She lay on top of her bed and looked at the reminders of her teenage years and of simpler times. The posters were gone now, but she could still remember where they had hung. Westlife and Robbie Williams, grinning down with their pop-star pouts.
This place had been her sanctuary. If she closed her eyes, she could conjure an image of her teenage self, sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the wall, long bronzed legs stretched out in front of her. Jess sat opposite, legs crossed, singing along – badly – to whatever they were listening to as they drank from Coca Cola cans and laughed about their current crushes. Although, for Libby, quite often her crushes were the dark and brooding heroes of whatever book she was reading. How she would spend time imagining them holding her and kissing her the way they kissed the heroines that she read about. She lost hours fantasising about Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights – only to realise as she grew that he was a much more sinister character than her fourteen-year-old self had realised. Jess’s crushes had been mainstream. They included actors, singers, and even footballers, during a particularly short-lived but obsessive football phase.
So many secrets had been shared in this room – so many hopes and dreams too. Not to mention all the promises that they would stay friends forever and ever and never ever fall out.
Who would have thought the fall out would come when they were both mature women, living their own lives? And that it would, technically, have a boy at the centre of it?
Libby had wanted to fix it, of course. So she sat up, phone in hand and composed at least a dozen text messages which she, ultimately, would never send to Jess. First, she apologised. Then, she ranted a bit – her hurt pouring from her fingers as she jabbed at her phone screen. Then, she tried a conciliatory approach. But none of it felt right – so she deleted them all and instead lay back staring at the ceiling, trying to work it out.
She thought, for a moment, of going downstairs and asking her parents if she was a thoroughly unlikeable person, but she knew she couldn’t rely on their answers – on account of them being her parents and thinking the sun shone directly out of her arse. Then she wrote and rewrote a number of different text messages to Ant – some pretending as if nothing had happened with Jess – in her usual flirtatious tone. Some asking if he thought she was selfish? But she deleted those messages too. Least said, soonest mended, her grandad used to tell her – so she switched her phone off and allowed the tiredness of the day to wash over her – waking occasionally to let the wave of unease lull her back to sleep.
* * *
Libby woke late, without her phone switched on to beep her into consciousness, and stared at the wall at a shaft of light cutting through the curtains. It was another hot day – she could feel it already. Her bedroom was stuffy. The air dead. Her first thought was of Jess. Maybe she’d been overthinking things. Maybe they’d both just been tired and snippy, due to the heat of the day making them feel worse.
It would no doubt all get sorted that day, she told herself. Messages not written in the heat of the moment would be exchanged and by tea time the storm in a teacup would be a thing of the past. Something never to be spoken of again.
Except by tea time no messages had been exchanged, not one. Not from Jess or Ant. And Libby was certain she wasn’t going to make the first move. Maybe, just like the weather, they all needed a little more time to calm down.
In the meantime, she was busy. Building work continuing apace. Minor crises being solved every day. Some horrible surprises (the pipework running through the yard at the back of the shop needed replacing, at Libby’s expense) but some high points as well. When the tattered lino was ripped from the shop floor, everyone had been astounded to find a stunning parquet floor, which just needed a little TLC, had been hiding underneath. Libby could’ve wept with joy.
It was enough to distract her, but by Thursday she was feeling very much on edge.
The heatwave had become almost insufferable, especially as she and the tradesmen tried not to fall over each other as they worked. And not one message had travelled across the airwaves from Jess to her or vice versa. Her WhatsApp was barren of new messages from the woman who was supposed to be her best friend.
By the time the thermometer had climbed into the mid-twenties on Thursday, Libby’s hurt was starting to fester.
Jess had left her in limbo and she had also hit her directly where she knew it would hurt. Criticising anything to do with her shop was the lowest of blows. Jess knew, more than anyone, how much it meant to her. Grandad Ernie had been a de facto grandparent to Jess as well. They’d all spent so much time together when they were younger.
Things had been cooling even more with Ant too. They’d exchanged cursory text messages. She didn’t send him pictures of how things were going. If Jess was telling the truth, Ant didn’t really care anyway.
She’d made no plans at all to see him that weekend. Yes, he’d asked if she would be working and she’d replied simply that she would. She didn’t go into any other details. God forbid, her telling him that she finally had a shop name and was starting to work on their branding and marketing materials would prove to him she was as single-minded as her friend had said she was.
No. She would do it herself. Well, with the help of her parents and a team of tradesmen who she was actually starting to grow quite fond of. She resolved that she didn’t need Jess or Ant to hold her hands.
But God it was hard. She might’ve been angry, she might’ve been hurt. But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss Jess. They’d never gone this long without communicating before and she felt as if a part of her was missing – a part that knew exactly how her mind worked and how to calm her down when she started to spiral.
And she was starting to spiral a bit. Despite the builders being great and her parents being lovely. Despite Harry letting her have a free ice lolly, and offering to buy her a half-pint in the pub some evening. Everything still felt off-kilter without her support network.
She wanted Jess to be in her life. She needed Jess to be there for her at this time more than any other. Just as Libby herself had been there for Jess when she wanted to pack in her medicine studies after throwing up the first time she cut into her cadaver.
