The Lost Bookshop(48)

I was still on the doorstep. Christ, my whole life seemed to be lived on the doorstep. Never fully in or out, never feeling as though I belonged anywhere. She pulled the door behind her and stepped outside.

‘You’ll get cold,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t matter. I have a feeling this conversation won’t take very long.’

I looked up at her. She was always more intuitive than me. She was the smartest woman I’d ever met. There was no point trying to find the ‘right’ words because they simply did not exist.

‘You’re an amazing woman—’

‘Oh God.’

‘What?’

‘Anything but the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech. It’s humiliating, Henry.’

‘But it’s true! It’s me, I’m the problem.’

‘I know that. So why are you leaving me?’

Fuck. This was why people lied. It’s far easier to lie to someone than to watch them bear the hurt of your careless words.

‘Because I thought I knew what love was. I thought it was something I could … manage. You and I, we knew how to rub along together. We had a good partnership. But if you’re honest I know you’ll think the same thing. We weren’t’—I searched the sky for inspiration—‘fireworks.’

‘Wow.’ She wiped a stray tear from her eye.

‘You must have had your doubts too, Issy.’ Stupidly, I thought she would agree with me.

‘Don’t expect me to make this easier for you, Henry. You see the thing is, I do love you. Very much, as it happens. And I thought we had fireworks.’

I felt ten stone heavier. Her arms were folded tightly around her. What could I say to make it better?

‘I’m so sorry, Isabelle. I truly am. I never wanted to hurt you.’

She said nothing; wouldn’t even meet my eyes.

‘I feel terrible,’ I said.

‘You feel terrible? Try being dumped on the doorstep by your fiancée before we even had a chance to pick out a ring! This must be some kind of record.’

Nothing I said was coming out right.

‘You’re better off without me.’

‘Finally, something we can agree on.’

With that, she walked back inside and slammed the door in my face. I buried my face in my hands and hardly noticed when the door opened again.

‘And here is all your shit,’ she said, handing me a black plastic bag. ‘I hope she’s worth it.’ The door slammed again.





It was late by the time I returned home. There was scaffolding on the house next door, which, in the evening sunlight, made it look as though it were trapped in a gilded cage. I walked up our driveway and noticed an e-bike parked where my mother’s old VW Golf used to be. I turned my key in the door and was hit by the welcome scent of a roast chicken giving me an appetite for food that I thought I would never have again. Not after talking to Isabelle. I never felt more unsure of who I was, and that was saying something – for a man who lived his entire life in the shadow of other people’s opinions. I felt empty.

‘Henry!’ my mother exclaimed from the kitchen, rushing into the hallway. She held me in a tight embrace and I found myself absently wondering why she was wearing a long white shirt covered in paint and a bandana in her hair. She was normally a pearls-and-twin-set type of person, keeping up the illusion that we still had money and that my father had not drunk it all.

‘You look different,’ I said.

‘I’ve taken up life drawing! Annie next door goes to a class every Thursday and—’

‘It’s just so they can perv over young naked models,’ came the unmistakable monotone voice of my sister. She and her husband, Neil, thumped their heavy Doc Martens boots down the stairs.

‘Oh, Lucinda, honestly!’ my mother cried, rolling her eyes in mock offence.

My sister’s eyes were rimmed with black liner and while her jet-black hair reached almost to her lower back, she had cut her fringe in a very definite hard line that gave her a stern look. We all made an obstacle course out of getting ourselves from the hall into the kitchen. It was awkward but familiar and I was glad of that.

‘Why didn’t you say you were coming home? A phone call would have been nice,’ Mum said, putting on some oven gloves and bending down to take out the chicken and roast potatoes. I set the table while Lucinda and Neil carried on kissing each other as though we weren’t there.

‘It was a last-minute thing.’

‘A surprise for Isabelle?’

I let the sound of plates and cutlery drown out whatever useless response I was attempting to conjure to that.

‘Isabelle and I were a mistake,’ I said eventually, having realised this for the first time. ‘We both knew it. It’s better this way.’ There. No room for debate.

My mother stood like a statue for a moment, her mouth shaped in an ‘o’.

‘You young people today,’ my sister said, punching my arm and slightly rescuing the situation.

‘Gosh, you are incredibly pregnant,’ I said, noticing the size of her bump.

‘Yep, she really ballooned out these last couple of weeks,’ Neil agreed, earning himself a kick on the shin.

‘I’m not due for another fortnight,’ she groaned, but it looked as though Neil was the one suffering.