‘Any second now you’ll be talking about melting marshmallows in mugs of creamy hot chocolate,’ I laugh sarcastically.
‘Well, yes, actually.’ Si affects a wounded look. ‘What would winter fantasies be without the ubiquitous hot chocolate.’
‘God.’ I shake my head in wonder. ‘You really are an old romantic, aren’t you? No wonder you haven’t managed to settle down with anyone. Who could live up to those expectations? Who could live as if their life were a constant movie?’
Si thinks for a second. ‘Rupert Everett,’ he offers finally, smacking his lips together before licking them lasciviously. ‘That’s who.’
We reach the station five minutes late, and there’s no sign of Will. Si immediately begins to worry that we’ve missed him, that he’s been and gone, that he thought Si wasn’t turning up.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say. ‘He’s probably late himself.’
And, although it’s really far too cold to be standing around a chilly tube station, that’s exactly what we do. For half a bloody hour.
‘Hasn’t he got a mobile?’ I ask eventually, and Si nods, so we troop down to the payphone down the hill, Si having forgotten to re-charge his. I lean outside, attempting to control Mouse, while he phones Will.
I want to eavesdrop desperately, but I don’t want to look as if I want to eavesdrop, so I pull Mouse over to a shoe shop and try to appear amazingly interested in shoes, which isn’t exactly a realistic proposition, but it’s the best I can do on such short notice.
Eventually I hear the door to the phone box open, and Si comes out looking completely dejected.
‘How do you fancy coming with us for a walk?’ he says finally, his voice flat.
‘Us?’
‘Mouse and me.’
I look at my watch and shrug apologetically, because I have to get to the shop, but Si and I walk up the hill together, back to the tube station, in silence, as I wait for him to explain. Eventually he lets out a long sigh and says, ‘He forgot.’
‘He what?’ I’m flabbergasted. And horrified.
‘He’s with friends in some brasserie somewhere, and he said he completely forgot.’
‘Bastard!’ I spit.
Si doesn’t say anything, he just shrugs, so I take the opportunity to unleash a tirade of vitriol that probably isn’t that appropriate, given I hardly know the guy, but I just can’t help it. How dare he treat Si like that. How dare anyone. I look at Si’s sweet, loving face, and I just want to kill this man for treating Si as if he’s disposable.
‘Okay, okay,’ Si says, stopping me. ‘I get the picture.’
‘Does this mean you’ve realized he’s not for you?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s just say I might have started to see things a bit more clearly.’
‘Si.’ I try a more gentle tack. ‘Don’t you remember what you always used to say to me? That I deserved the best and when was I going to get enough self-esteem to realize that if somebody didn’t appreciate me, then it was time to simply walk away without giving them a second thought?’
Si nods.
‘Well, don’t you think you’re old enough to start listening to your own advice? Because, as you always used to say to me, you don’t have to wait for someone to treat you badly repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it that once, if they know they can treat you like that, then it sets the pattern for the future.’
‘You forgot to say ugly enough,’ Si says, with the vestige of a small smile on his face.
‘What?’
‘You said didn’t I think I was old enough. You forgot to say “and ugly enough” too.’
‘I thought that went without saying,’ I grin, and Si takes my hand and gives me a quick squeeze.
‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘you’re the best friend a girl could ever ask for.’
I arrive back home, change into my oldest, most disgusting clothes, grab a bucket of cleaning stuff and dash to the shop.
Lucy’s already there, cleaning up the kitchen, and she makes us both strong cappuccinos before we start work. We sit at one of the cleaner tables to drink our coffee and gossip about the night before.
And then, Jesus, do we work. We scrub, sweep, mop and polish, until the shop is positively gleaming, until you wouldn’t have a clue that last night there were well over a hundred people crammed in here.
And eventually, when we’ve finished, Lucy looks at me with a twinkle in her eye and says, ‘So what’s on your agenda for the evening?’
I shrug, planning nothing more exciting than a long hot bath and an early night in preparation for the big day tomorrow.
