The Bookshop of New Beginnings: Heart-warming, uplifting – a perfect feel good read!. Jen Mouat
have to return it in three days. The nearest branch is just outside Glasgow.’
Emily called over her shoulder as she carried the rubbish into the kitchen. ‘That’s fine, I can follow you up in the Land Rover. We can make a day of it, scout around auctions or something.’
Suddenly it seemed too final. As if returning the car meant she was committed for the summer. Kate quickly pushed her uncertainty to one side and focused again on their plans for the shop, and sorting out Emily, who was clearly in just as much need of repair. ‘Not the same Land Rover, surely?’ She remembered a green, lumbering brute of a vehicle, mud spattered and temperamental; Lena ferrying them all down from Edinburgh in it all those times Kate gatecrashed the Cottons’ holidays, escaping the loneliness of the tenement. Every Easter and summer they would all pile in and chunter along the scenic route through Moffat and Dumfries, past the swooping valley of the Devil’s Beef Tub.
Emily returned from the kitchen, ducking beneath the strap of an old suede shoulder bag, her jacket over one arm. ‘Jasper? Yep, he still runs like a dream.’
Kate snorted. ‘He never did before.’
‘Don’t be mean about poor Jasper. Do you remember when Lena told us she’d named him after one of her old boyfriends? She said they were each as ornery as the other.’ She grinned at this memory; Lena was a woman who spoke openly of errant past lovers to her grandchildren, who smoked fulsomely and cursed and was generally considered (by Emily’s mother) to be a bad example. When in fact she was the best example of all; an example of how to be oneself in a world where all too often one was expected to twist and contort and conform to fit in.
Kate remembered being fourteen, squashed in the back of Jasper with Emily, Fergus and Ally; she and Em reading Just Seventeen and giggling over the problem pages, fascinated by sex. Dan and Fergus had come to blows over the front seat and were nursing their wounds and lingering tempers. Kate was eyeing Dan surreptitiously when she didn’t think anyone was watching, a strange, new fluttering of longing in her belly that summer – for what she didn’t know. Willing him to notice her that way. Lena was singing badly to The Kinks and the dog was stinking out the car with his breath.
That was the summer Kate met Luke Ross and everything changed.
‘Come on, let’s go home to Lena,’ Emily said, cutting through Kate’s reverie. Kate flushed with the heat of her remembered crush on Dan – fading in the face of her greater obsession with Luke. It had been one of the best times of her life and they had repeated it year on year, those hot, languid summers on the Solway becoming synonymous with love, and Luke.
Bluebell Bank had never grown old or lost its appeal. They kept coming back long after most kids gave up on family holidays, especially with a curmudgeonly old grandmother. Lena understood young folk, never patronised them or interfered, and they loved her for it.
Every year they’d gathered, right up until Emily went off with Joe and Kate left for New York. They’d convened at Bluebell Bank, place of peace and beauty, and relive those blissful younger days.
She was nervous and excited now in equal measure. Bluebell Bank conjured up nostalgic images of corniced rooms and patterned carpets, of salads on hot summer days and net curtains blowing into the garden on the breeze; of paddling pools and rope swings and gnarled apple trees and children’s shrieks carried on warm currents of air; a place where time slowed and stopped and real world problems could not touch her. Bluebell Bank was a parallel universe; it had always seemed impossible to her that the same old life was continuing unabated whilst she was there; far easier to believe she had slipped through a crack in time, into a new world altogether. A world where she didn’t have to worry about her mother, or where the next meal was coming from.
Kate pictured the indomitable Lena, with her penchant for wearing men’s work trousers and battered sandals on her leathery feet, overseeing the Cotton family chaos, her wild, white hair sticking up around her face and shrewd blue eyes seeing to the heart of them all. She was always ready to listen to childish woes and her puckish sense of adventure kept the children coming back for more. Kate could not wait to be reunited with the Cotton matriarch, a woman who had been more of a mother to her than anyone. Emily’s mother, Melanie, was always supremely kind, but she was so polished and perfect that Kate had never quite got over her awe of her.
They locked up the shop, inserting a heavy, rusted key into a door warped by damp. The small yard and corkscrew path were overrun with lush, rain-drenched foliage. A wet, summery smell wrapped itself around them as they squeezed between the dripping bushes, heading up the lane towards the high street.
‘Tomorrow the hard work starts,’ Kate said, shooting a warning look at Emily. She didn’t want Emily to lose sight of the road ahead, the hurdles they must vanquish along the way.
They drove in convoy out of town, past the Bladnoch Inn and distillery and along narrow, tree-lined roads. Bluebell Bank was a mile from town, sitting atop a small rise with its gardens spilling down towards the river. A twisting drive led through a thicket of steadfast old trees.
Turning off the road, negotiating the bumps and turns of the track in her too-pristine car, Kate had a sudden vision of these woods filled with children. She could see herself and Emily darting through the long grass, barefoot, hair flying, grabbing the old gnarled trunks to peer out and glimpse their pursuers. She could hear their gasping laughter, feel the twigs and rough grass catch at her feet; Fergus, cursing as he stumbled gracelessly through the woods in pursuit, while Dan laughed complacently, calling out that he was wasting his time, they’d be better off lying in wait for the girls to risk a final flight towards the house – Lena’s protection being the only safety net in this ferocious game of chase and catch. Kate had wanted Dan to catch her; she had longed to feel the crush of his arms as if in embrace, to be swung off her feet. Dan had seemed so tall and handsome and brave, everything her girlish soul could desire.
The garden opened up before Kate as she took the final bend and pulled the hire car to a stop on the square of gravel out front. The house, backlit by late afternoon sunshine, radiated all the warmth and happiness of those perfect childish interludes.
She felt a fresh flood of nerves as she stepped out of the car. There were birds singing in the trees and the air smelled of summer: honeysuckle and manure-fields and rain-soaked vegetation. Here I am, she thought. I am here. They were two distinct sentiments, representing both what she had come to offer and the absolution she hoped to receive.
The front door opened and a figure hovered on the bowed step. Long white hair formed a cotton-wool halo around her head and her expression was curious, eyes squinting in the afternoon sun. Her sinewy frame was familiar, clad in an over-large blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up over gnarled forearms.
‘Lena,’ Kate cried joyously, and hastened across the drive as a russet brown dog squeezed around Lena and limped down the steps, wagging a feathery tail: an old man now, with greying muzzle and stiff legs.
Emily called Kate’s name softly: a warning. That, and some other instinct, made Kate stop short before she reached the steps. Lena stared at her, unsmiling. ‘Who is it?’ she asked querulously, looking past Kate to her granddaughter. Kate turned to glance at Emily who was still dragging her suitcase out of the boot of the rental car, then bent and wound her fingers in the dog’s fur for comfort.
‘Lena,’ Emily said softly. ‘This is Kate. She’s my friend. She’s come to stay for a while.’
Kate stared at Emily. Why on earth would she introduce her as a stranger? She turned to Lena, who was searching her face, a veneer of polite friendliness replacing her former suspicion. That scared Kate more than anything – Lena was rarely polite. Gruff, unrelentingly honest, fiercely loving, but not polite. ‘Come in,’ Lena said. ‘Would you like some tea?’
Emily pushed gently past Kate, who was frozen on the drive, and set her suitcase on the step. She stretched and kissed Lena’s weathered cheek. ‘I didn’t know Kate was coming until the last minute,’ she said.
‘I should have called,’ Kate began, baffled, floundering. ‘I wanted to surprise Em …’