Honeyford is waking up. Curtains are drawn back in golden-yellow cottages, pale spring sunshine is glinting on the old market house, and the washed stone doorstep of the Pheasant and Fox pub is dripping with soapy water.
Beyond the huddled buildings, sheep are tiny white specks on hills that roll gently towards a purple horizon. It’s a glorious view, and one that usually fills my heart with peace and joy – but this morning I couldn’t give a monkey’s.
Rushing along the High Street, I check my watch for the umpteenth time and body-swerve a mum who’s pushing a sleeping baby in a pram. Poor woman. She could do with clambering into the pram and getting some kip herself if the lines of exhaustion etched across her face are anything to go by.
Normally, I’d flash her a sympathetic smile, because I can’t help feeling sorry for new parents. My best friend, Sarah, insists she’ll never be a mother because it sounds so awful – a never-ending round of sore nipples, broken sleep and nappy brain.
But right now, nothing must distract me from getting to work on time. My new boss starts today so rocking up after nine o’clock is not on. And I can hardly say, Sorry I’m late but Gramp is threatening to do a sponsored parachute jump for endangered butterflies. Even though he is, and I’m late because I spent twenty minutes trying to talk him out of it.
The frazzled mum sinks onto a bench outside Honeyford Post Office, as I wonder whether caring for a baby is harder than looking after a relative who’s gone barmy since hitting the big eight-oh. One minute, he was a normal seventy-nine-year-old bloke who spent his time watching re-runs of Midsomer Murders. Then, at midnight on his birthday, he morphed into Bear Grylls.
He’s taken up jogging (very slowly) and joined Greenpeace ‘to save the world from plastic bags’. Last week, he went wild swimming in a local lake until the police brought him home in sopping wet underpants. So it’s hardly surprising that I’m on tenterhooks, wondering what Gramp will get up to next.
Though surely he wouldn’t be allowed to skydive at his age. Would he? I hurry past the centuries-old market house, picturing hordes of octogenarians flinging themselves from planes at twelve thousand feet.
Oh, no! Further along the High Street, I spot that my new boss Flora has already pulled up the window blinds at Honeyford Bookshop. The leaded panes are sparkling and two potential customers are checking out the window display. Breaking into an awkward half-walk half-run, I pull out my phone and glance at the jiggling screen, in case my watch is fast.
Nope, it’s eight fifty-nine, which means I have exactly sixty seconds to leg it along the road and hurtle through the shop door.
I wasn’t planning on rushing into work on Flora’s first day. In my head, I’d planned to be there, all calm and collected, before my new boss arrived. She’d walk in to find me re-arranging the stock or welcoming her with a steaming cup of coffee, and she’d thank her lucky stars that Callie Fulbright was her new assistant. But I hadn’t allowed for another of Gramp’s madcap schemes throwing me off course.
I’m about to shove my phone back into my pocket when I notice that Sarah’s sent me a couple of texts.
Good luck, amiga! Hope your new boss isn’t a total cow who works you to death, I read, stumbling slightly on the uneven pavement. And despite my new-boss nerves, I have to giggle – I can always rely on Sarah to give it to me straight and make me laugh.
The second text simply says: Check out Sophie’s Facebook! followed by a line of smiley-faced emojis with their tongues hanging out.
That’s intriguing. Checking out anything right now is unwise because I’m still in a mad rush, and the shop door is in sight. But my old schoolfriend Sophie’s updates on her fabulous fashion job in Milan are hard to ignore. Her Woohoo! It’s so brilliant in bella Italia posts give me a vicarious thrill – a taste of how life could have been if I’d taken a different path.
Sophie’s probably posted another selfie in a string bikini with some gorgeous Italian man drooling in the background. I’ve seen plenty of those already. But, as I rush past the sweet shop with its jars of sugary old-fashioned treats in the window, I open Facebook anyway – and do a double-take at the screen. Oh, my! There’s not one, but two gorgeous Italian men drooling in the background, and they’re wearing teeny, tiny swimming trunks that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. I stop dead on the pavement and squint at the photo. That is absolutely obscene!