‘Before you have your hot bath and early night,’ Lucy smiles, reading my mind, ‘can I tempt you with a delicious savoury cheesecake that I’m planning to have for supper with a large salad and an even larger glass of red wine. Care to join me?’
‘I’d love to. But can I take a raincheck on the wine?’
Lucy’s kitchen is even more disorganized than usual. The dustbin lid is wide open like a gaping mouth as rubbish threatens to spill out all over the kitchen floor, and a couple of supplementary bins, rather cleverly disguised as Sainsbury’s bags, are dotted around at the base of the main bin.
The sink is overflowing with dishes, and the board with messages, scribbled on various bits of paper, envelopes, scraps torn out of magazines, each in Lucy’s illegible handwriting. The fridge is now evidently doubling up as a noticeboard, and the magnetic poetry kit has been completely hidden by several scraps of paper clinging on to the fridge with the help of some rather dusty hamburger-shaped magnets.
One of Max’s videos is playing at full volume in the living room, and even in the kitchen the noise is slightly deafening, which isn’t helped by Max zooming around the kitchen with a plastic aeroplane making vroom vroom noises.
Christ. I know I’ve been neglecting my flat for the past few weeks, but this takes neglect on to a whole other level.
But Lucy is, as always, the port of calm in the storm, blissfully unaware of the chaos around her. I follow her into the kitchen, and she sits down at the kitchen table to slice tomatoes directly on the wood, creating yet more criss-crossed gouges in the old pine that has definitely seen better days.
Max climbs on to her lap and attempts to grab the knife, while Lucy smiles and gently brushes him aside.
‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ she says, ‘you know knives are bad for you,’ and I wonder again how she manages to stay so serene in the face of all this noise and mayhem. ‘Go and tell Ingrid to get you ready for bed, and Cath, why don’t you open that bottle of red on the side,’ she continues, as I bristle at the very mention of Ingrid’s name.
Max runs upstairs shrieking for Ingrid, and minutes later there she is, Ingrid, coming down the stairs looking as sullen as ever. I examine her face closely, trying to see whether she had sex last night, even though I don’t really know what I’m looking for. She certainly doesn’t seem to have any sort of post-coital glow, which is what people always talk about, how they say you know. Not that I think I’ve ever actually seen a post-coital glow, but I’m sure I’d recognize one if I looked hard enough.
I remember talking about it with Portia all those years ago. We’d just run into someone we knew on the high street, and she seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Once we left, Si looked over his shoulder knowingly and said, ‘Well someone had a good time last night,’ and neither of us knew what he was talking about, or how he could tell.
Not long after that I had a wild night of passion with no one very interesting, and the next morning I ran out without washing and hurried back to the house, dashing into Portia’s room and grabbing her mirror from the dressing table.
‘Well?’ I said, sitting on her bed and examining my face in the mirror. ‘Do you see it?’
‘Hmm.’ She took my chin in her hand and turned my face this way and that, making me stand in different positions around the room for the light. ‘Do you want me to be honest?’ she sai
d eventually.
‘Yup,’ I nodded. ‘Because I can’t see it, although Si says you can never see it on yourself.’
‘You look completely exhausted.’
‘Oh. Is that it?’ I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest, and Portia nodded. ‘Oh well,’ I started walking out to run a bath. ‘Perhaps that’s what everybody’s talking about.’
And here I am, examining Ingrid’s face as she strides into the kitchen and stops in front of Lucy, left hand planted aggressively on her hip. Lucy looks up and smiles benignly.
‘I would like to know where you think Max’s blue pyjamas are,’ she says, as Lucy shrugs.
‘The wash?’ Lucy says hopefully, as Ingrid shakes her head. ‘Ironing pile?’ Ingrid shakes her head and pulls her right hand from behind her back. ‘They are here,’ she says. ‘In the laundry basket. Where they have been now for more than one week.’
