The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

  Emily let her mind wander back to her own memory of that day. When the sun was high, the sky empty of clouds, and the water just cold enough to make you gasp when it hit your skin. Tyler had stood on the bank, watching her with a mixture of hate and admiration, eventually giving in to her calls of “chicken” along with the promise from his mother of an ice cream if he dared to jump.

  It was the same day she had been thinking of only yesterday morning. Could it be as soon as that? It seemed like a lifetime since Tyler had arrived. Years rather than hours since she had shut tight the front door and walked along the lane to the station. If she were still at home, she would be thinking about bringing in the washing left dancing on the line. Or picking some tomatoes from the greenhouse to have with her lunch. Or tucked up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a slice of Battenberg, going over sketches or finishing the copy of Magpie Murders sent to her by her grandmother’s publisher.

  Yet here she was, sitting in a pub across the road from where her father used to work, with two people who used to be such a huge part of her childhood, only to disappear as soon as tragedy struck. Nothing more than a token letter or a gift sent through the post from afar. As if Emily had only ever been important when attached to her mother.

  “I assume you’ve solved the first clue?” Adrianna smiled at Emily, only it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Hatchards.” Emily nodded as she sipped her drink and tapped her fingers against the underside of the table in sync with the beat of her heart.

  “I thought as much. Margot always said you spent more time there than you did at home, which is why, I suppose, Catriona put it in the very first book.” She reached across to put her hand on Emily’s knee, pretended not to notice when she moved away. “Is it true she was working on another one before…you know?”

  “Before she died, Mum.” Tyler drained his pint, banged the empty glass on the table. “She won’t crumple into pieces just because you mention it.”

  Adrianna narrowed her eyes at her son, then turned her attention back to Emily.

  “It’s rather exciting, this treasure trail, this puzzle you need to solve. Everyone keeps asking me about the book. It’s been all over the press, as I’m sure you know.”

  Emily ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass, waited for the vibrations to take hold, to transform into one, pure note that echoed in the air.

  “No doubt your phone has been ringing off the hook with demands from the press. But remember, we’re here for you if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  “Thank you.” It seemed like the right thing to say, when really there was nothing she could say that could possibly explain how furious she really was.

  Emily’s finger continued its circle around the glass, and she stared at it, let the repetition dampen the sounds of the room. If she could somehow cloak them all, with all their subtle insinuations of normal life, perhaps she could forget about the one she used to have.

  Adrianna put her hand on top of Emily’s and held it there firmly, cutting off the note. “William sends his regards,” she said. “He’s very sorry he couldn’t make it today.”

  “Since when does Dad apologize?” Tyler pushed back his chair, a cigarette ready and waiting between his lips, phone pressed tight to his ear as he yanked wide the door and stepped onto the street outside.

  Adrianna watched him go. She sucked in her bottom lip, then picked at an imaginary piece of lint on her trousers. “He’s not been the same since, well…I’m not even sure that you know about what happened with his job?”

  Emily had always found that people responded to her silence in one of two ways: with indifference, meaning they chose to say barely more than a few words before turning away to find someone more interesting to talk to; or, as with her darling godmother, they tried to fill the silence with babbling. Quite often, they would find themselves revealing things they otherwise might keep to themselves, as if Emily were some sort of confessional.

  “William didn’t handle Tyler’s little embarrassment nearly as well as I’d hoped he would.” Her fingers twirled a thick band of diamonds around and around her finger. “There was all sorts of talk about cutting him out of his will, but I managed to convince William to give him a second chance.”

  Emily pursed her lips to stop herself from smiling at the idea of Tyler not being as much of a Prince Charming as he’d have her believe. She glanced out of the window to see him talking to someone and gesturing madly in the air with his cigarette.

  “I thought this trip might be a good way for the two of you to reconnect, as well as having someone to help with whatever tasks Catriona has set.”

  Emily felt her fingers tighten around her glass, saw the knuckles begin to turn white. She wanted to point out the obvious: Catriona died. Her parents died. Everyone dies, so why bother dredging up the past when Tyler was only doing this as a way of trying to redeem himself with Daddy dearest?

  “You really do look just like her.” Adrianna reached out to stroke Emily’s jaw, but she turned away. “Sorry, I forgot. It’s just…I mean. I really don’t know what to say.”

  Emily wished she knew how to reply, that there was something she could say to make her godmother understand.

  I’m used to being alone, she thought as she rose from her seat, picked up her suitcase, and left the pub.

  Tyler was leant against the wall, scratching at his head, the cigarette still lit, with embers burning too close to his hairline. He was staring at his phone as Emily strode past, so it took him a moment to realize who she was. A moment more before he ran back into the pub to grab his own bag and guitar, to chase her down the pavement and onto the back of a number eleven bus.

  He laughed as he looked back to see his mother staring after them. “You know, you really shouldn’t just leave her standing on the street like that.”

  Emily flicked her wrist over to look at her watch. Nearly two o’clock. Where did all the time go?

  “Do you have any idea what the next clue might be?” Tyler peered out of the window, and Emily followed his eye, watched as all the sights of London trundled past.