The lack of a blinking light on her phone signalling a new notification taunted her. Libby turned the phone face-down on the counter and went back to trying to drown out the sound of Terry and Gerry The Sparks singing – or rather, screeching – along to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the radio as they worked.
A while later, a knock on the glass of the open door caught her attention and she looked up to see Noah standing in the doorway. ‘You don’t mind me calling over?’ he asked.
‘No, of course not,’ she said, but really Noah was just another complication in her life she didn’t need right now. Not that anything else had happened since Saturday. He’d behaved perfectly normally towards her.
‘I just wanted to check you were okay with the shelving units arriving tomorrow? Keith has been on, just checking. He said he tried to call you but he didn’t get an answer. I knew you were over here, so I figured I’d be as quick walking over and asking you myself.’
Libby cursed at the phone on the counter. ‘I’d put my phone on silent, to try and concentrate some more on work,’ she said, turning it over and seeing two missed calls from Keith – and no notifications from anyone else. ‘But, yes, tomorrow, should be fine.’ Libby looked around the shop. The walls were still bare. Wiring exposed. The plasterboard needing to go up before the shelves could be fixed to their intended spot, but she supposed she could store them in the stockroom, which now, at least, was rodent-free.
‘Grand,’ Noah said, walking in and taking a good look around the shop. ‘It’s really coming on, Libby. It’s looking good.’
She laughed. ‘Really? Do you not think it looks like a giant mess? Good is not a word I would use.’
Noah shook his head. ‘Really? Because I see all the nuts and bolts going in. That exposed brickwork, is that where the coff
ee bar will be?’
She nodded.
‘Thought so. Keith’s shelves on that far wall? And here, look at this flooring. It’s amazing. You’ve saved yourself a clean fortune there. This is the tough bit. Before you know it, it will all be coming together. When are you getting your comms fitted?’
‘They’ve said two weeks to get it all planned and arranged with the phone company for it go live.’
‘That’s good,’ Noah nodded. ‘So I assume a lot of the heavy work will be done around then?’
‘Well, that’s the plan,’ she said. ‘If we can get the construction side sorted, on the inside at least. But the damp course will need time to dry out, and the front of the shop needs re-rendering. And that’s without even mentioning the flat upstairs. At the moment, it’s a shell with an old sink and little else.’
‘You’ll get there,’ he said, gently. ‘Have faith. I’ve seen more done in less time. You’ve made a great start. I heard a couple of people chatting about it in the pub last night. Asking me did I know what was happening over here. I’d get your sign up as soon as you can, if I were you.’
He had a point. Even if it would take weeks to get all her promotional materials printed up, the sooner she had a sign up outside, people would know what she was at.
‘I have a name for it,’ she said, realising she’d not run it past anyone yet. Not Jess or Ant, or even her parents. It was as if she was almost afraid to say it out loud for some reason. ‘Do you want to know what it is?’
‘Of course I do!’ Noah said, and there was genuine interest in his voice.
‘Once Upon A Book,’ she told him, blushing to her roots for a reason she didn’t quite know.
‘Well, I think that’s just perfect.’
‘My grandad, well his favourite stories were those that began with a good old once upon a time, so…’
‘Well, then it’s doubly perfect,’ Noah said.
Libby felt herself colour at the genuine approval in his voice.
‘Now, don’t forget, if there’s anything we can do to help, you have to just shout. And we mean that.’
‘That’s so kind,’ Libby replied. ‘You’ve all done so much for me.’
‘Ah, we’re all just really nosy, has no one warned you?’ Noah teased. ‘It’s not really about you at all. It’s about everyone wanting to know everyone’s business.’
‘Oh, that’s great to know because I’m fond of a bit of nosiness myself.’ Libby laughed.
‘But, seriously,’ Noah replied, ‘there’s a little bit of magic or something here on Ivy Lane. This might sound really flaky, but Harry once told me he thinks the street attracts people who need it most of all. We’ve all got our stories. We all benefit from being there for each other – helping each other. We are all healing from something, you know? I know that sounds really cheesy, but I believe him. This place has always felt special to me. Even as a child when I visited my grandparents. Did I tell you they ran the bakery here for years? Granny had a reputation for slipping an extra loaf, or a few scones, in the bags of people who looked like they needed a little help. Being decent to people never hurts anyone. Now, I’m hardly likely to slip extra pints to people, but I will help this community in whatever way I can and I know everyone else who lives here or works here thinks the same way. Maybe that’s a bit old-fashioned in these modern times, but I just think we should help each other out a bit more.’
He spoke with such sincerity that Libby couldn’t help but be moved. And she couldn’t help but feel that Harry was right and that Ivy Lane would help heal her own emotional pain over the loss of her grandad. To her embarrassment, she felt the tears she had probably been holding in all week prick at her eyes and she was powerless to stop them falling.
‘I didn’t mean to make you cry!’ Noah said, a little panicked. There was something in the timbre of his voice that seemed to register with Terry and Gerry, who stopped their work and looked at her, and then at each other, trying to figure out what to do next.