Lucy grimaces at me, then starts to apologize to Ingrid, who merely says, ‘He is your son and tonight he will have to sleep in his day clothes,’ before heading for the fridge and helping herself to a yoghurt, which probably explains how she manages to stay so thin.
I haven’t taken my eyes off her, but I’ve stopped examining her for the post-coital glow and now I’m just looking at her in amazement, astounded by how she can talk to her employer like that. When she turns around again, she catches me looking at her, and she just stands there watching me.
She peels off the yoghurt top, slowly brings it up to her mouth, and licks it, all the while looking at me, obviously trying to embarrass me for staring at her. I look quickly away as she smirks and leaves the room.
‘So.’ I stand up and put the kettle on to hide the expression on my face. ‘What do you think about James and Ingrid, then?’
Lucy looks utterly bewildered. ‘What do I think about James and Ingrid what?’
‘Well, they left together last night. I’m assuming she didn’t come home?’
Lucy starts to laugh. ‘Sweet Cath, do you really think that Josh would have come back to rescue us from a night of debauchery if Max had been sleeping here alone?’
Why didn’t I think of that? Thank God.
‘But they did leave together,’ I continue. ‘And James looked as if he were practically salivating.’ This last bit isn’t quite true, as I couldn’t actually see his face when they left, but, if I had been able to, I’m pretty sure that’s what he would have looked like. ‘I’m certain they both fancied one another,’ I say decisively.
‘Really? I can’t see them together at all. Not that I know either of their types, but I wouldn’t have thought she was James’s type, far too obvious for him.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I find myself saying involuntarily, clapping my hand over my mouth as it comes out, because really, I’m not worried at all.
Lucy puts the knife down and smiles. ‘Does this mean that you’re finally admitting that you might have some feelings for the lovely James after all?’
‘Absolutely not,’ I say. ‘We’re just friends. Well, we were, anyway.’ And with that the kettle boils, and I busy myself with the intricate task of making a cup of tea.
Chapter fifteen
Bill’s behind the till, Lucy’s busy arranging fresh pastries and croissants in baskets on the counter, and Rachel and I are racing round the shop checking that all the books are exactly where they should be, all the sofas at exactly the right angle.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I say, turning to the door with a grin as it rattles, and already there are two people outside, ignoring the fact that the closed sign is up, peering through the window and attempting to open the locked door, despite the sign saying we don’t open for another ten minutes.
‘Must be a good omen,’ Lucy laughs.
‘What do you think?’ I check my watch. ‘Shall we do it? Shall we let them be our first customers?’
The two women don’t show any sign of giving up, so I grab a key from the counter and go to the door to let them in, the smile on my face completely obliterating the fact that I’m as nervous as hell. Our first customers! What will they think? Will they buy anything? Will they stay and have coffee? Will they approve?
I catch Lucy’s eye, and she gives me the thumbs up. I swing the door open, wishing the women good morning and welcoming them in.
‘We just couldn’t wait,’ one of them says, bustling in with her shopping bags.
‘Sorry we’re so early,’ the other says, ‘it’s just that we’ve been watching this for weeks, and we were dying to have a look round. Goodness, are we your first customers?’
I nod, noting that all four of us have identical grins on our faces.
‘What do you think, Shirley?’ The shorter one turns to her friend. ‘Coffee first or browsing first?’
Shirley sniffs, then looks over at the counter, where Lucy is beaming.
‘We’ve got delicious home-made Danish pastries,’ Lucy says, tempting them over, and the pair of them succumb to Lucy’s smile and sit down in the café area to have coffee.
‘I must say,’ Shirley says, as they deposit their shopping on the floor, ‘you’ve done a beautiful job here. Look at how lovely and sunny it is. Just what this area needed.’
‘That’s exactly what we thought,’ Lucy says. ‘I hope everyone feels the same way.’
‘Just as long as I don’t walk out without Angela’s Ashes,’ Shirley says. ‘Don’t let me forget, Hilary. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages.’ Lucy winks at me from behind the counter, and I scurry off to dig through the pile of biographies and memoirs on the table at the front until I find Frank McCourt, and take it over to Shirley and Hilary.
