The Last Page Cafe (heartwarming)

Prologue

Erin thanked the last customers of the day and followed them to the door.

They smiled and nodded in reply, but their eyes were already on the heath and the church beyond.

Erin didn’t blame them. She knew that, to most of the tourists visiting Blackheath, she was essentially part of the furniture of The Bookmark Café, grey in comparison to the Technicolor world outside.

Beyond the safe walls of her little domain, adventures awaited – for other people, at least. She was more comfortable in familiar surroundings, where life was predictable and there were no unwelcome surprises.

She spun the sign, which had been hanging on the door since her mother opened The Bookmark almost forty years ago.

The side that said open now faced into the room.

That always amused Erin; when the café was closed to other people, it was open to her.

It felt fitting, since this room was her sanctuary.

Allowing her eyes to travel across the café, as she always did at the end of a long day on her feet, she assessed how long it would take her to clear up before she could relax.

Now she was in her mid-fifties, her legs ached more than they did a decade ago when she took over the café.

She hadn’t changed the decor in all that time.

Why would she? Her mother had wonderful, if a little bohemian, taste.

A hotch-potch collection of prints they’d picked up over the years hung randomly on the white-painted exposed brickwork.

Each picture had a coffee theme, and Erin could remember where and when they’d come across each one.

Her favourite, a woman relaxing on a striped beanbag, holding a mug, a book obscuring her face, hung over the fireplace.

She let her gaze drop to the six brown leather armchairs around the low pewter-topped tables.

The seats were saggy, the leather faded and marked, but she liked to think that gave them character.

The plump cushions in various sizes added a pop of colour, as did what she called ‘Kiddies Corner’, where a collection of plastic toys were scattered on a wipe-clean laminate square.

She wanted the café to be a home from home for her regulars, and few homes were perfect.

She preferred to see the café’s imperfections as similar to the lines on an ageing face, each had a story behind it.

And stories were Erin’s favourite thing, just like her mother before her.

Those old leather chairs were always the most popular seats in the café, not least because of the paperbacks she placed on the low tables in the centre at the start of each shift.

She chose books from the wall of shelves at the far side of the café to suit her mood, often watching the faces of the people who picked them up, and stayed for longer than the time it took to finish their drinks.

She liked to imagine them feeling the same things she did when she first read the pages.

Sometimes she’d ask how they were finding it, allowing for a precious moment of connection in both their days.

The café had been a little quieter recently.

Passing trade had fallen off since Victoria decided to retire, closing the gift shop next door.

The shop had been a treasure trove, packed with greetings cards, old-fashioned board games, trinkets, and brightly coloured cushions and homeware.

It was where much of the decor of The Bookmark had come from, since Erin’s mother had found it hard to resist the odd piece of glassware, or quirky candlestick.

Victoria lived in a mews house a few doors along from her old shop, so at least she was still around, even if the road was noticeably less busy since the place closed.

A mewling sound made Erin turn and look down through the glass in the door.

Tybalt, Victoria’s grey tabby cat, stared up at her with imploring amber eyes, then tapped an impatient paw against the doorframe.

Erin laughed and let him in, watching as he stalked towards the armchairs and bounced into one with an agility that belied his heavy frame.

‘Evening,’ she said. ‘Good day?’ The cat ignored her and began to lick along the length of his fluffy tail.

As soon as she sat down, she knew he would jump onto her lap, curl into a ball, and she would feel the vibration of his contented purr on her thighs through her jeans.

She could hardly wait, but first she had to finish clearing up.

She closed the door again then pushed her bottom against it to propel her forwards, and used the momentum to scoop up the two empty china cups from the table the customers had left and take them through to the kitchen at the back.

Once in there, she used what her son, Jack, called her ‘Tetris skills’ to fit every last piece of crockery into the dishwasher.

Whenever anyone saw her stack the mismatched fine china, one of The Bookmark’s trademarks, into the industrial-sized behemoth of a dishwasher, they were aghast at her recklessness.

Little did they know she was probably the least reckless person in Blackheath.

Scrub that, she was probably the most risk-averse person in the whole of the country.

If her mother hadn’t demonstrated that the beautifully decorated china could withstand the rigours of the machine, Erin would still be sluicing out every piece by hand, terrified it might break.

Because no matter how careful you were, cherished things could break and sometimes they could never be repaired. She knew that better than anyone.

To the soundtrack of the machine’s slosh and hum, she washed her hands and dried them on a tea towel with the café’s bookmark logo, then tucked the towel into a tote bearing the same logo to take home to wash.

The merchandise was Jack’s idea. After his first year studying film and media, he’d come home with all kinds of ideas about how they could ‘maximise the business’s potential’.

She smiled at the thought of her son’s energy and enthusiasm.

He would be home soon, ready to start the next phase of his life, whatever that might be.

The uncertainty made her thoughts race, so she did what she always did when she needed to be distracted.

She went back into the main room and crossed to the white bookshelves which covered the whole of the wall opposite the door.

She pushed the rolling ladder aside and crouched low to the shelf slightly obscured by the counter which, by day, held cakes and pastries under large glass domes.

She wasn’t proud of the way she stashed away the books she’d earmarked to read herself.

The ethos of The Bookmark was to allow anyone to read anything they chose from the shelves.

But on more than one occasion, she had been looking forward to starting a particular book, but when her break time arrived, it was nowhere to be found.

Scanning the tables, she’d inevitably spy someone else turning the pages.

At the very end of the lowest row, her eyes found the red spine with three dark figures silhouetted against a yellow sunset at the base.

She pulled it from the shelf and took it over to the armchair in the corner nearest the books.

She’d heard nothing but good things about Kristin Hannah’s The Women.

She already knew it was a story of friendship and courage set against the brutal backdrop of the Vietnam War, but Erin needed to know more than that.

She used to allow stories to unfold in the traditional way, from beginning to end. But then her own story had taken a turn so unexpected and so devastating that she no longer trusted endings to reveal themselves on their own.

To keep her sanity, she’d decided the unknown was to be avoided at all costs – even in a world of make-believe.

To make sure she was always prepared for what was in store, she’d developed a foolproof strategy.

In a habit she’d started when her life fell apart, she turned to the very last page of the book and read that, before deciding it was worth starting at the beginning.