Chapter 23
Dear Harper,
I’m sorry I’m not there to welcome you to the Barefoot Bookshop but I’ve been around long enough to know you’re the exact right person for the job.
Atwood, eh? Without going into specifics, me leaving was the right thing to do for everyone’s sake, especially Xavier’s.
Ignore the gossip and conjecture as best you can and get on with the job of selling books, so that the bookshop doesn’t indeed close.
If that were to happen, I’d never forgive myself and that would make my transgressions infinitely worse.
Forgive an old man speaking in riddles, won’t you?
You’ll find everything you need to know about running the bookshop in this notebook.
Old fashioned, yes, but I’m an old-fashioned guy.
I hope you enjoy your time on the island, Harper.
Last Chance Resort is a restorative place, if you allow it to be.
It has been for me, and I’ll miss it very much.
Look after Turt Vonnegut, he’s a real character when you get to know him and he’s a great listener.
Without further ado here is my reading list that I insist you work your way through. In a perfect world, I’d still be at the Barefoot Bookshop and we’d lose an afternoon with bookworms, discussing these lifechanging books; alas, I am not. Soak up the words anyway.
Where the Waves Keep Time by Khalil Joubert – part historical fiction, part love story and the history of the Seychelles as a matriarchal society set on Esperé island.
An Embarrassment of Mangoes by Ann Vanderhoof – a memoir of an epic two-year sailing voyage around the Caribbean.
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby – a memoir of an expedition through the Hindu Kush mountains.
Round Ireland With a Fridge by Tony Hawks – a memoir that started with a bet… and who doesn’t want to take up a bet like this?
Love With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche – a memoir set in the South Pacific in a leaky boat with a woman in love, who just so happens to fear the ocean.
All best wishes,
Gus.
I smile at Gus curating a reading list and insisting I work through them.
The best way to get to know someone is by reading books that moved them.
Books that changed their lives and left their mark.
These titles seem like they’ll awaken the long-dormant adventurous side of me as good travel memoirs can, when you take a dive into unchartered territories with vistas you can only dream about, leaving you breathless after an epic voyage or gruelling expedition where you don’t actually have to do any of the physical work, except keep up with the words as they fly across the page.
I scan the note again. A couple of sentences stick out: Ignore the gossip and conjecture as best you can and get on with the job of selling books so that the bookshop doesn’t indeed close.
If that were to happen, I’d never forgive myself.
I probably won’t anyway, but that would make my transgressions infinitely worse.
What transgressions is he referring to? It’s clear that he didn’t retire in the usual way, with a big staff party, a gold watch and a thank you for giving up the best years of his life.
He’s admitting to some sort of fault but for what?
Why won’t anyone be drawn on it? Do I need to know to be able to do my job?
No. But is the nosy part of my personality intrigued?
Yes. I sense his regret and a deep sadness.
I’m still suffering overwhelming pangs of anxiety after my missteps so can empathise.
What if it’s a simple misunderstanding? Maybe I can help Gus and get him back where he belongs – the Barefoot Bookshop.
It’s likely he and Xavier butted heads over the bookshop, although in the letter Gus seems to respect him, so…? My musing is cut short when the three Lucys walk in, laughing and chatting away. They’re hustlers, I remind myself, and I’m not to be taken in by their little old lady act.
‘Harper, it’s so nice to see you running the Barefoot Bookshop. While we’re sad to lose Gus, having a woman in charge of ordering stock can only be a good thing.’
‘It’s not like Gus didn’t acquiesce to your every demand,’ Lucia says. ‘In fact, you’re the reason the romance section here ballooned out.’
‘So sue me. I love love. Not all of us can read crime books all day, you know.’
‘You’d think you read crime books for tips, the way you cheat in every game we play!’
Lucy Lou clucks her tongue. ‘Not only is Lucy good at cheating, she’s even better at pinning her crimes on us when she gets caught out.’
‘Crimes? What crimes? You jest.’
Lucia stares her down. ‘Ah, last night did you or did you not cheat at two-up with that lovely man from Connecticut and then blame me?’
Lucy scoffs. ‘I shared the spoils with you, did I not?’
‘That’s beside the point!’
‘It’s the very point! And now here we are ready to spend our ill-gotten gains on books. You should be thanking me.’
‘Hardly.’
‘There’s no hardly about it. This doth-protest-too-much act is purely for Harper’s benefit.’