As I’m staring at the screen, equally transfixed and horrified, I hear, ‘Hey, watch out!’ and someone barrels into me from behind. The jolt knocks the phone from my hand and it skids face-down across the pavement, before dropping off the kerb into the gutter.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I gasp, gazing in horror at my phone, which is now resting in a shallow puddle of grey water.
‘I should think you are sorry,’ snaps the sturdy fifty-something woman, smoothing down her deep purple gilet. ‘What kind of moron causes a pile-up on the pavement?’
My stomach does a flip because upsetting people is one of the things I hate most. It’s right up there with dog owners who don’t pick up after their pets, and cheese. How anyone can enjoy food that smells of old socks is beyond me.
But right now I’m too busy sending up a silent prayer to the God of Apple to care: please don’t let my phone be broken! A huge heating bill arrived yesterday – something to do with Gramp trying out Hot Yoga in the front room – and there’s no way I can afford to mend a shattered screen this month.
The woman huffs, picks my phone out of the gutter with her thumb and forefinger as though it’s contaminated, and hands it back. It’s sod’s law, of course, that she glances at the screen, and her eyebrows shoot towards her hairline as she clocks the Italian stallions in their indecent swimming trunks. Unfortunately, as the phone hit the pavement it appears to have zoomed in on the crotch area, and Sophie is no longer in sight.
Fantastic! Now she thinks I’m a moron and a pervert.
‘Thanks so much,’ I mumble, clicking off the photo and shoving the phone into my trouser pocket. ‘And I am sorry for stopping so suddenly.’
‘Hhmm. I should think so.’ The woman sighs and stares at me over the top of her enormous sunglasses. ‘There’s no damage done, I suppose. But can I suggest you watch where you’re going in future?’
She gives another small sigh and suddenly looks so sad I’m tempted to ask her what’s wrong. I don’t – partly because she’d only bite my head off, but mostly because the market house clock is striking nine behind me, which means I am now officially late. Flora’s probably waiting with her arms folded and my redundancy letter on standby.
‘Sorry, but I’ve got to go,’ I shout over my shoulder, running off at full pelt with a carrier bag over one arm and a Tupperware box of ham sandwiches banging rhythmically against my thigh.
‘Oy, Paula Radcliffe!’ yells local postman Mark, who’s pushing envelopes through the letterbox of the pub. ‘What’s the hurry? You’re not in training for the half-marathon like Stanley, are you?’
What half-marathon? Jeez, Gramp’s not signed up for anything else, has he?
But there’s no time to ask questions because the final chime is echoing across the town. So I just smile at Mark and wave like a crazy woman while I sprint past.
‘Go for it, Callie!’ His shout bounces off the Cotswold stone all around me and shatters the early morning calm.
What a morning! And it’s only just begun.
Thirty seconds later, I arrive at the bookshop, out of breath and panting. Maybe I should get fit and join Gramp in training for his half-marathon after all.
‘There you are,’ says Flora, the woman I’ve met only twice before, but who now controls a major part of my life. She steps out from behind a tidy display of Anne Tylers and runs her hand along the light oak counter that holds the till.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ I puff, fighting the urge to add: Please don’t sack me, because I have a bonkers granddad to feed. ‘I would have been on time but I bumped into someone.’
‘Literally,’ says Flora, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘How’s your phone?’
‘Ah, you saw that, did you? I think it’s fine.’
I pull my phone from my pocket, examine it properly and wince. The screen’s not fine at all. There’s a feathery silver crack I didn’t notice in my haste to click off the photo – before angry gilet woman got a proper eyeful of Italian stallion and marked me down as a sexually frustrated saddo.
‘Is it damaged? That’s a shame. But never mind, you can always get it mended.’ Flora taps her long fingernails on the grained wood. ‘And I know you couldn’t help it today, but please try not to be late in future.’
