The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane: The feel-good read perfect for those long winter nights

‘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.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_e6cbda17-1e85-583a-8edc-94b6f47f4548)

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 bookshop, but a dedicated second-hand cookbook shop. Her mother’s books would go to good homes and be cherished by her food-loving customers; and, more importantly, they’d be used. They would be well thumbed and splattered with sauces and cake mixture. That’s what she loved about Kitty’s collection: the fact that the books bore the evidence of the once-busy kitchen from which numerous meals for a family of five were turned out.

Della looked around at the plain white units of her own kitchen, in which everything was stored out of sight. It was a bit rich, she reflected, for Mark to insist on designing it when he had rarely ventured beyond boiling up a pot of pasta in here. Perhaps that’s why her own interest in cooking had waned over the years: at least the everyday, ‘What’s for dinner tonight?’ kind. She had never felt entirely at home here – not like in the kitchen at Rosemary Cottage – and besides, Mark rarely commented on her meals and Sophie favoured the plainest possible vegetarian food. It was hardly inspiring. But this was – the thought of setting up her own shop, and doing everything her way. Della’s heart quickened.

She turned back to the screen and re-read the details. Of course it was a risky venture, and possibly even quite insane – but at some point she would have her share of the inheritance from Kitty. It seemed absolutely right to use the cookbook collection to kick-start a new life for herself. Just like Pattie and Christine – and her own daughter, in fact – Della could do something thrilling and new. She realised what a rut she had fallen into, trotting off to the castle five days a week and accepting the fact that she and Mark did virtually nothing together. This wasn’t about her husband, or even Sophie. It was about her.

Della closed her laptop and pictured the shop fitted out with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled neatly with the cookbooks. She knew, instinctively, that such a shop would be talked about for miles around. She could paint the interior a vivid cornflower blue – no, a rich red would be more welcoming, encouraging customers to browse and settle on a deep, squashy sofa. She imagined herself, not bagging up yet another set of Heathfield Castle highlighter pens or packets of authentic Norman fudge, but instead sitting serenely behind the counter, welcoming customers and falling into easy conversations about food and cooking and what they might possibly be looking for. She’d have music playing – something low-key and jazzy – and fresh coffee brewing, perhaps little cakes for customers to nibble on. And although the shop would be filled with books, there’d be room too for some interesting objects; perhaps a display of the well-worn utensils from Kitty’s kitchen. There would be art too. She could commission Sophie to create evocative paintings of memorable meals …

Della’s stomach growled: all this fantasising was making her hungry. She made a pot of coffee and toast and took it, with two mugs, on a tray upstairs to Mark. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘this is lovely, thanks. You’re up early.’

‘Yes, I just felt, you know …’ Excited. Energised. As if anything is possible … Della could barely keep the grin off her face.

He rearranged the pillows and gave her a curious look. ‘What’s got into you this morning?’

‘Nothing.’ She poured two mugs of coffee – not freshly ground, but who cared when she had a thrilling plan to share? – and scampered back downstairs, where she extracted the Recipe Sharing Society memo from between the pages of Sugarcraft Delights. Then, tucking her laptop under her arm, she hurried back upstairs and snuggled next to Mark in bed.

‘You’re all hyper,’ he observed, biting into his toast.

‘Oh, I know. I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.’ She sipped her coffee and opened her laptop.

Mark raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s this? Moles again?’

She grinned. ‘No, it’s not moles, darling, although I’d like you to keep me posted on their activities.’ She brought up the ad for the shop on her screen.

Registering the Gumtree logo, Mark leaned closer. ‘Thinking of selling something?’ His face broke into a relieved smile. ‘Oh, you’re selling the cookbooks! That’s a brilliant idea. Someone’ll want them if they’re cheap enough …’

‘Mark, I’m not—’

‘… just offer them all as a job lot, nine-hundred-and-odd books for, I don’t know, fifty quid or something? To get them off our hands.’

‘Listen,’ she said, more forcefully now, ‘I’m not selling the books. At least, not on Gumtree. Look, this is Sew ’n’ Sew’s, the haberdashery shop in Burley.’ She swivelled her laptop towards him and jabbed at the exterior shot.

‘Oh.’ He frowned. ‘So it is.’

She glanced at him. ‘Remember I told you about Pattie and Christine giving it all up for a new life in Majorca?’

‘Ha, yes,’ he chuckled. ‘Giving it all up … we’re talking a poky little shop selling … well, whatever it is they sold. They were hardly joint CEOs of ICI.’

Della frowned at him, wondering when this mild peevishness had begun to creep in. ‘No, they weren’t,’ she said coolly. ‘But I still think it’s pretty amazing.’

‘It’s retiring, Dell. That’s what people do when they get to seventy-whatever.’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a trace of impatience, ‘but that tends to imply just stopping work, and doing lots of pottering, and they’re doing something bold and adventurous.’ As Mark shrugged in a yeah, whatever sort of way, it struck her again that in just a couple of days’ time Sophie’s room would be Sophie-less and it would be just the two of them. Instead of thinking, Hey, we can do whatever we like, Della felt a jolt of alarm. ‘Well, I want to do something bold,’ she added.

He blinked at her. ‘When you retire, you mean?’

‘No, I mean now!’ Della sensed him edge away a little, as if she might pounce and demand that they make passionate love, despite that happening with a similar frequency to a lunar eclipse these days.

‘Er, what d’you have in mind then?’ He drained the last of his coffee as if to fortify himself.

‘This,’ she exclaimed. ‘The haberdashery shop. It’s empty and available and the rent’s so cheap …’

He smirked infuriatingly. ‘Hmm, wonder why?’

‘Well, yes, it’s pretty scruffy and definitely needs cheering up. But that can be fixed, Mark. I’d like to – well, I’d like to view it at least.’

‘View it? Why?’

‘Because …’ She paused. ‘Because I think I might like to take it on.’ Mark looked at her, without speaking at first, as if considering how best to handle the issue. She could virtually hear him formulating a diagnosis and appropriate treatment: patient has clearly spent too long trundling back and forth to a gift shop. She would benefit from variety in her life. Perhaps she could try a new hobby or, seeing as we didn’t go away this summer, a weekend trip might offer a cure.

‘Dell.’ He placed a hand over hers. ‘Look, I know you’ve had an awful time lately with your mum and the funeral, and Jeff and Rox being hopeless as usual. You’ve had such a lot on your plate. But …’ He exhaled heavily. ‘I really don’t think opening a haberdashery shop makes any sense at all.’

She spluttered with laughter. ‘Oh, I don’t mean I’d keep it as a haberdasher’s. I haven’t a clue about sewing and, to be honest, I don’t know how it survived all those years.’

‘Well, that’s a relief!’

She glanced back at the screen. ‘No, look – it’s an empty shell. Just a building. It could be anything.’

‘Like what?’