Chapter 8
BONNIE
Bonnie’s retirement had brought an enormous change to their lives, enabling them to travel and then move to the coast, but unfortunately she hadn’t realised another change was on its way, one that would rock her world and make her question where she could possibly go from here.
Four weeks ago, she and Howard had been enjoying a beautiful July day together, one of many they both thought they had in their future.
Happy with her painting of the elevated view of the town and the water from their back garden, she’d decided to gift it to Beverly and had taken the canvas to Dorchester to have it framed.
‘You sure you’re not keeping it?’ Howard asked her when she arrived back at the cottage with the finished picture in a beautiful graphite silver frame. He was pouring a tea and she’d declined his offer to make her one.
‘No, I really want Beverly to have it. She used to holiday here in the town as a kid; I know she’ll love it, and she was my closest colleague at work.
’ She set the wrapped picture down, leaning it against the far wall of the kitchen out of the way.
The picture was protected inside the brown paper and all she needed to do was address it and take it to the post office.
Howard stirred milk into his mug of tea.
‘I made you a sandwich. It’s in the fridge.
’ As he returned the milk to the door of the fridge she watched him a little closer.
He seemed more unsteady than usual, or perhaps she was imagining it.
What she definitely hadn’t imagined, however, was how tired he’d been in the last week or so.
At the end of each day he was positively worn out and she’d wondered more than once whether he’d taken on too much – owning and running a bookshop when he was already in his seventies.
But if she ever raised the point, he’d insist that working again and being surrounded by books kept his grey matter top notch.
He’d admitted yesterday, however, that the developers who were originally interested in the bookshop had been stopping by regularly in an attempt to persuade him to sell to them. They really weren’t letting this go and had even upped their original offer.
‘Do you think there are hidden jewels sewn into the upholstery of those nooks?’ Howard had joked because of their persistence.
They’d laughed about it but Bonnie wished they’d leave him alone and hopefully soon they would get the message that the bookshop was not for sale.
It was special to the community. Plenty of residents remembered going to the bookshop as kids themselves, then taking their own children and even grandchildren there, and it was a popular hub for the local primary school who took groups there in support of literacy programs. When Howard first took on the shop, Wendy from the bakery had told them that she remembered sitting on the big rug as a child when story time came around every Saturday morning, and one of the men behind the post office counter had told Bonnie when she went in to buy stamps one day that he used to spend all his weekly pocket money at Driftwick Bay Books.
The locals would be devastated if the bookshop ever disappeared and even now Howard still got thanks for coming to the rescue and saving it.
She leaned in and kissed Howard on the cheek as he picked up his mug of tea. ‘Thanks for the sandwich, love. I suppose I’d better return the favour and make the syrup sponge I promised you.’
‘I’ve told you I’m happy to give it a go.’
He’d take over all the cooking if she let him. They took turns most of the time but to be honest since she’d retired and they’d come home from their travels she needed to keep busy. ‘Nonsense, you put your feet up. You know I love making it.’
And she did. She loved baking in this kitchen.
It was cosy despite being a decent size with a window at the very end of the room, which looked out to the front of the cottage, and the little fence with its tiny low-down gate.
They’d installed a new range cooker in here, which wasn’t so modern it looked out of place but was modern enough that it worked and cooked things well.
They’d redone the walk-in larder, which was tiny but now had floor-to-ceiling shelving on three walls and held more food than they could ever collect and need between them, and the wooden-doored cupboards suited a country-style kitchen.
The oak table in front of the window had been the perfect way to complete the look and sometimes Bonnie thought perhaps their kitchen looked as cosy as those you saw in a magazine.
She took ingredients from the larder and lined them all up on the benchtop before she pulled out equipment from the oak corner cupboard. She’d get started making the pudding first, then eat her sandwich while it was steaming.
But she turned suddenly at the sound of Howard cursing and saw the splash of tea on the floor and up the side of the cupboard. His hand wobbled as he successfully set the mug back down to safety.