She says it pleasantly enough but I haven’t got my jacket off yet and I’ve already been told off. ‘Of course,’ I mumble, feeling cross with myself for being distracted by Sophie’s Facebook post.
Flora gives a tight smile, sits down on the stool behind the counter and crosses her legs. She’s wearing a moss-green dress that fits her beautifully and a necklace of large wooden beads that rests just below her collarbone. Not a hair is out of place in her glossy, shoulder-length black bob and I can almost see my face in her polished court shoes. She’s practically perfect.
I wipe a hand over my hot cheeks, tug at my shirt which is riding up, and deliberately slow down my breathing. But I still feel out of my depth and slightly intimidated.
My new boss exudes confidence and maturity, though she can’t be that much older than me – fifteen years maybe? I’d guess she’s in her early forties. But she comes across as a person who has her life sorted. A woman who never wears mismatched socks or sniffs her T-shirt to see if it’ll do another day. A woman who doesn’t get obsessed with Love Island or cause pile-ups in the street.
I bet she lives in a posh house and drinks Chablis with her evening meal, rather than the can of lager I usually share with Gramp.
‘Don’t mind me.’ Flora’s wedding ring catches the light as she pulls a publisher’s catalogue from underneath the counter and sets it down in front of her. ‘Just do whatever you normally would on a Monday morning and we can have a proper talk later.’
She starts flicking through the pages while I take off my jacket and dump my carrier bag in the shabby kitchen. My face still looks flushed in the cracked mirror above the sink and dark blonde tendrils of wavy hair have escaped from my ponytail and are sticking to my neck. I’m a bit of a mess, to be honest, and am seriously regretting opting for Converse trainers and new skinny jeans this morning. A suit would have been over the top – the only one I own is years old anyway – but maybe I should have worn a dress. First impressions, and all that.
Ah well, it’s too late now. I pat cool water onto my cheeks and head back into the shop where I start faffing about with the window display – all the while worrying about what Flora’s ‘proper talk’ might entail.
The next few hours pass quickly because there’s an influx of locals who come in to ‘browse’. Which in effect means gawping at Flora to see what this Honeyford newcomer is like, and nudging me when they think she’s not looking. I spend the rest of the time replenishing stock on the shelves, which doesn’t take as long as it used to because sales have gradually declined over the last year or so.
Watching sales figures plummet to new lows was what finally pushed Ruben, my old boss, to sell the shop to Flora and move closer to his daughter and grandchildren in Margate.
There were no buyers for the business at first and I thought the shop might close. After all, who in their right mind would want to take on a failing bookshop in a tiny Cotswolds town? But then Flora rode in on her white charger – actually a pristine white Ford Fiesta – and saved the day.
Though I think she might already be regretting her impulse buy. There’s been a fair amount of swearing under her breath all morning as she gets to grips with Ruben’s idiosyncratic stock system, and watches locals checking her out.
Just before one o’clock, I’m rearranging Kate Atkinsons near the front of the shop when a blonde woman I don’t recognise wanders in. She’s clasping the hand of a small boy in uniform whose knee-length grey socks are bunched up around his ankles. The heel of his hand is pressed hard against his jaw and he’s blinking like he might cry.
Standing in front of the bookshelves, the woman shrugs at the choice and turns to Flora.
‘Do you have any Harry Potter? My grandson’s just had a filling at the dentist and I promised him a treat.’
‘I’m sure Callie can help you.’ Flora tilts her head at me and raises one dark eyebrow like it’s a test or something. Which it hopefully isn’t because I’m about to flunk it, big time.
‘I’m afraid we don’t have any Harry Potters in stock,’ I tell the boy, whose face screws into a tight, What, no Hogwarts? pout. Working here for the last three years, it’s a look I’ve become all too familiar with.
‘Really? That surprises me.’ The woman tightens her grip on her grandson’s hand and starts pulling him towards the door. ‘Never mind, Henry, I’m in Cheltenham tomorrow and can try a bookshop there. Thank you, anyway.’
