‘Yes, you are interrupting, and I’m very glad about that.’ Cat Deerbon led Emma, manager of the Lafferton bookshop, into the kitchen.
‘I brought you the Julian Barnes,’ Emma said, glancing down at a parcel on the table in Amazon packaging. ‘And what did they send?’
‘Oh God, sorry. I needed a textbook quickly.’
‘And cheaply.’
‘Emma, I do try to be fair but that textbook would cost seventy-five pounds from you and I got it for less than half. I just can’t afford not to. But I’ve almost finished my thesis and then I won’t need any more ridiculously expensive tomes. Coffee? Glass of wine? Slice of my humble pie?’
‘Don’t be silly. Coffee would be good, thanks, Cat. I’m sorry you didn’t get to the book group. Are you feeling better?’
‘Fine. I swear I felt more sick than in my entire life, and that includes three pregnancies. Short but ugh.’
‘Judith didn’t make it either.’
Cat looked at her sharply. ‘Did she say why?’
‘Only that she wasn’t well. It was probably the same bug.’
Cat did not reply, just scooped coffee into the cafetière.
‘How are the young ones?’
‘Felix has the bug, he’s in the den wrapped in a fleece with a bucket to hand. He missed school which he really minded. Hannah is rehearsing for The Sound of Music. Sam – well, as Sam rarely speaks, only grunts, I can’t be sure but he seems OK – he’s going to the under 18 county cricket trials tomorrow.’
‘I’m impressed – that and the hockey.’
‘No, his cricket isn’t as good and he’s only fifteen. He won’t get in but it’ll be good experience for next time. I am sorry about Amazon, Emma – you do understand?’
Emma sighed. ‘I wish I didn’t.’
‘How is business in general?’
‘So-so. Children’s books are doing well – I could almost live off those sales, but not quite.’
‘But you have to stay open. You’ve worked so hard at that bookshop, Lafferton couldn’t do without you now.’
Emma made a face. ‘Try telling that to the people who come in, browse for ages, make a list and go home to order online.’ She failed to keep the note of bitterness out of her voice.
After Emma had gone, Cat went to check on Felix, who was asleep under his fleece. She woke him and managed to get him to stumble upstairs and into bed, with only a quick wash. He had a little more colour in his cheeks so the bug was probably on the wane. He’d had a growth spurt but he was chunky, not a beanpole, like Sam. Like Simon. Chris would have loved him, of course, but been surprised by him too. He was a thoughtful, inward-looking boy, and a good musician. But he was also lacking in confidence, young for his age in some ways, and he clung to her as Sam and Hannah had never done. Cat loved his quiet company. She knew she needed to be on her guard against loving it too much and encouraging his clinginess.
She went back to her desk and the expensive textbook and set it beside her laptop. She ought not to feel guilty, but she did. Emma had to make a living and her bookshop was not making much profit. On the other hand … Cat’s anxiety about her finances came to haunt her every night. She sometimes dreamed of bank statements.
When Chris died, he had left her a modest pension and the proceeds of a life insurance policy, whose value had declined steadily, and now it was worth less than half what it had been immediately after his death. They had never been a rich couple but hadn’t had to worry about money either, and as a new widow Cat had found that financially things could continue more or less as before. Now, her income had slumped. The school fees were a drain, since she was no longer a regular GP and the hospice job had folded. Her private pension income from Chris had paid the bills. Now, it was in danger of not paying them.
Molly, her medical student lodger, had qualified and left to work for a year in Vietnam, so her room was empty. She had lived at the farmhouse free in exchange for help with babysitting and some cooking but any replacement could simply pay rent. That would help but only a little. Locum work as a GP was quite well paid, but it was insecure as well as unrewarding, and her job as medical officer at Imogen House had more or less ended when the hospice had changed from being one with bedded wards to day care only. She had a small retainer – the operative word being ‘small’. She had spent the past year working on her PhD, attached to the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s in London, and she had found it absorbing, but that cost money, it did not generate any.
She needed to talk to someone about her situation, but, other than the bank manager, who was there? Not her father, not Judith. Simon? But a member of the family might assume she was asking for a loan or a gift and Cat was emphatic that she would never do that, she just needed a listening ear and some suggestions. Yes, Si then. The problem was that he was either taken up with work, as ever, or with Rachel – even more so now that she had moved in with him. Cat was anxious not to make any more demands on his time.
She sat fiddling with a pencil, jotting down odd, rather unconnected sums on paper, getting nowhere.
Chris. The loss of him overwhelmed her again in a way she had half forgotten. It was not linked to an anniversary or any physical reminder, just a pure sense of loss, a desperate longing and missing which seem to search every corner of her heart and mind, only to find them empty of him. After all this time, she thought, and it is still yesterday. So I know it will never be any different, I will never stop being knocked over by the force of this feeling.
And I’ll never forget him, I know that too. Immediately after her husband’s death, she had been panic-stricken that in time the memory of him might actually fade away completely. It was a small comfort to be sure now that it would not.