The musty scent of old books was both damp and dry. It clogged Kate’s nose and throat as soon as she stepped over the threshold, but was not entirely unpleasant. The bookshop was an old stone building set back off the main street of Wigtown, along a narrow alley dog-legging between shops; a crazy-paved path wove through an explosion of dense, free-spirited shrubbery. The shop was an unprepossessing place at first glance, viewed through a curtain of drizzle and wreathed in grey Solway mist. A peeling, hand-painted sign pointed the way to a barn filled with books, the interior almost invisible through its dirty windows. Floor-length, rickety metal shelves and overflowing tables filled up the space with no order, no arrangement, no rhyme or reason as yet; just precious words, mouldering and haphazardly stacked.
Into the midst of this muddle stepped Kate Vincent, just off a transatlantic flight. She was travel-weary, bemused, still to fathom exactly how came she to be here.
Behind the antique counter sat Emily Cotton, wearing a cable-knit fisherman sweater and a loopy scarf of pink and gold. Kate had made this for her, parcelled it up and sent it across the Atlantic – her attempt to resurrect a friendship feared long dead. She got a polite thank-you note in reply – Emily was well brought up that way – and that was their last communication. Until the email.
Emily’s dark head was bent over a book, her lips moving as she read. She had an unhealthy indoor pallor and blue crescent moons of fatigue beneath grey eyes, which, when she glanced up at the sudden intrusion, seemed dull and lifeless. A weird beam of half-sun pushed through the murk and lit her face as she stared at Kate. It transformed her, burnishing her wiry curls to copper, turning her grey eyes mauve and luminous. There was a moment of confusion; then a howl of surprise and delight as she flung herself off her stool, exclaiming, ‘Kate, you came!’
It was a month since the email, composed and dispatched under the influence of three-quarters of a bottle of Merlot. A summons, a plea to an old friend in time of need. Emily had begged for assistance with this hasty new enterprise of hers, this ill-conceived ploy – at least melancholy and Merlot combined to make it seem so; in brighter moments it was more like a dream. Her grand, if undefined plan, was to run a bookshop in a town already famous for them.
Emily’s status as proprietor was signed and sealed, but faced with the enormity of the task ahead – and complete lack of both business experience and, she suspected, general acumen – she needed help. She also wasn’t in the proper frame of mind to be taking on this venture; she had been yo-yoing between delight and despair for weeks now, procrastinating like mad. Most days Emily wandered disconsolately through the cold shop, idly shifting books from one shelf to another; or else buried herself in a novel for a few hours and avoided the hard work, the decisions.
She hadn’t the heart for decisions; even the simplest of them felt beyond her. Fear and expectation of failure had diminished her, chiselled away at her resolve. Joe was in her thoughts all the time, undermining her and reminding her of her weakness.
Now – impossibly – Kate had come and Emily instinctively knew that all would be well.
‘You came!’ she said again, her voice fading to a whisper of incredulity, as if she doubted the evidence of her own eyes. Perhaps she had conjured this Kate-mirage out of sheer desperation. If that was the case, she really was in a bad way, as her family was wont to believe.
Emily threw her arms around Kate and felt the incontrovertible evidence of her friend, breathed in her perfume and shampoo – only Kate could look and smell so good after a long flight. Old envy cloaked her and hastily she pushed the feeling away; she didn’t want the reminders of her worst self.
Kate closed her eyes and returned the embrace, sinking into memories: crystal clear, perfect, untainted for her by disappointment or guilt. They surged to the surface and broke through. The impulsive steamroller embrace – so typical of Emily and her affectionate family – smoothed the awkwardness of the reunion after so long apart; despite Emily’s hair getting in her mouth and her clumsy tread on Kate’s toes, the hug was a moment of perfection, alignment; they hadn’t embraced – or even seen one another – in six years.
‘Of course I came,’ Kate said, when they had disentangled. She held Emily at arm’s length and surveyed her. ‘I was summoned.’ She lifted one eyebrow and bestowed a teasing smile.
Emily was sheepish, remembering the drunken, superlative-laden email. She looked Kate up and down; Kate seemed unsuitably dressed for a rainy, Scottish summer-town, in a well-cut, navy sateen dress printed with bird motifs. Navy stockings, whisper soft, and grey suede ankle boots – now trailing mud from the path – completed the ensemble. Her hair fanned out across her shoulders like corn-silk and her smile was vibrant with vermillion gloss.
Emily smiled nervously back, her chapped lips as pale as rose petals, skin bloodless. She was utterly overwhelmed by the moment and stepped away from Kate, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Sophisti-kate,’ she said wryly – an old nickname, given when Kate emerged, swan-like, from her tomboyish, ugly-duckling years, ‘I didn’t think you would come.’ The awe in her voice revealed the magnitude of this gift of Kate’s presence: a whim to buy and renovate a run-down bookshop, one drunken email, and here Kate stood. So easy. I should have done this long ago, Emily thought. I should have brought Kate home.
Kate shivered and cast another appraising look around the room, concerned mainly with the temperature, but not overlooking the dust, the cobwebby corners and the shop’s general listlessness. ‘Well, here I am. It’s