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

‘I don’t know if… Is that helpful?’

‘I don’t know. But tell me anyway.’

He sighs. ‘D’you remember that bonfire party Deb and Andy had? When you had flu?’

I think of the autumn he’s talking about. I hadn’t had flu for years and was shocked at the severity of it. Four years ago last November.

‘Yes, I remember.’ It’s a long time ago. Quite shockingly so.

‘Well, I suppose it was after that.’

‘I wondered how it started. I mean, did you kiss her, or say something first, or what?’

‘Thea, I don’t think it’s something we should talk about.’

‘I don’t see why not. I mean I’ve had to live with the consequences. Had you fancied her for years?’

Four years ago? Flipping heck.

‘No, I’d never thought about it. About anyone.’

I nod politely. ‘Oh yeah.’

‘You do believe me?’

I shrug. ‘I guess.’

‘But she… I don’t know. It was dark, and cold, and there were lots of people and mulled cider–’

‘I remember you telling me about all those things,’ I say, ‘and baked potatoes and fireworks. But not about Susanna.’

‘No, well. We were chatting, and she just put her hand through my arm, you know, and… I could easily have ignored her, or pulled away, but I didn’t. And afterwards, I helped Deb put things away, and everyone had gone, more or less, except Susanna. I asked her how she was getting home, and she said she was walking. So I offered her a lift, and then she asked me in.’ He pauses. ‘The children were at James’s for the weekend.’

‘And that was that? You weren’t terribly late back, or I’d remember. Did you go to bed then?’

‘No, no of course not. No,’ he says, offended. ‘No. She gave me her phone number, and told me she–’

I’m not sure I want actual details. I can picture the hallway of Susanna’s house, imagine the scene: the cold, the darkness, the two of them in their winter coats, fumbling.

‘Did you kiss her?’

He looks at me and then away. ‘Yes. And she said…’

I can see he’s remembering it: the moment, the beginning, the start of ‘them’, the beginning of the end of ‘us’. It’s always pleasant to think of the start of something. I could find a smile and some warmth in the thought of the beginning of any of my relationships: the first kiss, the move from ‘potential’ to ‘actual’. But I don’t want to see it on his face. I wonder what she said. Did she tell him she liked him? Or that it was wrong? Or that she was up for it? I think of a summer evening long ago, Chris putting his arm round my shoulders for the first time as we sat slumped on the sofa in his rather grotty flat, the taste of cider and cigarettes. Tragic, isn’t it? It seems like five minutes ago and five hundred years.

He’s talking again, and I should listen.

‘I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I felt bad just for kissing her.’

‘Just’. It’s not nothing, is it? An illicit kiss, a secret snog, then back to your house, your bed, your wife.

I drain my cup, wait for him to go on.

‘I didn’t text her for ages.’ He wants me to believe him, and then forgive him. And maybe he didn’t text her right away. I bet he thought about it though. I wonder if he thought about it when we were together, in bed; did he imagine how it would be? Susanna with her mass of curls, her skin darker than mine, her frankly enormous breasts? I wouldn’t say she was fat, plump maybe, and she does have big tits. A comfortable body. She’s had three kids, after all. And she’s sexy, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. I said before – earth-motherish. She’s got a tattoo on her shoulder, a sunflower, and smells of coconut oil. I can almost smell it now; perhaps I can. He might smell of her. After all, she’s always there, isn’t she, in his house, buying shampoo for him and shower gel, ironing his shirts, possibly.

It’s interesting to think these things and watch myself for a reaction.

‘But then you started texting her? Is it weird that I want to know?’ I laugh. ‘I don’t know why I do, really.’

‘I told myself I was texting to tell her it… that I wasn’t going to… that I couldn’t get involved.’

‘Oh, right. But that’s not what happened.’

‘No. I was… it was… and then it seemed like just texting wouldn’t hurt. Although I knew it was wrong.’

‘And it escalated.’

He closes his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay. And when did you start sleeping together? That year?’

He doesn’t want to tell me, does he? He doesn’t like to think about it, or not as it might seem to me. Being in the wrong is problematic.

‘Not until the spring.’

‘Gosh. How restrained.’

He opens his eyes. He looks pained, but that’s not my problem, is it? I think I’m being very calm. I don’t even want to make him feel bad, but he’s a decent enough bloke, so I assume he is feeling bad. And then probably resentful because guilt makes you irritable. I bet he can think of a hundred reasons why all of this happened, and none of them will be ‘because I couldn’t keep it in my fucking pants’.

‘Thea–’

‘And then you fell in love. When was that?’

‘I don’t know. Not for a while, maybe that summer. I thought for ages it didn’t matter, that it didn’t make any difference to us. You and me.’

‘It didn’t seem to,’ I say. ‘I mean, I didn’t notice. That made it worse, I think. I had no idea. I didn’t even think you were being distant or that you were… absent more than usual. That’s what made it so odd for me. So difficult to process. It was a total shock.’

I think about that text he sent, the picture. Thinking about yesterday, was what he’d written. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,