Page 38 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop

LILY

I arrived at Bay Books at half seven on Saturday morning. After a bitterly cold start to the week, the wind had dropped and the temperature had risen. With sunshine forecast for today, I knew we’d be in for a busy one and wanted to get as much admin done as possible before opening.

I hadn’t confirmed a date for Lars to start working weekends and wondered if that had been a mistake. If it was as busy today as I suspected it might be, lunchtime in particular would be tight with just Alec, Flo and me in.

The first half an hour was as dead as a Monday morning, which wasn’t normal. We hadn’t had a single customer and, while that meant Alec and I had been able to unpack and check the delivery – a task which could drag on until mid-afternoon on a Saturday – it unnerved me.

‘Makes you wonder what they know that we don’t,’ Alec said, joining me by the window where I was frowning at how eerily quiet Castle Street was for a Saturday.

‘I’m stunned by how dead it is. Nice days like this usually bring them rushing out.’

By the time Flo arrived ready for her ten o’clock start, we’d had three customers but only one of them had bought anything.

She expressed surprise at the shop being empty before she went downstairs to drop her bag and coat off and make a round of drinks but, when she returned, we’d been inundated with customers as though a coachload had arrived and dropped them off right outside the door.

‘How long was I down there?’ she whispered as she joined me at the till.

We didn’t have the space for two tills but we had a handheld device connecting to the system on which we could take card payments when there was a big queue like now. Flo took payments on that while Alec remained on the shop floor, responding to customer queries between tidying and restocking.

It took until half eleven for us to clear the queue, at which point a woman I didn’t recognise approached the till. She had a face like thunder and I braced myself for a complaint.

‘Are you the manager?’ she asked, a sharp edge to her tone.

My stomach lurched as I hated confrontations, but I’d never let a customer see my fear, so I smiled and said brightly, ‘Yes. I’m Lily. How can I help?’

‘You need to see this.’ She turned and marched towards the children’s section.

I left Flo to cover the till and followed the customer, dreading to know what I was going to find.

‘They’re not mine.’ She pointed to a young boy and girl sitting on the floor with a selection of picture books from the Bookmas tree strewn round them.

As I got closer, my stomach plummeted to the floor.

The children weren’t reading the books. They were scribbling all over them.

My precious, beautiful books! I glanced round the section but all the adults appeared to be accompanied by other children.

‘I’ve already asked,’ the woman said. ‘No idea who they’re with. I asked the pair of them to stop but they refused in words children their age shouldn’t know.’

The girl reached for another book from the tree and I dived towards her.

‘Let’s just leave this on the tree, shall we?’ I said, my voice playful as I eased the book from her hand.

‘I want to colour,’ she cried, trying to snatch it back from me.

‘That’s lovely, but we colour in colouring books, not story books.’

The boy glared at me and, in an act of clear defiance, grabbed another book and angrily scribbled across one of the pages.

If they’d been toddlers, I could have understood the destruction but they looked about the same age as Cassie’s daughter Hallie – six years old – so they really should have known better.

Spotting the barcode labels attached to the ends of the pens, I realised they’d liberated them from our stationery section.

‘I own this shop and I need you to give me those pens,’ I said, my voice firmer as I crouched down beside them.

The girl pouted but she handed hers over. The boy responded by scribbling on yet another page.

‘Those books don’t belong to you, do they?’ My voice was even firmer now. ‘Fun’s over.’ I held my hand out. ‘Please give me the pen.’

‘No!’

He held the pen out of my reach but relinquished his hold on the book.

Spotting my chance, I snatched the book from his lap and swiftly gathered the others off the floor.

The customer who’d alerted me to the problem came to my aid, standing in front of the Bookmas tree, blocking the children from grabbing any more books.

The girl stayed on the floor, arms folded, looking down and I sensed that she knew she’d done something very wrong, but the boy leapt to his feet and turned to face me, a look of disgust on his face.

‘Give me my books back!’ he cried.

‘They’re not your books,’ I responded, keeping my voice low, conscious of the hushed atmosphere and the customers watching the interaction. ‘They belong to the shop.’

‘I want them!’ He hurled the pen at me and it bounced off my arm to goodness knows where.

Next moment he launched himself at me, pummelling my stomach.

For a small child, he could certainly pack a punch.

With a yelp, I leapt back and held the books protectively across my stomach but that didn’t deter him as he kicked at my shins too, yelling that he hated me.

If it hadn’t been for his sister grabbing his arms and yanking him away, still kicking, I don’t know what I’d have done next.

How do you defend yourself from a child attacking you without hurting them?

Next moment, the boy broke free from the girl and I feared another attack but he ran to a woman in a bright red puffer jacket who’d appeared by my side.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, wrapping her arms protectively round the boy as he glared at me.

‘Are these your children?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘They’ve been drawing in the books.’

‘And?’

‘And they’ve damaged them.’ I opened one out to show her. ‘I’m afraid I’ll need you to pay for them.’

‘They didn’t come in with pens. Where did they get them from?’

‘They took them from the stationery section.’

‘Then it serves you right for having pens next to children’s books. What did you expect?’

What did I expect? Not this situation, for sure. Red Jacket terrified me and I wanted to run away and cry but this was my shop and her children were in the wrong so I stood my ground.

‘They’re not kept in the children’s section and what I’d expect is for parents or carers to stay with their children to make sure nothing like this happens.’

‘You tell her, love,’ called one of the customers.

‘Those kids are feral,’ another one added.

While I appreciated the support, the second comment was extremely unhelpful in the circumstances. Red Jacket’s cheeks blazed the colour of her coat and her eyes flashed as she cast her gaze around the customers. I swear that, if she’d spotted who made the feral comment, she’d have decked them.