‘Let’s get some fresh air,’ Noah said, nodding to the door. ‘We’ll go for a short walk. I’m sure Paddy will forgive me just this once for cheating on him.’
Libby smiled through her tears. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘It’s all part of the service,’ he replied.
As they walked, Libby was able to compose herself. ‘I’m mortified,’ she told him. ‘Crying all over you. It’s been a tough week, and then just all that talk about your grandparents, and even saying the shop name out loud made me think of my grandad again.’
‘He was very special to you,’ Noah said, and it wasn’t a question.
‘He was everything,’ she replied.
18
Heidi
Grandad was always there. Always. Libby couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in her life. Her earliest memories were of sitting on his knee, him with his pipe in his hand – the wiry strands of tobacco peeping out of the bowl, in the same way his nose hair peeped out of his nostrils. Both were kind of disgusting, she could admit in hindsight, but at the time, there was a comfort in the messiness of him. The way, no matter how much Brylcreem he slicked into his increasingly greying hair, there were a few strands that always stuck out at right angles just above his left ear. The way the brown chunky-knit cardigan had been repaired at the elbows – patched and stitched together. How, while he shaved every morning, by the time he sat on her bed at night to tell her a bedtime story, his face would be scratchy with salt-and-pepper sprinkles of bristly stubble. The smell of Old Spice and tobacco smoke. It was strange, cigarette smoke made her nauseous but tobacco smoked through a pipe had a headier quality – a depth that made her feel calm. Like she was sat on her grandad’s knee in his favourite armchair while he read her a story and she rested her cheek on that tatty brown cardigan.
They lost hours, days, in so many different stories. Stories told with happy voices, and scary voices, deep voices and funny princess voices. Stories that made her laugh until her tummy hurt and stories that made her cry until the only thing that would make it better was a glass of milk and a biscuit from the jar on the worktop – the glass jar which was strictly off-limits at all other times to little hands.
There were stories that she felt so keenly that she knew, even as a child, that the characters she heard of became a part of her life. They’d become the imaginary friends she would turn to again and again over the years. And, at the centre of it all, there was this bear of a man who brought those stories to life.
If she was lucky, really lucky, he would tell her one of his own tall tales. Stories from his own childhood, adapted, changed, sprinkled with magic. A speaking dog here, a friendly alien there – stories which held her rapt. Stories she told him he should write down.
‘I’d really love you to, Grandad,’ she would say to him over and over again.
‘I will someday, I promise,’ he always replied. ‘For you, sweet pea.’
But somehow life got busy, and the stories got put on the sidelines, until he was gone and he would never put them on paper. It was strange how that hurt her. The stories were still with her though. She could close her eyes, wherever she was, and almost smell the smoke from his tobacco, feel the soft wool of that tatty cardigan, the scratch of his face with his night-night kiss – and each word would drop in place in her mind. But she longed to see them written down, in his scrawl, as if he was scratching at the paper with his pen. Always black ink. Never a blue pen. But Libby knew, she knew that no matter how hard she wished, or how hard she prayed (and she was never a person who usually turned to prayer), she would never see his handwriting again. Or smell his scent. Or feel the scratch of his stubbly face. She hated that when he was brought home, laid out in the living room of their house for people to file past and offer their condolences and tell her what a brilliant man he was as if she wasn’t the person who knew it more than anyone else, that his face was smooth – not a hint of his bristle. Made-up instead – natural-looking but so far from natural. As if
someone had airbrushed the lines and crevices that she loved so much out of his face, making him look both like himself and not. He was dressed in a suit – his good suit. The one he had worn to her graduation and to a family wedding or two. He would have hated it – pulled at his collar, loosened his tie, taken his suit jacket off as soon as he possibly could. Libby didn’t know why her father and her uncle had decided he should be laid out in it – possibly because it looked the part. It was what people would have expected. They wouldn’t have expected him to lie there in his comfortable flannel shirt, that blasted cardigan and his glasses on his face. His glasses instead were folded at Libby’s insistence and placed in his hands – as if he were ready to slip them on, lift up a book, let out a subtle cough and start reading. In fact, she couldn’t resist slipping a copy of Great Expectations into the coffin with him – the same copy they had read together.
She was a grown-up when he died. Thirty-two. She knew she got longer with her grandfather than perhaps most people got with their grandparents – but standing by his coffin, dressed in black in a room kept cool, where conversations were in hushed tones – the real chat, laughter and occasional burst of singing of a traditional Irish wake a comfortable ten feet away, at least, from the reality of what was happening – she had never felt more like a child.
He was her hero. Her storyteller. Her protector. They shared the same spirit. The same dreams. ‘I will write your stories down. I promise. I’ll do it for you,’ she’d whispered as she’d kissed his marble cold head, knowing that he was gone but that she was not ready to let him go completely. She’d make him proud. Share his love of books and storytelling with the world. She’d open the shop they talked about. One day. A place to find new adventures and also to encourage other people to develop that same glorious magical love of storytelling – she promised him.
The Hopes and Dreams of Libby Quinn Page 14
