The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane by Ellen Berry

Author:Ellen Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008157135
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Della realised the house was already showing signs of deterioration since Mark’s departure. Although it was not quite a hovel, the bed was unmade, with clothes, cookbooks and her make-up bag strewn across it, spilling its contents. She gathered everything up and smoothed down the duvet, then decided a fresh bed was necessary: their best linen, a White Company set from Mark’s parents last Christmas (a lovely gift, although Val’s comment – ‘We know you only like the best!’ – had made Della squirm a little).

Downstairs, she gathered up the mugs and plates she’d left dotted around from her husband-free grazing, and noticed the winking red light on the answerphone. She pressed play. Hello, Della? The voice was female, elderly but not tentative like Val’s. It was rather forceful, Della thought. Forceful and posh. I think you might have called last night. I’m sorry, I was here, it was just rather … difficult. So I kept your number … A small pause. I’m Monica Jones. I knew your mother. Kitty and I were sort of … er … anyway, you can call me again, if you like. There was a sharp clunk as the message ended abruptly.

Della stared at the answerphone, as if Monica Jones’s face might shimmer before it, like a hologram. How strange, the man she’d spoken to saying there was no Monica there. Still, Della would call back later. Tonight wasn’t about Kitty or her mysterious group of friends. It was about Della and Mark and she was determined to make everything perfect.

In the living room, her pencils and sketches of her fantasy shop littered the sofa. Della collected everything together and found a shoebox in which to hide it all until the time was right to reveal her grand plan. It reminded her, disconcertingly, of madly tidying up her first shared flat before her mother had dropped in for a visit. She checked the time – 4.20 p.m. – and fired off a text to Mark. What time home you think? Dx.

In the meantime, she bashed together garlic and rosemary, then stabbed incisions into the pork loin into which she stuffed the garlicky paste, leaving it to stand for a little while. She rolled out ready-made pastry and eased it carefully into a fluted glass dish, pricking it with a fork ‘So it doesn’t rear up at you!’ as Mrs Gillespie, her home economics teacher, had always instructed. The tart was put to bake blind in the top oven.

Glugging oil into a pot, Della heated it and dropped in the pork, browning it before placing it in the lower oven to roast. This was the kind of cooking she enjoyed most. So simple, yet just what was wanted sometimes. She had made this discovery – that food didn’t have to be tricky or stressful or involve plunging things into bubbling oil – when she’d made that roast chicken at ten years old, and carved it herself, ignoring Jeff as he hectored her on the right way to use a knife.

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