the number, but when I answer I recognize Chris’s voice. I wonder if there’ll ever be a time when I don’t. This is the first time we’ve spoken since I came up here – we communicate via email usually, and that’s rare enough.

‘Happy birthday,’ he says. ‘Thought I’d ring. I’ve failed to send you a card.’

‘That’s okay.’ I watch the swallows swooping over the town hall and try to distance myself from the conversation.

‘Failed everyone’s birthdays,’ he adds.

‘Oh, Chris, really? They’re all on the calendar.’

‘I know.’

‘Well, you’ll have to make an effort. You didn’t miss your dad’s, did you?’ That was last week, six days before mine. I didn’t send him a card, rather childishly.

‘No, we – I went round there.’

I try not to think about this. Did they all go, I wonder, Susanna’s kids as well? I can’t picture it. Probably for the best. ‘Oh, well. Good. Just you should look at the calendar at the beginning of the month. There are cards in the sideboard.’

‘Oh, is that where they are? I thought there must be some. But anyway, yeah, happy birthday, Thea. Are you doing anything?’

I get out of the car and close the door. There’s a sharp breeze and I shiver. ‘No, nothing planned.’ I nearly tell him I’ve no one to do anything with, but that seems pathetic, so I don’t.

‘Well, okay. Have a good day. Er…’

I can tell he doesn’t know what else to say. It makes me sad, that we’ve nothing to say to each other. ‘I’d better go,’ I tell him, ‘I’m just going to buy cake.’

‘Oh, for work?’

‘Yeah.’ Not that I’ve told Edward it’s my birthday, and I’m not going to. But if Chris wants to think of a jolly office birthday, let him.

‘All right then. Take care.’

‘Yes, and you.’

He says goodbye and we hang up. I lean against the car for a moment and bite my lip hard. I think I’d have preferred a card, or nothing. It’s easier when I don’t have to speak to him. Such a tiny, meaningless conversation. I push open the door to the baker’s and consider the cake selection. Buns, I think.

When I get home, there are flowers in a box on the doorstep. For a wild moment, I think they might be from Chris, but of course they’re not; they’re from Xanthe and Rob. Which is fine. I let myself in and take the flowers to the kitchen, digging through the cupboard under the sink for something to put them in. Hot pink and yellow gerberas; they look very modern in the old-fashioned pressed glass vase, but I like them, and I leave them on the kitchen table so I can look at them while I eat my birthday steak.

I haven’t had a bad day, actually; the sun was shining and we sold quite a lot of books, which put Edward in a good mood. All in all, it could have been a lot worse.

I try to