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By Root 1843 0

be spiralling away from me; that this was a stab at self-preservation. I certainly felt dangerously stretched, like pizza dough that's been spun around too much, and I wanted to ball myself up again, be me. But I wanted that ball to be unlike the old me: not soft and vulnerable, but hard and knowing. I had a feeling work would help. Who was it said it was the only dignity? Malcolm's theory – that I also wanted to prove something to Ant, that this was a knee-jerk reaction, which, quite rightly, he didn't want me jerking out of equally sharpish – also rang true, and it's as well he alerted me to it. I've always had to beware of myself: to be on the lookout for subversive behaviour. But whatever my motives, what I hadn't bargained on, particularly in my current frame of mind, was enjoying it. Remarkably, though, those first couple of days in Malcolm's shop were the happiest I'd had for some time. Why? Because they were mine? Who knows. Because, even if my motives were unclear, the end result, the satisfaction, wasn't? Not sure. All I know is I dived in and woke up to marvel. Days like these were rare, and I clung to them.

Initially, of course, I was distracted by the sheer mechanics of the task, by the enormity of being employed again. I was ridiculously nervous, thinking I couldn't begin to remember how to do this; couldn't begin to get to grips with the new computer system, or the credit card machines, that everything had changed too much and got horribly technical. But within moments of Malcolm showing me, explaining how to look for a book a customer wanted, how to check stock and availability, how to order if we hadn't got it, I was away. The rest was like coming home. As I unpacked the latest glossy autumn hardbacks, putting the Booker Prize shortlist contenders on a separate table at the front as Malcolm instructed, taking time to arrange them in an eye-catching, decorative way, I remembered why I'd done it for so long; why, when friends said, ‘But isn't it just like being a shop assistant?’ I'd smile, knowing it wasn't. Particularly in a small shop like this, where people came for help and advice, and often with only the scantest shreds of information.

‘It's red,’ one faintly harassed woman said, as she glanced back at her car outside on a yellow line, fairly vibrating with children.

‘Red,’ repeated Malcolm, patiently.

‘And quite big.’ She demonstrated with her hands. Next she'd be making curtain-sweeping gestures and we'd deduce it was also a play.

‘Big and red,’ said Malcolm, as she turned to shake her head furiously at the wild animals in the Discovery. ‘What's it about?’ he prompted gently.

She turned back distractedly. ‘I meant to get it last week, it's my husband's birthday tomorrow.’

This didn't move us forward.

‘D'you know what it's about?’ he enquired again.

‘Battles. Wars.’ She cast about wildly for inspiration, as if at any minute she'd mime that too, fling herself to the floor with an imaginary machine gun. Malcolm steered her through to Ludo's side.

‘Military history? A new one?’

‘Yes!’

Getting warmer.

‘Been reviewed?’

‘Yes. He read about it at the weekend, said he'd like it.’

‘What paper does your husband read?’

‘The Telegraph.’

‘At the weekend too?’

‘Oh. No, the Sunday Times.’

‘The History of the Crusades by Victoria Clark?’

Malcolm plucked a large red book from a pile on a round mahogany table.

‘Oh! That's it. Oh, you are clever.’

She glowed, paid, and left the shop at racing speed, waving her keys furiously at her brood. I too looked admiring. ‘Nice work.’

He shrugged.

Then came some browsers – students, mostly – then more women and children, which was right up my alley as Anna had read a lot of the books they were after, and I was able to guide and enthuse accordingly. Then an elderly woman, in a long brown coat, who smelled of spearmints. She plucked a Catherine Cookson from the shelves, gazed at it avidly and shuffled to the counter.

‘I've found one I haven't read!’ she declared, taking her purse out of her bag and counting out the money in small change. Malcolm picked it