Lucy seems to be the leader of the pack, or at least the one who gets in the last word.
Still, if I don’t speak up I have a feeling their bickering will continue unabashed without any input from me.
‘Hi, ladies! It’s nice to see you again.
’ They’re all about the same age – mid-seventies maybe, with similar white-blonde bobbed hair, wearing the ubiquitous frangipani sarongs that are popular around the resort.
They have a golden glow about them, as if the climate here agrees with them; maybe it’s that and their early morning yoga sessions.
I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous they’re in better shape than me.
Their sassy personalities shine through too.
‘You’ll get used to our squabbles,’ Lucy says.
‘We’re island sisters, not by blood, but by choice.
We retired here after our husbands died and before you ask, no, we didn’t poison them, that’s a terrible rumour that Brian perpetuates.
I mean, strychnine is so easily traceable and hard jail time is no joke. ’
‘Especially at our age,’ Lucia says. ‘No, I need a bed with a firm Posturepedic mattress.’
‘Not to mention the importance of a memory foam pillow,’ Lucy interjects.
Confusion dashes across Lucy Lou’s features. ‘Memory foam? Do they catch your dreams?’
Lucy rolls her eyes. ‘You’re not serious?’
Lucy Lou blushes. ‘Well, where does the memory part come in?’
‘The indent of your great noggin, you know?’
‘Ooh.’ Lucy Lou laughs. ‘Shame it doesn’t catch your dreams, now that I would pay for.’
‘Anyway.’ Lucy shakes her head at her friend. ‘Back to what I was saying before I was so rudely inter—’
Lucia speaks over the top of Lucy. ‘In fairness, we didn’t even think of knocking our husbands off. If we had, we might have retired to the island a few years earlier without our balls and chains.’ At that the women double over laughing.
When they’re finally composed Lucy Lou slaps Lucia’s arm playfully.
‘Don’t speak ill of the dead. I’d never have poisoned my Gerry.
No, he’d have simply up and “vanished” one day.
’ A machine-gun cackle escapes the diminutive woman, who wears one of those plastic visors that casts a hue of neon blue over her complexion.
‘Vanished?’ Lucy’s brow crinkles.
‘You know, the old “he went out for a pack of cigarettes” malarky. Much less messy,’ Lucy Lou says.
‘Ah, got you. No, “Officer, there were no warnings, he emptied the bank account and I haven’t seen him since.”’
‘Yes!’ Lucia nods. ‘Your Gerry was the quiet type who just might have up and vanished of his own accord. Not like my Harry, who’d have preferred his death to be played out like a locked room murder mystery, not the rather mundane ending he actually had.
Dying in his sleep? It’s almost offensive for a man so vibrant as he was.
Sometimes, I tell people he got hit by a train and allude to the fact that I pushed him.
He’d have got a kick out of the shocked gasps it provokes.
’ Lucia wears a faint smile, her eyes glazed as if lost in a sweet memory and not the dark reality she’s talking about.
I laugh and am met with three hard frowns.
I mean, they’re talking about how they’d murder their husbands if they weren’t already dead and I’m the one on the receiving end of a hard stare?
Is this a case of a quirky lot of island expats using gallows humour to ease their grief?
Not that they look especially sad. Could it be that the Seychellois sun is restorative and this is some kind of… coping mechanism?
‘Ah – right. So what made you decide to pack up your lives and retire here?’
‘One day in the dead of a cold British winter – is there any other kind? – we got to talking, reminiscing about the summers we spent here when our kids were teenagers and how much fun we all had. And how it was a real shame our grown-up kids never wanted to holiday with us any more.’ Sadness flashes across Lucia’s face.
‘Always too busy, you know how it is when you’ve got a young family and work pressures,’ Lucy says.
Lucy Lou nods. ‘So we thought this might be our last chance to retire on our terms, our way, back at the place where we met aeons ago.’
‘Best thing we’ve ever done.’
‘Hands down.’
The resort really is the place of last chances, no matter what form they come in.
‘And our cunning plan worked. The kids visit us more here than they did back home!’
‘Ha! I love that. Now, can I help you ladies find some books?’
‘Yes,’ Lucia says affirmatively. ‘We’re looking for a few of those funny, dark, feminist serial killer thrillers.
You know the type, where they off bad men and dispose of their bodies in a sausage factory.
You don’t feel an ounce of guilt because the world is better off without men with malicious intent. Have you got any of those?’