‘Don’t get in a flap,’ he warned. She’d already mentioned the other day that he seemed unusually tired and that hadn’t gone down well at all. He’d never been one to fuss if he didn’t feel the best, and at his age she didn’t expect him to change now.
‘I’ll get a cloth,’ she said without any more debate.
Because of her job, Bonnie had seen the rapid decline of patients Howard’s age, and hers for that matter, and that had been a big driver behind them travelling.
She’d wanted to do it while they both still could, before it was either impossible physically or travel insurance premiums made it too costly.
They’d had eight weeks of travel that she would never ever forget, and for that she would always be grateful.
She wiped up the spillage with a damp cloth. ‘I’ll make you another.’
‘It’s fine. I had half.’
He hadn’t. But she didn’t want to upset him.
So she got on with measuring and cutting out the baking paper she needed to line the pudding basin as Howard sat at the table and picked up his Kindle.
He looked exhausted again, but when he glanced her way she turned to put the baking paper into the basin.
‘How’s the book?’ she asked as she worked, not wanting him to see how concerned she was.
‘I only started it last night so the jury is out.’
‘What’s this one called?’
‘The Girl on the Train. It’s a psychological thriller.’
He was happy for now and Bonnie lost herself in her baking for a bit.
She spooned golden syrup into the base of the pudding basin, beat more syrup with butter, sugar and lemon zest, added in the eggs and flour.
And when she was done and the pudding was set over a pan of water to steam for slightly under two hours she set the timer and made them both a mug of tea.
Howard had moved to his comfier chair in the other room and she set down his mug on the table beside him. ‘You read so fast. Does everyone in the book club keep up?’ The prep and the baking had taken her long enough that it was quite acceptable to be having more tea by now.
‘Everyone goes at a different pace, love. But we’re all pretty fast readers most of the time.’
With Howard reading and the pudding steaming, Bonnie ate her lunch and then went through to join Howard again and make a start on her new painting, or at least the preparation for it.
‘Would you like the back doors closed?’ She didn’t mind the fresh air, but she wanted Howard to be comfortable.
‘No, leave them, it’s lovely to bring the outside in.’
She opened up various drawers to find her supplies.
She was going to start painting that view from the picture she’d taken on the hill near the bookshop.
She’d already printed out her favourite shot from her phone and enlarged it, so with a length of masking tape she fixed it to one side of the easel.
She picked up a pencil and started to sketch some rough outlines of the road onto her canvas, then the pavements, the row of shops with Howard’s beloved bookshop nestled in the middle as the main feature.
She added the telephone box on the hill, the sea in the distance, and happy with her sketch for now she found tools including a detail brush, a palette knife and a spatula, a damp rag, a beaker of water, and her palette onto which she squeezed measures of different colours.
She’d start with the sky, the palest part of the painting.
Acrylics dried fast but she would layer it up with texture to eventually get the right shade, the right finish she wanted.
Her wooden easel had handy inset shelves at the top where she could put her brush momentarily if she wanted to use the knife to shift the paint around, or the rag to blend or smudge.
The easel was ancient but special because every painting she’d done so far had been done on this very same piece of equipment Howard bought her when they first moved in together.
After an hour or so sat in front of her easel, the sketch complete and the sky beginning to gain some colour, she felt a bit of a chill come inside and so she closed the back doors. It was time to check on the steamed sponge anyway.
When she looked at Howard, he wasn’t reading, he was dozing.
Both of them got so absorbed with their different pastimes it was easy to forget the other one was there half the time.
Friends of hers said they could never concentrate when their husband or partner was around, but for her it was as if Howard being there gave her extra energy.
Neither of them disturbed the other; they were merely happy with each other’s presence and carried on with what they loved doing.
Howard looked up when she rested her hand gently on his shoulder. His Kindle was still nestled on a cushion on his lap.