White Bodies(17)

The bookshop is a five-minute walk away, on Walm Lane, just past the Samaritans charity shop. It’s Daphne’s baby—that’s how she describes it—and is called Saskatchewan Books, which looks peculiar in the middle of Willesden Green, which is international but more in a halal-meat way. But Saskatchewan is Daphne’s birthplace, so that’s a good reason, and she likes to say it’s a suitable name because the shop is spacious and empty. Not empty of books, but of customers. I don’t mind. I like the quiet. I work there three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I tell Daphne that I’ll be going out to lunch, instead of my normal routine of a cheese sandwich in the stockroom.

“Lunch out, sweetness? That’s nice. Is it a special day . . . ? It’s not your birthday, is it?”

I get the truth out and done with. “No, I’m meeting my sister.”

“Tilda? Coming here?” Her tone has flipped from soft to sharp.

She gets up, walks around awkwardly, tidying the shelves, rearranging the nonfiction table. Then: “What’s happening with your sister? She was so successful, with all that TV, then Rebecca—but it’s been ages, hasn’t it, since she’s been in anything? A year or something?”

The shop fills with silence. Eventually I reply with: “She’s fine.”

“It’s absolutely right that you should be discreet. But I’m thinking an autobiography would sell well. I could see that being snapped up. And it would get her face back in front of the public.”

She carries on tidying, then settles at her desk near the window display, lining up her purple Moleskine notebook and Virginia Woolf coffee mug and opening her laptop. She looks like a giraffe-woman she’s so long and thin, her legs stretched out under the desk, her feet poking out. It’s always the same—she inhales on her electric cigarette with a little snorting sound, then starts bashing the keyboard for a novel called The Lady Connoisseurs of Crime, which is a sequel to The Primrose Hill Murders and A Death Before Breakfast. She calls the books her “cozy murders,” and they have quite a following, which subsidizes the shop. Daphne says that other people have a business to support their vanity publishing—but she writes books in order to do vanity business. I’d say she spends half her time on her novels and the other half on internet-dating sites in her doomed quest to find a boyfriend.

My job is to look after any customers who come in—like Mr. Ahmed who buys one hardback P. G. Wodehouse a month for the collection he’s building, and wants to put in his will for his son. Also Wilf Baker, who works in the real estate office across the road and likes thrillers, especially Harlan Coben books. When Wilf comes into the shop he always looks out of place; he’s big, with ginger hair, and he walks with a long untidy stride, and he always looks like he wants to make a big announcement but he’s not sure what about. Daphne calls him “the sack of potatoes” and a klutz, but I can tell she likes him. She always mentions it if he hasn’t been in for a few days.

When the shop’s empty I take care of orders and returns and bring Daphne cups of coffee, which she likes strong and black, no sugar. Sometimes, she gets up and paces around, thinking about what she is going to write next, and I like the sounds she makes clacking her heels on the wooden floor. Then she’ll stop suddenly and say something like, “Hell’s teeth, I haven’t got a clue. Fancy an iced bun?” And I’ll go along to the baker’s. This morning, though, she stays sitting, legs stretched out, gazing at her screen like she wishes the novel would write itself. Daphne is about fifty, and wears miniskirts and a leather biker jacket, so I guess she really is mutton dressed as lamb. Which suits her, by the way.

Maybe it’s because I know Tilda is visiting that time goes by so slowly. Only half a dozen customers come in, and three of those don’t buy anything, so they aren’t technically customers at all, and one buys only a Good Luck in Your New Job card from the display stand by the counter. Customers walk past Daphne like she isn’t there, which, given her length and her obviousness, makes me think they would walk past a baboon. Daphne’s pleased, though, that she isn’t interrupted. She likes the combination of activity and anonymity and feels that she has purchased her own personal coffee shop. Nicer than Starbucks because of the books, and there are no crumbs on the floor.

Just before one, Wilf comes in to tell me he’s finished Tell No One and to ask if I have any more recommendations. Daphne calls out: “You again,” and he just shrugs and says he’s a fast reader. Then he tells me that he’d like to branch out, and asks if I’ve read John Grisham. He’s kind of looking at me intensely and then inspecting my hair, then looking away unhappily. I feel myself blushing and looking at his chest rather than his face, and I feel horribly embarrassed. But I try to act normal, saying he should try some Scandinavian writers. While I’m telling him about The Artist, our doorbell jangles and Tilda comes in, wearing a long tweed coat, a man’s coat I think, because it’s too big on the shoulders, and a man’s trilby hat. She would have looked ludicrous in any circumstances, but in the summer heat she looks mad. Because Wilf and I are busy with our conversation, she starts browsing the books, picking up something in the self-help section, though she really isn’t an Eat Pray Love sort of person. As I feared, Daphne stares at her intensely, like a dog that’s spotted a rabbit, then she gets up and says, “Hi, I’m Daphne, I own the bookshop.”