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fragrant, and me and Chloe, together we could shuffle books and move boxes and open a packet of chocolate biscuits, and, behind the dark-brown voices of Radio 4 drifting down to us from the kitchen, we could hear the traffic going by outside. People going to work. Other people, not me.
    ‘Time for a break, Chloe, we don’t want to wear ourselves out, do we?’
    I’d opened a box of paperbacks and tipped them out. Nothing really special or unusual, but they would bulk out the shelves and fill up some spaces and sooner or later I’d be going to fairs and car-boot sales and house-clearances and auctions and finding the material which was going to make the shop different. That was what it would need. Or else we’d be just another a funny old bookshop in an old church, and it might take something a bit more different than that to have customers coming in.
    And so we sat by our fire. By now it was light outside, a grey glinting metallic light from the black road and the swishing stream of cars and the bare tall trees.
    ‘Let’s take a look, Chloe. Remember? Mr. Heap gave me this box. Nice old Mr. Heap, he kept it for us, for me and you and for our shop. Shall I open it, or do you want to?’
    We opened it together. The firelight fell on the dark velvet and then the white satin inside, and I picked out the odd little object between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand.
    Was it bone? Was it horn? When I held it closer to the flames and we stared at it more closely, I could see that it was a tooth.

 
    Chapter Five
     
     
    ‘A RELIC, YES. That’s exactly what it is ... and alright, it may be no more real or true than the so-called knuckle-bone of some saint or another, but it’s a relic, with a bit of spurious provenance or whatever they call it. And so yes, it’s pretty weird and it’ll add a nice shiver of excitement to the shop, whenever I open it up and try to get people to come in...’
    I’d been looking forward all day to Rosie coming home and showing her the tooth. Later in the afternoon, I’d been out with Chloe to the nearby convenience store and I’d got a bottle of red wine. So that, when Rosie trudged wearily up the stairs and into the kitchen, our dinner was cooking and the bottle was open and breathing, the table was set... and, very thoroughly and carefully, I’d already got Chloe bathed and powdered and into her pyjamas and swaddled in a dressing-gown, her hair glowing golden, her skin fragrant and pink, and, most importantly, her teeth sweetly brushed and we were ready to show off the place from which her wobbly tooth had popped out.
    ‘No, we can’t find it,’ I’d lied to Rosie. ‘It kind of, well, popped out when she was rushing downstairs, chasing the mouse, and when she jumped onto the bottom step she kind of gasped and must’ve spat the tooth out.’
    I didn’t say that Chloe had fallen over. I said that I’d looked all over the hallway and couldn’t find the tooth and it must have skidded across the floor and slipped into a crack between the flagstones.
    We were eating together, the pasta I’d cooked, and we were drinking big glasses of the red wine. Chloe had already eaten and we’d put her upstairs into bed. The kitchen was very warm. Outside it was freezing harder than before. Rosie had showered and changed after her day at work, and her face was flushed with wine. She was wearing the big soft cotton shirt she wore in bed, or at least which she wore when we first slipped into bed and snuggled up before I helped her to wriggle out of it. I eyed her through my glass and saw that her throat and neck were flushed too and I saw how her breasts lifted and tautened when she raised both hands to her hair and shook it loose. I was relaxed and relieved. I knew she was pleased with the meal and the wine and the care with which I’d cosseted Chloe... and even the loss of a tooth from her precious angel’s precious pink gums was alright.
    She pushed aside her empty plate, took another