‘Can I help you?’ she enquired, sizing him up. He seemed too young to be one of the ‘Where did you put the tank books?’ complainers, of which they’d had three so far, but his suit, now she looked more closely, was actually a tweed jacket. ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’
He opened his mouth to speak, than glanced sideways as if he’d just noticed something. ‘What happened to the military section?’ he demanded. ‘Used to be here, by the desk.’
‘We moved it.’ Anna smiled. ‘It’s in the side room.’
‘Hmph. And the naval history?’
‘Also in the side room. With the comfy chair. We thought it would be nicer for the history browsers to be able to sit down.’
He carried on looking round, in the proprietorial way many old customers had been doing. ‘I like what you’ve done with the shelves,’ he conceded. ‘Nice clear labelling. You can see where you are. And you’ve restocked?’
‘We’ve reorganised the old stock,’ said Anna, pleased he’d noticed. ‘There was quite a lot of it.’
‘Good.’ He started to step towards the local section for a browse, then pulled himself back. ‘I’m looking for Ms Nightingale,’ he said instead. ‘Is she in today?’
‘She’s next door, in Home Sweet Home, but she’s in and out with meetings.’
Anna racked her brains to think who this slightly pompous man might be – and what her best response should be. She assumed he was a rep, or maybe someone from the council: he was about her age, tall and good-looking, with an angular face and sandy-blond hair that fell into his eyes. He pushed it back now with an automatic sweeping gesture.
‘Is it something I can help with?’ she went on. ‘I’m the shop manager.’
‘Yes, in that case it is,’ he said. ‘It’s about the pile of boxes in the communal hallway between the shop and the flat upstairs. They’re blocking access.’
‘I’m so sorry about that,’ said Anna, half relieved but half guilty. ‘They’ll be moved by tonight. It’s just that we’re very short on storage space – the sealant on the floor in the back room hasn’t dried as quickly as the builder hoped, so we couldn’t put the last set of shelves back in, and so Michelle said if I stacked them there for a few days we’d be—’
‘It’s breaching fire regulations,’ said the man. ‘You can barely get a pushchair up those stairs anyway, plus it’s a pain in the arse. I’ve got a massive scrape on my leg from trying to fold the bloody buggy small enough to get past.’
Anna reeled slightly. A pushchair? She hadn’t noticed any children upstairs. She hadn’t even noticed any adult occupants.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr, um . . .’ she said. ‘I didn’t get your name.’
‘Rory Stirling.’ He held out a hand. ‘And yours is?’
‘Anna McQueen. I’m sure we can sort this out very quickly for you,’ she said, amazed that the baby hadn’t been woken by the building work. Not that she wanted to bring that up if he hadn’t noticed. ‘It might be easier to pop in next door and grab Michelle now.’
He looked aghast at the thought. ‘I’ve seen through the window. It’s like a jumble sale in there. I don’t want to get between those women and the last half-price scented candle.’
‘I’ll ring her,’ said Anna, reaching for the phone. ‘And I’m so sorry, it must be hard enough getting a buggy up those stairs to begin with.’
‘It’s a form of punishment.’ Rory wiped a hand over his face, and when he revealed his eyes again, Anna noticed they were apologetic and bloodshot. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout,’ he said. ‘It’s been a very long day or two. I’m not really an expert on buggies.’
‘They’re worse than deckchairs when you’re not used to them,’ said Anna.
‘To be honest, I’d normally be fine about the books, so long as I got first dibs. Let me know if you’re throwing any out. Especially any on Toddlers for Beginners.’
He added a tired smile at the end. It was a direct one, like a child’s u-shaped grin. It sat endearingly at odds with his slightly fusty clothes.
‘Why don’t you take a seat?’ said Anna, sensing a kindred book-ish spirit. ‘Michelle won’t be long. Coffee?’
‘Milk, two sugars,’ said Rory, looking round at where the machine was bubbling away. ‘Now there’s an improvement already.’
Michelle had long since perfected the art of serving three customers at once without making any of them feel neglected, which was vital at peak moments of sale chaos like this, with the lines jammed on the credit-card machine, a stress headache pounding at her temples, and now the phone ringing. A busy till was a happy one, as she told the staff, but today she didn’t have the energy for it.