‘If you’d like to come to the till, I can offer you the books at a discount as a goodwill gesture.’

She turned back to me and looked me up and down, curling her lip.

‘I’m the only one making any gestures round here and here’s mine.’ She stuck her middle finger up at me, to gasps all round. ‘And you needn’t think I’m buying this from you, you stuck-up little bitch.’

She had a guidebook for Florida in her hand and she ripped the front cover off it before hurling it onto the floor. Grabbing each child by the arm, she stamped on the book before dragging the kids out of the shop.

All eyes were on me, shocked expressions all around, murmurs of disgust at the woman’s behaviour.

Rude customers were sadly all too common in the retail industry and I’d been shouted at and sworn at before but this was a new low, making me feel angry and humiliated.

Tears pricked my eyes, my throat burned and I was trembling from the shock.

I desperately wanted to run downstairs, lock myself in the loo and bawl my eyes out but I couldn’t leave Flo and Alec on their own to pick up the pieces.

I was the owner and I needed to be professional.

‘I’m really sorry about the disruption,’ I said, unable to stop the shake in my voice. ‘Please don’t let it spoil your day. We can give you a 20 per cent discount for any books you buy from the children’s section today to apologise.’

‘There’s no need to do that,’ someone said, but I didn’t catch who or I’d have given them a grateful smile.

‘Are you okay?’ The woman who’d alerted me to the problem was standing by my side, her eyebrows knitted with concern.

‘Not really, but thanks for letting me know when you did.’ I glanced down and did a quick count of the books in my arms. ‘It could have been more than nine books if you hadn’t.’

She crouched down and picked up the Florida guidebook and cover and added it to my collection.

‘More than ten,’ I whispered.

She placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. ‘I don’t know how you managed to keep so calm.’

‘Me neither. I didn’t feel it. Thanks again.’

A young girl – in her early teens at a guess – passed me the two pens.

‘Aw, bless you for picking them up for me,’ I said, smiling at her.

‘I don’t like bullies,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry they were mean.’

‘Thank you. Me too.’

She returned to her family and I took a deep breath before going through to the front section to tell Alec and Flo about the discount and to check whether any of the precious books in my arms had survived the pen attack, fighting hard to keep the tears at bay when it became obvious that they hadn’t.

I couldn’t contemplate selling any of them, even at a heavy discount.

The mindless destruction and the waste turned my stomach.

Alec and Flo were amazingly supportive. They must have messaged Tara because an emergency hot chocolate and a salted caramel brownie arrived with one of the staff from The Chocolate Pot. The kind gesture from my team had me all choked up.

‘We thought you might need it,’ Alec said.

‘I do. I’m going to savour this.’

‘Why don’t you take it downstairs?’ Flo suggested.

If I had some alone time in the staff room, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from repeatedly reliving that ugly scene.

It would make me cry and I wouldn’t be able to hide my upset because my eyes frustratingly remained bloodshot for a couple of hours after crying.

I’d need that release at some point but I’d save it for the privacy of Green Gables.

‘I’m fine here, thanks. Plus, it’s time you took your break.’

It took some persuasion but Flo went down to the staff room while Alec took a customer to the poetry section, leaving me alone at the till.

All but one of the customers who’d been in the children’s section during the incident had now left and all but one had bought books.

They all shared how shocked and disgusted they were about the behaviour and how sorry they felt for me, although only one refused the discount.

I felt sorry for me too, but I also felt sorry for Red Jacket’s children.

While what they’d done was very wrong, had anyone actually taught them that?

From their mother’s behaviour, I suspected not, which didn’t bode well for their future.

The final customer made her way downstairs and placed a pile of books on the counter.

‘Everyone’s getting a book for Christmas this year,’ she declared, as if she felt she needed to explain the random selection of titles.

I smiled at her. ‘Best Christmas present ever. Although I will admit to being slightly biased.’

‘Don’t give me a discount on the children’s books, though. I was buying all of these anyway and it’s not fair you should lose out because of someone else. Are you okay?’

‘Not really, but I’ve got to get on with it.’

‘Have you let the police know?’

‘They were just kids.’

‘I’m thinking more about the mother. She’s responsible for the damage they caused because she left them unsupervised, she refused to pay and she ripped up a book herself. There’s no excuse for that. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.’

She’d become more passionate and steadily louder as she spoke, which she evidently realised as she lowered her voice. ‘Sorry. I used to work in retail too and some of the damage customers caused and the abuse they gave staff broke my heart. It’s why I left.’

‘It can be tough at times. I’m sorry it got that bad for you. What do you do now?’

‘I work behind the bar at the theatre so still with customers but a different type. The occasional glass gets broken but it’s never deliberate.’

When I told her I hadn’t been to the theatre in years, she whipped out a programme of upcoming events from her bag and suggested I treat myself.

‘You’re going to tell the police, then?’ Alec asked after the woman left.

‘I might as well. I’ll check the CCTV first and, if we’ve caught her clearly, I’ll give Sergeant Haines a shout.

I don’t know if they’ll be able to identify her and, if they do, I don’t know that they’ll be able to do anything but it’s worth a try.

That customer was right. There should be consequences for that sort of behaviour. ’

Flo returned from her break and, feeling lifted by all the customer support, I decided to take ten minutes to myself after all and enjoy the rest of my hot chocolate and my brownie in peace and quiet.

To make sure I didn’t focus on the incident, I’d scroll through the socials and see whether the Paperback Pixie had gifted any books today. They’d been quiet recently.