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

the lid off my coffee. We don’t often have coffee from the coffee shop – it seems wasteful when we have a perfectly good kettle here, and it’s not like Edward buys shit coffee. We have the fanciest instant money can buy, and a cafetière as well for when he can’t face that. It makes a change to have coffee shop coffee sometimes; it reminds me of my old job, when I bought a giant latte from Costa on the way to work every day.

It’s funny how rarely I think of my old work life. Sometimes I think about my colleagues, some of whom I was fond of, but I don’t miss anything about it at all: not the journey, which was awkward, involving the worst bits of the one-way system; or the offices, which were badly built and ugly and stuck on a windswept business estate on the outskirts of town, with infuriatingly generic ‘planting’ in the car park, four lifts, at least one of which was always broken, and an inconvenient security system, which meant you couldn’t spend cash in the canteen but had to put money on your ID card using one of the two machines in the basement, one of which, again, was always broken. And I don’t miss the pointless meetings where people wrote things on whiteboards and no one took any minutes and nothing was ever achieved. Looking back, I think when the company that provided the office plants came and took them all away, because no one had paid the fee for them to be watered, it was probably a sign that all was not well with Data Tech Solutions.

I sip my coffee and think about my plans for the day. I need to Tweet about the books Edward bought last week. I wonder where they are.

‘You didn’t shelve the new stuff, did you?’

‘No, it’s all still in the boxes. I put them in Poetry. Some of ’em are heavy; I’ll move them for you.’

‘Okay. Did you have a good weekend?’

‘Not really,’ he says, but I don’t get the impression he wants to talk about it. I consider my response. He didn’t work Friday or Saturday – I think he was away.

He finishes his sandwich and wipes his fingers with a paper napkin. ‘What about you? How was your “not a date” with my brother? Are you engaged?’

I laugh. ‘Idiot. No, it was okay. Food was nice.’

‘Is that it?’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Poor effort on Charles’s part if that’s all you have to say about it.’

I shrug. ‘I told you it wasn’t a significant event.’

‘Ouch. Did he ask you back for coffee?’

I laugh again. ‘No, he didn’t. I told him I wasn’t interested, and I didn’t think he was interested either, and basically could we not have some complicated thing going on, because I can’t be bothered.’

‘You just came out with all that?’ He shakes his head at me.

‘Well, I’m paraphrasing. But essentially.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh, he got a bit flustered but it turned out okay.’ I grin at him. ‘I don’t think he’s used to people being blunt with him.’

‘Probably not. Surrounded by sycophants.’

‘Pfft. That seems harsh. Anyway. So what, did you go to Edinburgh?’

‘Yes.’

I wait to see if he’s going to say anything else, but he doesn’t. I take the scissors from behind the counter and go through to Poetry to open the boxes. It’s very quiet this morning; no phone calls, no emails, no customers so far. I slice open the first box and begin to unpack the books. A few minutes later, he comes out to join me. Instead of moving boxes though, he sits on the sofa and closes his eyes. I regard him sympathetically. I’ve never seen him look so knackered, almost fragile.

‘Should you have stayed in bed?’ I ask.

‘No, I’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘Sure? You don’t look fine.’

‘Late night. Didn’t get home until half four or something.’

‘Blimey. I’d be dead.’

‘Yeah, well.’ He sighs, blinking, and yawns.

‘Were you, um…’ I pause in my unpacking, thinking about what I want to ask. I don’t want to be nosy. Or at least, I don’t want to sound nosy. ‘How come you got in so late?’

‘Massive, spectacular row,’ he says. He sighs again. ‘Should have left a lot earlier, but you know how it is.’

‘Oh. Shouting?’

‘Lots of shouting.’

‘Both of you?’

‘Mostly her.’ He smiles at me. ‘I don’t care enough to shout.’

I wince at this. I wonder if this lack of caring is why she shouts at him.

‘It’s all very boring,’ he says. ‘I sometimes wonder… But this is not interesting, I’m sorry.’

‘Sometimes wonder what?’

He sits up and we look at each other. ‘Oh, nothing. It doesn’t matter – it’s not important.’

‘What were you fighting about?’

‘Yeah, that’s not interesting either. Same old shit.’

I turn to the second box and unzip the tape. ‘Do you have a nice time, though? You and Lara?’

‘A nice time?’

‘Yeah, you know, like’ – I pretend to concentrate on removing books from the box – ‘does she make you laugh? Or do you make her laugh?’

‘I went arse over tit on George Street once, in the snow. Thought I’d busted my coccyx. She thought that was hilarious.’

‘That’s not exactly what I meant. I mean, fun. D’you have fun?’

‘Fun? Huh. The short answer is no, not really.’

‘And the long answer?’

‘Also no.’

‘Oh, Edward,’ I say. ‘That’s… well. It’s a shame is what it is.’

He shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter. Do you want me to take that last box through, then?’

After lunch, he says, ‘Oh, I forgot. I got you this. For selling all those history books last week.’

I look at him, but his face is bland and unreadable. ‘It’s my job to sell books, isn’t it? You don’t need to buy me things.’

‘I know, but I don’t pay you very much, do I? So think of it as a token.’ He puts a little brown paper packet on the counter.

I look at it. ‘I don’t think you should buy me things. Unless it’s my birthday.’

‘When is your