  “No.”

  8

  CANARY

  Serinus canaria domestica

  Peppermint green, with a touch of duck-egg blue, and gold leafing around the windows, on the other side of which an elaborate staging of the Mad Hatter’s tea party could be seen. With gilded plates, sticky buns, and fairies hidden amongst silhouetted trees. Emily remembered pressing her face up against the glass as a child, wishing she could jump inside the make-believe worlds recreated for everyone to see.

  Just as her grandmother had done with that very first book, when little Ophelia was taken to Fortnum and Mason for a slice of red velvet cake to celebrate her tenth birthday and told to take a bite, because if she didn’t try, she’d never know how delicious it was. The same cake had been delivered, in real life, year after year up to Norfolk, which they shared with a mug of tea or, as Emily got older, a glass of chilled champagne.

  “Aren’t you going in?” Tyler asked as Emily moved from window to window, tilting her head to watch a sleepy dormouse emerge from out of a ruby red teapot.

  “No,” Emily replied as she walked on by. Because it wasn’t there that the atlas was discovered. It wasn’t in amongst the shelves of shortbread, delicate china cups, and hordes of tourists that the story really began. No, that was next door, in Hatchards, England’s oldest bookshop.

  As soon as she went inside, it felt like stepping back in time; back to all those mornings spent devouring the words of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, and more. All the days when she would run up the curved wooden staircase to the second floor, eyes bright with anticipation, then seek out a new delight to be read, curled up on a green leather sofa until she was told it was time to go home.

  “Isn’t that Aunt Cat?” Tyler was pointing at a collection of photographs on one wall, including Bette Davis, Anthony Hopkins, and, indeed, Catriona Robinson. Photographs of when they had c
ome to sign their bestselling books, the moment captured and framed for all to see.

  Emily gave a small nod, then walked on without looking. It had been taken the last time she was here, when Emily was just sixteen and with all the insecurities of youth, hating the way excited readers crowded around her grandmother. And hating even more the way they stared at her scar.

  Only ten minutes ago she had stepped off the bus and into Trafalgar Square, marveling at how different it all seemed, yet somehow exactly the same. They had sped past St. Paul’s, the Old Bailey, and Covent Garden, where Emily went every year at Christmas to watch The Nutcracker, before ice skating at Somerset House.

  Her grandmother would have known where the train would end up, which bus Emily would have to take to get from the station to find the next clue.

  Did it mean she wanted Emily to remember, not to hate the memories, but to embrace them for the happiness she once had? But all of the good was stitched together with all of the bad, and it was remarkably difficult to separate the two.

  She could sense Tyler watching her as she made her way up to the second floor. So many of her memories were tied up with him, and it made her wonder if he had been chosen for this very reason. To force her to look back.

  “Crikey,” Tyler said as they came to a stop in front of an entire wall dedicated to The Tales of Ophelia and Terence. “It’s like some kind of fairy-tale shrine.”

  Row upon row of books, flanked at either end with giant cardboard cutouts of a girl and a duck. There was bunting hanging from the ceiling, decorated with favorite characters from the books. In the window nook there was a forest scene, with a silver tree around the trunk of which a Chinese dragon was curled, and a mermaid sat on a swing made out of seaweed, hanging from one of the branches. At the very center of it all was an atlas, with each of its pages edged in gold. On either side, the shelves were filled with board games, and pencils, notebooks, and mugs. Anything and everything you could possibly think of, emblazoned with the images Emily had herself created.

  It felt like an invasion of sorts—an explosion of all the pictures she had ever painted, back in their cottage by the sea. The characters brought to life with a few strokes of a brush, immortalized on the side of a cup, or recreated as a soft toy to be taken to bed and cuddled through the night.

  “I…” Emily began, then looked behind the counter, past the monogrammed boxes wrapped in brown paper and tied up with striped ribbon, to where a birdcage still sat. Inside of it remained a trio of yellow canaries. Without thinking, she went around the counter and up to the cage, opened its door, and stroked the breast of the nearest bird.

  Once upon a time, Emily had come here with her grandmother, asked if the canaries were real and why would someone put them in a cage? Her grandmother had told her about how canaries were used in mines as warnings of poisonous gas leaks, that if they stopped singing, the miners knew death was trying to sneak up on them. Emily had cried herself to sleep that night, thinking of those birds and wishing she could somehow rescue them all.

  “Can I help you?”

  Emily turned to see a young man standing in the archway that connected the children’s section of the shop to the storeroom at the back. He was wearing a black shirt with a badge, stating that his name was Chris and he was here to help. He was also carrying a stack of books while staring at her with both annoyance and intrigue.

  “You’re not supposed to be round there,” he said, waiting for Emily to remove her hand from the cage and step aside. He dumped the books onto the counter and made a point of checking the till.

  “We’re here to collect something,” Tyler said as he stepped forward with a smile.

  “Ground floor.” The shop assistant began to sort the books into smaller piles.

  “It’s for her.” Tyler nodded in Emily’s direction. “From Catriona Robinson.”