‘Or you could have a look at our other children’s books,’ I say, putting on my best smile. ‘We’ve got a great selection at the back of the shop. What sort of stories do you like, Henry?’
‘Dunno,’ mumbles Henry, a silver trail of saliva dribbling down his chin as the anaesthetic starts wearing off. He wipes it away with the back of his hand.
‘Well, we’ve got all sorts of books about spies, or racing drivers, or secret societies. Does that sound any good?’
When Henry nods, I gesture for him and his gran to follow me across the sloping flagstones to the rear of the shop. It’s darker back here and harder to see the coloured spines of the books lining the walls.
‘Here you go,’ I tell Henry. ‘There are lots of fabulous books to choose from so take your time and see which story you like the most.’
The boy’s eyes open wide as he runs his finger along the paperbacks, and he nods when I whisper in his ear: ‘It’s magic back here, isn’t it?’ He can feel it too.
This is my favourite part of the shop because it’s like a portal to exciting, unfamiliar worlds for young readers. Sarah’s eyes glaze over when I get all passionate about children’s books – but every one offers a glimpse of somewhere new. And that’s not to be sniffed at when you’re growing up in a small town where nothing much happens.
The fact that the industrial revolution was the last even vaguely interesting thing to happen around here – Sarah’s words, not mine – means that most of my school friends have moved away. Emily’s now teaching English in Japan, Jess is dancing in a West End show, Sophie’s fighting off suitors in Portofino, and Sarah’s living and working in Cheltenham.
But I’m still here. I know my friends must occasionally wonder if that points to some sort of character flaw on my part – a lack of bravery, perhaps, or curiosity about the big, wide world. So I let them believe that I only stay in Honeyford for Gramp’s sake. And I don’t mention that the setting sun casting a golden glow over the town’s ancient buildings, or ribbons of cloud drifting over distant hills, fills me with joy. I’m not sure they’d get it, and Sarah would definitely take the mick.
‘I can’t choose between this one and this one,’ says Henry, getting my attention by waving two paperbacks in my face. ‘Which one’s the best?’
The two books are crammed full of thrills and adventure so it’s hard to pick between them, and in the end his gran does the right thing and buys both. Henry will love them.
Flora drops the books into a paper bag and waves at Henry as he disappears through the front door with a dribbly smile. Then she turns to me and folds her arms.
‘No wonder that lady was surprised. Why are some of the best-selling children’s books of all time out of stock? It’s not as though we haven’t got the space.’
She waves her arm around the shop. In contrast to the exciting, musty bookshops I visited as a child, where novels overflowed from packed shelves and were stacked on the floor in piles, Honeyford Bookshop is ordered and tidy and smells mostly of furniture polish. Its shelves are neatly lined with hundreds of books but there’s room for more.
‘We’ve never kept them in stock, Flora.’ Oops, maybe I should be calling my new boss ‘Mrs Morgan’? She doesn’t react so I carry on. ‘Ruben didn’t approve of books about magic and refused to have them on the shop floor. He was the same about any sort of book that he thought might have a bad effect on his customers.’
‘Such as?’
‘Books with lots of sex scenes in them, or excessive violence.’
‘So he only stocked books that he thought his customers should read? That is priceless.’ Flora whistles through her teeth. ‘Did he ever wonder why sales were slipping?’
I shrug. ‘Probably, and I did try to tell him, but he got more particular and entrenched about what the shop should stock as he got older.’
‘Hhmm. That could explain a lot, because this shop should be doing better.’ Flora sighs, walks to the shop doorway and peers outside. ‘Is it always this quiet at lunchtime?’ She looks up and down the street as though she might pounce on unsuspecting passers-by and drag them inside.
‘Not always, but it’s Monday and the tourist season isn’t in full swing yet. It’ll be busier later on in the week and on Saturday when there are more locals about.’
‘Do you think so? Remind me, how long have you worked here?’
‘About three years.’
‘And you like it?’
‘I do, mostly.’
Flora turns and fixes her deep-violet eyes on me. ‘Why do you like it?’
