There were dead flies in the window and thick dust over many of the objects. Carmen thought briefly back to Mrs Marsh and what a heart attack it would have given her.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door, which tinged with an ancient bell, flattened down her hair and walked in.
Inside, the shop did not seem any less of a disaster area – or any more of a place where any sane human would want to spend their time or their money.
The main room, painted green to match the front, was lined with shelving in which books – mostly old – were jammed so tightly you couldn’t pull any of them out.
The titles appeared to be filed willy-nilly. There was a large glass cabinet at the front on which sat an old-fashioned till, and on top of those were two or three old books displayed that clearly hadn’t been touched – and Carmen had never heard of them – for a very long time. The rest of the cabinet was covered in an unruly sprinkle of invoices, paper, receipts, advertising flyers, empty envelopes and general detritus.
‘Hello?’ said Carmen loudly, but there was no reply.
There was a floating set of steps to the higher shelves, but that too was piled high with what looked like atlases; not just atlases but atlases Carmen wagered were too old to have half of the new names of countries in them. There was a section of books about Edinburgh itself, which had obviously been fingered and read by tourists so often they were in a dreadful state, and couldn’t possibly be sold now. A spider’s web in the corner of the window was pretty, but Carmen rather thought it did not give an ideal impression.
‘Helloooooo?’
Still nothing. How on earth, thought Carmen, did this shop make a living? How?! How could it possibly support one person, never mind two?
A dilapidated metal circular display, presumably meant to be placed outside when the shop opened – although it was now ten past ten, so the shop really ought to be open already – contained a stack of creased, ancient and wildly inappropriate postcards. Did people really want to come to Edinburgh and send home a postcard with an engagement picture of Charles and Diana?
‘Um … Mr McCredie?’
She looked down at the floor; something seemed to be sticking to the sole of her foot, and she wasn’t completely sure she wanted to know what it was. ‘Mr McCredie?’
Finally she heard from the back – if this was the front of the shop, Carmen wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the back looked like – a shuffling noise, as if someone, she thought, was trying to push their way through quite a lot of paper.
Peering in that direction, Carmen saw that the room narrowed and then, through an opening, vanished back into gloom; there was no telling how far back it went. From where she stood, it looked as if it burrowed straight into the heart of the ancient cliffside itself.
Just as she was thinking this, Mr McCredie appeared, blinking in the weak sunlight, as if he were a misdirected mole.
Carmen blinked herself – he was not, it turned out, remotely young. Quite the opposite.
He was portly, with surprisingly small feet and hands, which meant for a round man he moved with unexpected delicacy. He had bright pink cheeks and tufts of white hair, as well as a pair of glasses on his nose, another pair tucked into the pocket of his waistcoat and a third hanging out of his tweed jacket pocket. His eyes were tiny, blue and, at the moment, rather confused.
‘I don’t think we’re open,’ he said in a broad sweet accent that lengthened every word: I do-ant think we-rrrrr oaaa-pen.
‘Well, you should be,’ said Carmen, smiling. ‘Hello! I’m Carmen! I’m your Christmas extra staff.’
Mr McCredie frowned and touched his hands to his glasses to make sure they were still there. They were.
‘Oh yes?’ he said. He frowned again.
‘Sofia sent me. Your lawyer. You said you needed someone … ’
Fear slightly gripped at Carmen’s heart. She couldn’t be blanked for a job again, she just couldn’t. What would she do? She’d have to apply to be a wench at the Christmas market and it was freezing out there. This place was clearly a tip, but she was here now and obviously they were quite slack about hours and, well, she desperately needed to be out otherwise she was going to have to turn into Sofia’s cleaner.
‘Did I?’ said Mr McCredie absently. Then he remembered. The whole horror of the meeting. And his face fell. He looked at the girl in front of him. She was short and rather pretty: dark hair and eyes and cheeks pink from being outside. Her mouth had a stern set to it and she had a curvy figure, rather old-fashioned-looking. Goodness. Was this the person who was going to save him from the awful fate of having to leave his beloved books, his beloved city, retire to some terrible bungalow somewhere?
He looked around. ‘You’ve worked in a shop before?’
‘I have eight years’ senior retail experience,’ said Carmen proudly.
‘In bookselling?’
‘Um, haberdashery,’ said Carmen.
Mr McCredie blinked. ‘Buttons and what-not.’
‘Buttons and what-not,’ agreed Carmen.
‘Well … ’ He indicated the room with his hand. ‘It’s not exactly like selling buttons.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Do you read?’
‘Of course!’ said Carmen indignantly. She decided not to mention how much she loved her e-reader. He didn’t look like an e-reader kind of a person at all.
The door of the shop tinged, and a woman walked in. Mr McCredie looked at Carmen in a ‘go on’ kind of a way.
‘Hello,’ smiled Carmen.
The woman looked around, slightly discombobulated by the mess. Carmen couldn’t blame her. But maybe this worked well here. Maybe it was an authentic gold mine of a place that people liked because it wasn’t like other shops which had clean shelves and … took credit cards. Hmm.
The woman was pushing a large pram, and there was nowhere for it to go without bumping into things.
‘Let me take that for you,’ Carmen said hastily, looking at the round bright baby, fresh as new minted coconut ice, sitting up and taking a keen interest in their surroundings.
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said the woman. ‘I was looking for a copy of The Jolly Christmas Postman.’
Carmen smiled; it had been a favourite of hers, except she’d lost all the letters and Sofia, who never lost anything, had got cross with her.
‘Of course,’ she said. She couldn’t imagine a bookshop at Christmas time that wouldn’t have it. She smiled winningly at Mr McCredie, who frowned distractedly.
‘I’m not sure … ’ he said. ‘Do you know what year it was published?’
The woman looked bemused.
‘Um, no?’ she said as if this was a very bizarre question to be asked, which it was.
‘You file your books by year?’ hissed Carmen, genuinely surprised.
‘Um, sometimes,’ said Mr McCredie.
Carmen quickly leafed through a box of children’s books. There was an old hardback edition of The Water Babies, several lavishly illustrated lives of the saints and a very old picture book about a rabbit who had wings, carrying a lantern over a snowy waste.
‘Oh my,’ said the woman, as Carmen held it up. ‘Is that Pookie?’