  The assistant’s head jerked to attention as he looked from Tyler to Emily, to the display behind him, then back to Emily once again. He began to hop from foot to foot and wiggled his fingers in the air as a slow grin emerged on his face.

  “Oh my,” he said, clasping Emily’s hand and shaking it with might. “Oh my,” he repeated as she pulled her hand away and folded her arms tight across her chest. “This is just way too exciting,” he said, taking a step toward Emily, his eyes darting about her face, resting momentarily on her scar. “We were all told this might happen, but is it true? Are you her granddaughter? Are you really the granddaughter of the Catriona Robinson? I mean, you must be, right? Otherwise why would you be here? I’m such a fan of your work, by the way, both your work and hers, God rest her soul. Amazing. Extraordinary. I can’t believe this is happening, my friends are going to be so jealous.”

  Emily backed away from the enthusiastic assistant, noticing as she did so that a couple of other customers were now looking in their direction.

  “Do you have it, or not?” Tyler asked, a note of boredom in his voice.

  “Sorry?” The assistant seemed to have forgotten Tyler was there. All his attention was on the young woman with eyes as bright as pennies, who was tapping the fingers of her left hand onto the countertop, over and over. “Oh, right, yes. The package,” he said, watching the repetitive movement of Emily’s fingers, seeing the way her lips were moving but no sound was coming out. “It’s right over here, next to the birdcage.”

  Emily’s fingers stopped their tapping as she saw him go over to the cage and pick up a small package, identical to all the others on the display apart from a sticker in the top right-hand corner. A sticker of a little gray duck wearing a spotted bow tie.

  Why didn’t I see this earlier? Emily wondered, noting that Terence stood next to a pair of Wellington boots with silver stars dotted all over them, the same boots she had worn as a child and first drawn for the girl named Ophelia. Later the boots were changed to pink, with a purple flower on the side. The original version had never made it into final print.

  Everything about Ophelia was what Emily had imagined her to be. A little smaller than average, with curly dark hair that she liked to wear in pigtails, or in a knot on top of her head. Eyes of green that sparkled when she was excited, a button nose, and a lopsided grin as wide as her face. What she hadn’t been able to draw, not at first, was the fierceness of her anger when someone had been wronged. Or the way her fingers would wriggle with excitement when she and Terence would open up the atlas to discover where it would take them next. Or how she would lay awake at night, wishing upon wishing she had been born with someone else’s legs.

  All of that came from her grandmother. She was the one to weave her magic with words, not Emily.

  “That’s why I was so worried when I saw you looking.” The assistant held out the package to her, then took his phone from his back pocket and quickly snapped a photograph.

  Emily blinked, then looked around, past Tyler, to where a crowd was beginning to gather. A collection of faces and phones, all pointing at her, documenting the event, ready to be shared with people all over the globe. Millions of likes and comments on social media, wondering about what the package contained—whether it could be the infamous last manuscript of the late, great Catriona Robinson.

  The screens lit up, over and over again, and Emily stared at all those strangers, all those people who thought they had a right to know. Just as they always had, asking questions, wanting to know about her grandmother. Wanting to know about her.

  She was still clutching tight the parcel when she felt Tyler’s hand on her arm.

  “You want to go?” he asked, and she nodded, allowing him to escort her through the shop as she tried not to look back, to where those people were following, watching, whispering.

  They sat in the kitchen of Tyler’s family home, a house much like all the others on a tree-lined street in Primrose Hill. It was a room Emily had once spent so much time in, but she had never imagined she would be back there, with him, sharing a simple meal. Bread and slices of salami; cheese that was making an escape from
the wooden board; grapes and pickles and sun-dried tomatoes ripe with garlic. There was a clattering of plates onto the table as Tyler put down a fistful of cutlery and glasses. Emily ate each offering in turn, washed it all down with another tumbler of whiskey and ice that clung to the side of the glass.

  “Any more?” Tyler asked as he stood, went over to a marble sink and turned the copper tap, ran each plate under the stream of water before placing it in a dishwasher neatly hidden behind a panel of painted wood.

  Emily watched him as he tidied away the evidence of them being there. No mess, no disturbance to the picture-perfect kitchen so changed from when last she was here, yet somehow still the same. Sleek, modern lines with oversize cabinets and soft upholstered chairs. Fabric on the walls and chandeliers overhead. But the sight of him, backlit from the window, as he slid onto the bench next to her, felt the same as all those years ago. When they would chatter over bowls of pasta or ice cream, bare feet tucked underneath legs dirty and bruised from the day spent outdoors.

  It was so hard to reconcile then with now. To realize so much had happened to him, as well as her, none of which she could bring herself to talk about.

  Instead, she looked across to the package now open on the tabletop. Another book, another dedication different from all the rest.

  For Madeleine—thank you for believing in us all.

  “How do you know we have to go to Paris?” Tyler asked as he flicked through the pages of a book about a girl who wanted to paint but always compared herself to others. She had taken Ophelia riding bareback across the open fields, wind whipping through their hair and eagles flying overhead, and in return Ophelia had taught her that being afraid to fail was never a good enough reason not to try.