‘Oh, what an angel you are,’ Shirley says. ‘I wish more shops would take a leaf out of your book,’ and I walk away feeling a deep satisfaction.
An hour later and there have already been six more people in the shop. Four of them are still here, quietly turning pages, two on the sofas and two in the café, and the others just ran in to buy new titles.
But everyone does seem to agree with Shirley, or perhaps they’re just saying it to be polite, but people seem genuinely impressed with us, with what we’ve done, and by the end of the day we realize we’ve sold twenty-one paperbacks and sixteen hardbacks, plus taken orders for four more books that we haven’t got in stock, which, all in all, as Bill said, was ‘pretty damn marvellous’.
Not to mention the fact that every single one of Lucy’s home-made cakes and pastries has been eaten, and there hasn’t been a single minute during the day when the shop has been completely empty.
‘I’ve got to tell you,’ I say, turning to Lucy as we’re closing up the shop, having shared a bottle of wine with Bill and Rachel to celebrate. ‘I think we’re on to a winner here.’
‘As if you could ever have thought anything different!’ Lucy laughs. ‘Oh, Cath, you’re such a worrier. It’s going to be fine,’ and she gives me a big hug.
I walk around the shop, picking up books that have been left on tables and putting them back in their rightful positions, and marvelling at the fact that this is mine! Ours! Our very own business! But, more importantly, as Lucy pulls out the mop and starts cleaning the floor, I understand for the first time that she really is right after all.
But the fact that she is right does not mean that she is not completely mad. Two weeks later she is busy organizing this dinner party on Saturday, when any normal person (i.e., me) would be (is, in fact) completely shattered, but Lucy’s so fired up and excited she can’t seem to sit still for more than about five seconds.
She hasn’t been sleeping either, and at the moment she’s doing an incredibly good impersonation of Superwoman, having woken up yesterday at the crack of dawn and spent two hours cooking a variation of some well-known chicken dish for dinner tonight, and that was before the shop even opened.
And the shop? Well, as everyone predicted, so far it seems to be doing okay. Despite the initial flurry of interest on the first day we opened, things have s
ettled down a bit, and there have been a couple of very quiet afternoons. It’s not, as Josh put it, what you might call an immediate runaway success, but then we are talking about a bookshop here, and you can’t expect people to come in and spend thousands.
But what has happened is the curiosity factor. People have been popping in to see what all the fuss has been about, and have ended up staying far longer than they’d originally planned. The old leather sofas seem to have gone down a storm, and last weekend a handful of people decamped permanently from La Brioche, spending almost all of Sunday sitting around the sofas at Bookends with their Skinny Lattes and copies of the Guardian.
As I said, in a rather embarrassing interview in the Ham & High, we can’t compete with the huge Books Etc. up the road, but then we’re not trying to. This was always going to be more of a community bookshop, somewhere for people to meet, chat, have a snack, and then stop on the way out as an interesting book catches their eye.
And the partnership between Lucy and I really seems to be working, despite the reservations Si had.
I love the feeling of waking up every morning and knowing that I’m off to work, and that it’s the job I’ve always dreamt of, and it’s my own business. There’s a hell of a lot to learn, and I know it will take a while before I’m completely comfortable with it, but I’m sure I’m getting there. We both are.
Lucy’s doing what she does best – cooking and playing the convivial host, and she’s completely adoring it. She’s on her feet all day, which always makes me feel slightly guilty, as I tend to be either sitting behind the till or sitting in the stock room. Either way, I’m sitting.
Josh went out and bought Lucy a foot spa as a congratulatory present, which Si and I thought a bit of a let-down – as Si said, wouldn’t diamond earrings have been preferable? But Lucy was thrilled, as her feet, she said, were absolutely ready to drop off by the end of the day, although she didn’t mind, she laughed. It was worth every second of sore feet.