Crikey, it’s like twenty questions, with the ultimate prize of not peeing off your new boss.
‘I love books,’ I say, slowly, ‘and spreading the joy of literature.’ Eew, that makes me sound like a pretentious prat – even though it’s true – but Flora just nods. ‘And I love talking to people. One of the best things about this job is the conversations I have with the people who come in. Lots of people call in for a chat.’
Flora raises her eyebrows. ‘Just for a chat?’
‘Loads of them buy books too.’
‘Loads’ is pushing it because a fair few only nip in to tell me about their medical ailments or to share the latest gossip. But some ask for advice on books they might like to buy, and I’m always happy to give it – just so long as lots of sex, excessive violence and magic aren’t their ‘thing’.
‘You do seem to have a relaxed style with customers,’ says Flora, her expression neutral so it’s hard to tell if that’s a good or bad thing. ‘So what do you think of the way this place has been run up to now?’
I shrug. ‘It’s fine.’
Faint lines fan across Flora’s forehead when she frowns. ‘No, really. I want you to be honest because I’d like your opinion.’
This is a first. Ruben was a fair boss and didn’t mind me having an hour off to drive my gramp to the doctor or his chiropody appointment – just so long as I made up the time later. But he was elderly and old school. He ran the business and I was his employee, who put up and shut up. Any suggestions I had for improvements were dismissed as too expensive, totally unnecessary or completely unworkable. So I ended up keeping my opinions to myself.
‘You can say whatever you think. I can take it,’ says Flora, fixing me with a hard stare.
‘Well…’ I hesitate, even though I’ve always had plenty of ideas about how the shop could be improved. ‘I think this place could attract more customers by being more welcoming – with better lighting throughout the store, more chairs so people can browse in comfort, maybe discounts for regular book buyers. That type of thing. And just more books generally – more choice. I’d have books, all kinds of books, everywhere.’
I stop and bite my lip, unsure whether Flora really wants my views. But she nods and says ‘interesting’ as though she means it.
Then she paces up and down for a few moments, as though wrestling with a decision.
‘I need to make this business work,’ she suddenly blurts out, her cheeks flushing bright pink as she taps her foot rhythmically against the door frame. ‘Malcolm – that’s my husband – thinks that taking on a failing bookshop is a foolish investment, especially as I’ve no real experience of this kind of thing.’
She carries on tapping. Tap, tap, tap.
‘I’ve helped Malcolm run restaurants in the past. He had one in Yorkshire for years until…’ she hesitates, ‘until we moved to Oxford last summer and he set one up there. So I know about running restaurants, but bookshops, not so much. This is a whole new venture for me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work, does it.’
Is that a question or a statement? Flora doesn’t seem so confident any more.
‘I’m sure it will work,’ I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. ‘You can make changes for the better, and you’ve got me here to support you. I kind of know how the shop works so it’ll be fine.’
It’s only when Flora gives a big smile and her shoulders drop that I realise they’ve been up around her ears all morning.
‘Thank you, Callie. That’s what I’m banking on.’ She breathes out slowly. ‘I’m parched. Do you fancy a coffee?’
This is a day of firsts. The only time Ruben ever made me a hot drink was when I slipped in milk on the shop kitchen floor and knackered my knee. And that was purely so I wouldn’t sue.
Flora’s heels click across the flagstones while it sinks in that maybe my new boss isn’t quite so intimidating after all. She seemed nervous when she was talking about her minimal retail experience, and I’m touched that she confided in me about her husband’s lack of support.
It turns out she doesn’t have a grand plan to turn this place around. She doesn’t seem to know much about bookshops at all, which is worrying. But at least I can report to Sarah that she doesn’t appear to be a total cow.
‘How was day one with the dragon?’ shouts Gramp when I come through the front door of the small house we share. We’ve lived together since my gran died almost three years ago, which was around the same time that my mum moved to Spain. I shove the door closed with my foot and trudge through the hall with shopping bags in each hand.
‘It. . .
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