WHAT’S PAST IS PROLOGUE
October 1957
The knock rattled Sonnet as much as it did Alfred’s old front door. She crept from his overcrowded study to the head of the staircase, eyes fastened on the drawn blinds of the shop windows. Noonday light seeped through the slats, filtering weakly across the silent lower level. Colour flashed on the front stoop, and the knock sounded again.
Sonnet took a few steps down, before hesitating. She had no desire to see another townsperson, much less listen to any more of their infernal bloviating! She was not working at Emerson’s Fashion and Fabrics today, Plum and Fable were at school and the shop was her one private sanctuary where she could pretend not to be an orphaned guardian with a small business thrust upon her.
Moreover, no one ought to know Sonnet was inside; she always snuck in the back entrance. And the now-faded CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign on the front door was usually enough to ward off busybodies.
A voice came through the crack at the door. ‘Knock-knock! I know you’re in there, Sonnet! Just want a second! Yoo-hoo!’
Sonnet harrumphed down the stairs. She wrestled with the deadlock and flung open the door, scowling. If the waiting middle-aged woman, vaguely familiar in that way peculiar to small towns, was offended, she didn’t show it.
‘Oh finally, you’ve appeared. I’m Marg Johnstone, Ned’s wife, nice to meet you. Can I come in for a jiffy?’
Sonnet stood back, racking her brain for a Ned Johnstone. Nearly two years in, she still struggled daily with the all-important who’s who of small-town life.
Marg’s eyes raked the cluttered gloom. Sonnet’s arms crept across her chest.
‘What can I do for you, Mrs Johnstone?’
‘I can see you’re not burning books for firewood. Goodness knows what you have been doing, squatting in here all this time. Some were afraid you might have gutted Alfred’s precious shop.’
Sonnet gritted her teeth, thinking of Olive’s honey analogy. It wasn’t coming easily though. This woman was almost certainly another ladies-fellowship-slash-quilting-club-friend of Delia’s. Probably sent to spy, because wouldn’t it be driving Delia nuts not being able to keep tabs on Sonnet behind the closed shutters. Well, now she’d have all the gossip: Alfred’s bookshop was in chaos and Sonnet had been hiding out for months, letting it fall apart around her.
‘What is it you’re looking for?’
Having finished with the lower level, Marg homed in on the second floor. Sonnet pictured the secret pandemonium of Alfred’s office, and squared her shoulders.
‘Listen,’ Marg said, ‘I know exactly what I’m after: a large box, heavy, marked in red, addressed care of the CWA. I’m the vice-president, you know. Have you come across anything like that?’
Sonnet wanted to run from the intensity of Marg’s look. She was like a dentist drilling for a nerve. ‘No,’ she answered, hands rising to her hips.
An oddly weighted silence ensued.
‘You haven’t,’ Marg mused. ‘I see. Well, it’s probably best if I pop upstairs then and have a gander in his office for you.’
‘No thanks!’ Sonnet spluttered. ‘I know where everything is!’
‘Not everything, by the state of it.’
‘If there’s something particular you want, I’ll help you with it.’
Marg stared at Sonnet’s red bun; the turning cogs in her brain almost visible.
Sonnet tapered indignation, with effort.
Finally, Marg spoke. ‘Just before Alfred passed on, I put in a book order. Some hard-covered classics for my son, Dane. Have you met Dane? He’s coming up for Dux of St Ronan’s. Seventeen, and the world at his feet!’
Sonnet smiled tightly. ‘Great, we’ve got our classics over here—’
‘No, Alfred was ordering them for our Dane specially. First class, gilt-edged and all. Have you seen any books in a box like that?’
There Marg went again with the penetrating look. Sonnet’s fists clenched at her waist. ‘I already told you, no. But I’m sure I have something that will please Dane.’
‘I’d like to get my box before anything is thrown out.’
‘Mrs Johnstone, I have no intention of throwing books out.’ I might throw them at you, though.
‘Let me just check. I’ll know the box when I see it. Then we can go through it together, and see what we find.’
Sonnet, pre-empting Marg’s start towards the staircase, shifted boldly in her way.
Marg was immovable. ‘I can wait here while you look, then. I only come into town from the farm once a week, you see.’
‘A week? Perfect. That will give me plenty of time to go through my orders. Now let me see you out.’
Marg allowed herself to be led only as far as the old counter. She stopped and looked Sonnet dead in the eye. ‘I only want to help you.’
‘I can handle it myself, thank you.’
Marg’s eyes ran over her face and hair, before sliding to the second floor. ‘You say that now, Sonnet,’ she said significantly. ‘But call me when you’re ready to talk about it.’
*
‘The hide of that woman!’ Sonnet cried as she paced back and forth. ‘What the hell was she even on about?’
‘You’re going to wear my carpet out,’ Olive noted from behind her counter.
‘I’m sorry, but that woman! Accusing me of burning books and squatting in Alfred’s shop! What box was she harping on about, and why would I want her help? She certainly did not order books. It’s a big, fat lie; a cunning ploy to stick her interfering nose in my business and report back to all her cronies. She’s as obnoxious as Delia Hull. How do you bear this town with all these awful women?’
‘Oh, Marg’s not too bad on her own, but when the ladies of the CWA get a bee in their collective bonnet about something, she takes her role as Vice President very seriously.’
‘But that’s just it! What on earth does my shop have to do with the CWA or Marg Johnstone?!’
Olive suppressed a smile. ‘Your shop now?’
Sonnet whirled off on another circuit. ‘It is my shop, and they’re going to have to get used to it! I’m not babysitting a shop for a dead man. I’m the owner now and they’d better start treating me like it!’
Olive came out from behind the counter, moving to embrace her. Sonnet stepped quickly out of reach, but her breath was held for Olive’s response.
‘Gav and I had been hoping for this. I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally hear it. There’s been plenty of conjecture floating around town about what you’re planning. Even some suggestions you’re going to deny townsfolk the bookstore they routinely neglected but now consider indispensable to Main Street.’
Sonnet exhaled forcefully.
‘I didn’t mention it before, because I knew you were taking your time to grieve and consider the responsibility left to you. But I can see you’re ready now.’
‘Hell yes, I am! Alfred left me the bookstore because I loved it as much as he did and he knew I’d modernise it the way he couldn’t.’
‘You bring that old shop right back to life, and show them all!’
Sonnet harrumphed. ‘First, I’ve got to burn a few boxes, but after that I have some renovations to plan . . .’
*
Sonnet slammed the back of Gav’s Ford coupé utility and motioned for her uncle to pull away from the shop with yet another load of books – bound for storage at Heartwood. If the town had been worried Sonnet was gutting Alfred’s store before, they were convinced of it now.
For weeks, folks had been watching Sonnet empty out the old shop, with no clue as to her plans. The Emersons had remained as tight-lipped as Sonnet herself. The newspapered windows spoke more of paranoia than privacy, perhaps. But Sonnet wasn’t giving anyone a look-in!
A full makeover was under way. It was far more than she could have achieved on her own, and Gav had pushed his resources upon her with more knowledge and expertise than she would ever have asked for herself. Gav had even brought in some painters and chippies from Innisfail – tradesmen happy enough to walk in and out as needed, without sharing progress reports with every nosy parker circling for gossip.
When Sonnet’s moniker finally hung on Main Street, announcing her claimed ownership, then, and only then, would the locals be invited back into her domain.