The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane: The feel-good read perfect for those long winter nights. Ellen Berry
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him and smiled. After all these years, she still noticed how lovely his eyes were, a soft greeny-blue, outlined with the dark, silky lashes she’d once pronounced wasted on a man. ‘So, where have you been playing, then? Since the mole thing, I mean?’
‘Cragham. It’s actually a much better course.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
He gave her a curious look. ‘Since when have you been interested in golf, Dell?’
‘Well, it’s just not my kind of— ’
‘I mean, d’you really want me to come home and give you a detailed report on the game?’
Della frowned. ‘Of course not.’
He smirked. ‘D’you want to know how I broke eighty for the first time, but it all went to pot and I tried to grind it out with a wedge?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked, sniggering now.
‘You want to know about my swing, honey?’ She smiled, overwhelmed by a desire to kiss him. But he was already on his feet, tugging her up by the hand too. ‘Come on, let’s get back to bed.’
‘God, yes, it’s so late.’
He held her hand as they made their way upstairs, and it was still wrapped around hers, warm and comforting, as they lay side by side in bed. ‘Is there something else, Dell?’ he ventured.
‘No, no, there’s nothing.’ She felt ridiculous now, petty and jealous, no better than the kind of woman who rummages through a partner’s emails and finds precisely nothing untoward.
‘Is all this about Sophie leaving? I mean, is that why you seem so tense?’
She turned this over in her mind. ‘Maybe. I mean, I know it’s great for her, a whole a new adventure …’ She broke off. ‘I ran into Pattie and Christine today after I’d been to Mum’s. Popped into the chippy for tea.’
‘Pattie and Christine?’
‘Yes, you remember, the ladies from the haberdashery shop, they were at Mum’s funeral tea.’
‘Oh, yes, the weirdos!’
She pulled her hand away from his. ‘They’re not weird, Mark. They’re really kind. I’ve known them practically all my life.’
‘Yes, I’m sure they are, but don’t you think it’s a bit, I don’t know, sad to spend your whole life running a dismal little shop in the back of beyond?’
She considered this. ‘Not really. I’ve never thought about it like that.’
‘What would you think if that was the sum total of Sophie’s ambitions? To sit behind a shop counter for years on end?’
Like I have, you mean? The words hovered on her tongue. ‘That’s different.’
‘How is it different?’
‘Because … she’s young, she’s talented and ambitious.’
‘And she’s ours,’ he added gently.
‘Yes, exactly. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that they’ve closed the shop …’
Mark chuckled softly. ‘Front-page news: haberdashery shop in Burley Bridge shuts down. Where will old ladies get their zips?’
‘Yes, well, they’ve been saving up and now they’ve bought a place in Majorca.’
‘You mean a holiday apartment or something?’
‘No, a cottage in the mountains.’
A beat’s silence. ‘And they’re going together? The two sisters, you mean?’
‘Yep, that’s right.’
‘Now, that is weird.’ He sniggered in wonderment.
Was it, though? Della wondered. It didn’t seem remotely weird to her. She imagined the sisters were as thrilled to be packing up their belongings as Sophie had been when the two of them had selected her student’s starter kit. Together they had trawled IKEA, choosing a new duvet and pillows, cutlery, a set of pans and a colander. It was all sitting in its gigantic blue bag in the cupboard under the stairs. It had been months since they had done something together, just the two of them. These past couple of years Sophie had preferred going to the cinema with Liam, Evie or a big pack of friends, and Della had found herself grateful, like a dog being offered scraps, when her daughter deigned to watch TV with her. Gone were the days when they’d spend a whole afternoon at a vintage fair together, choosing a gilt-framed mirror for Sophie’s room. But there in IKEA they had chatted and laughed and deliberated over wine glasses and tea towels, and even stopped for lunch. Sophie had virtually shimmered with excitement over her plate of curious little veggie balls, like a little girl compiling her Christmas list.
Della’s thoughts drifted back to the haberdashery sisters, who had probably shed their possessions rather than acquiring new ones. Now that was appealing, the clearing of clutter and starting afresh. Jeff had been right about Kitty’s hoarding tendencies, and Della certainly didn’t want to turn into her mother. As Mark mumbled in his sleep and edged further away from her, she pictured the cookbooks in their hallway, towering in piles, hemming them in. Then she visualised Sew ’n’ Sew’s, which she had so loved popping into as a child, now slowly dulling with dust.
When she woke up next morning Della knew exactly what she needed to do.
Della was rarely up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday but today she slipped quietly out of bed, leaving Mark dead to the world, and pulled on jeans and a faded T-shirt, and padded softly downstairs. The house was pleasingly quiet as she settled at the kitchen table with her laptop.
Despite being awake half the night, she felt fresh and ready for action. She Googled ‘Sew ’n’ Sew’s’, trying many different apostrophe variations, plus commercial property/shop to let, with zero result. Perhaps the shop wasn’t available for letting yet, or the owner – whoever that was – believed advertising online to be far too modern and convenient, and had opted for a note in the window of Irene Bagshott’s general store instead. Keeping her ears pricked for the sound of movement upstairs, as if she were engaging in something rather sleazy, Della switched to Googling ‘Burley Bridge to let’. And there it was, on Gumtree, of all places, ‘purveyor of old tat,’ as Mark had put it:
SHOP TO LET
74 Rosemary Lane, Burley Bridge
Formerly a haberdasher’s
Comprising shop unit plus bathroom facilities and small storage room
Front display window looking directly onto main thoroughfare …
And that was it – apart from the rent, which seemed ridiculously low, although Della had no knowledge of such matters – plus two rather grim photographs. The exterior shot had clearly been taken on a gloomy day. The sky was leaden, the painted sign faded and peeling. The interior shot was no more inviting. There was a ragged crack in the ceiling and the pinky-beige walls, bare now that the racks of multicoloured zips and embroidery threads had gone, looked mottled and bleak. It was hard to picture it as the welcoming shop it once was, crammed with wools and ribbons and bales of fabric, which Della had so loved. The fact that the owner hadn’t even bothered to use any flowery descriptions about the quaintness of Burley Bridge, or how the shop offered huge potential, suggested that they didn’t really care whether the place was let or not.
The thought of it lying empty, slowly decaying, was just too sad for words.
But it needn’t be like that. The place could be hers; Della could open a bookshop – not an ordinary