It didn’t help that Owen kept sloping down from the office upstairs to photograph new items, causing an instant hiatus in service from Kelsey, and now – thanks to his kind fixing of her new phone – Gillian too. Michelle was less impressed. He’d returned from his New Year trip to London with a hangover, a love bite and a tiny new tattoo on his wrist in the shape of a single angel wing. Her new website was still only half done.
And she’d just noticed that Harvey had re-registered his details on the mailing list, after she’d blocked him from the old one. His shadow had appeared in her shop again.
‘Kelsey, the phone!’ she snapped, unable to bear the ringing, then checked herself. It wasn’t fair to take it out on Kelsey. She grabbed it herself. ‘Hello?’
‘Michelle, I wonder if you could pop next door?’ All she could hear behind Anna’s voice was the gentle waft of a string quartet playing Bach. ‘There’s a man here who wants to see you.’
‘Did he make an appointment?’ Michelle smiled apologetically at her customer and put her credit card into the machine again. ‘If it’s a rep, tell him to come back next week.’
‘He’s called Rory Stirling. It’s about the books in the hall upstairs. They’re blocking access.’
Michelle’s fingers slipped on the keypad and she accidentally charged the customer £9376.99 for her two Liberty silk scarves and silver-dipped egg box. The invisible metal band round her head tightened.
Rory Stirling. Great. That was all she needed: it was probably just an excuse to come round and tell her how she should be running the shop. She’d already had a few ‘suggestions’ from him via email about what she should be stocking. She’d deleted them all.
She jabbed at the cancel button. ‘I’m so sorry . . . Let me do that again. Anna, just move the books and apologise. Tell him it was temporary. I’m rushed off my feet here.’
‘Michelle, I think it’d be a good idea if you spoke to him yourself.’
‘Fine, two minutes.’ She redeployed her customers to Gillian and Kelsey, wove her way through the throng of people and out onto the high street.
The chilly air didn’t help Michelle’s head but the soothing atmosphere of the bookshop did. It was like walking into a hidden garden off the main street, with gentle music and the smell of coffee. However, when she saw Rory Stirling, irritation retightened its grip.
He was leaning by the big desk that doubled as the counter, chatting away to Anna with one lanky leg crossed over the other. Michelle noted he was wearing yellow socks. That made seven things about him that really annoyed her. She couldn’t stand ‘amusing’ socks. Harvey had been a keen wearer of socks with motifs, which one solicitor told her was grounds enough for divorce in some parts of Surrey. Rory was also telling Anna something tedious about an author Michelle had never heard of, and Anna was smiling in an indulgent fashion.
‘Salve, Ms Nightingale, tandem,’ Rory said, turning round. When he stood up, she noticed that his shirt was un-ironed under his jacket.
‘Tandem?’
‘Latin. It means “at last”. Anna and I were just talking about Latin A-level. How useful it is in everyday life.’
‘If you’re a gardener,’ added Anna. ‘Or a birdwatcher.’
Great, thought Michelle. Anna’s finally found someone as daft as her about
her bloody Latin A-level.
‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’m right in the middle of my busiest time,’ she said. ‘What’s the Latin for “run off my feet”?’
‘You’ve got me there,’ said Rory. ‘I can see you’re busy. Looks as if the knick-knacks are flying off the shelves next door. Some of them have even flown in here.’ He gestured towards a pile of soft woollen blankets Michelle had arranged by the romance section, right next to where she was standing.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s part of the reading experience. Cup of tea, warm blanket, romantic novel. Nothing wrong with that.’
Rory raised his eyebrow as if there was something wrong with that, and Michelle bridled. ‘Cross-selling,’ she said. ‘It’s how you make low-margin products like books work these days.’
‘We’ve sold lots,’ agreed Anna. ‘I’ve got one. They’re so cosy. Real one-more-chapter cosy.’
‘Well, I hope you didn’t move the military section to make room for blankets,’ said Rory.
‘What about spurs?’ demanded Michelle. ‘Would that have been OK? Or imitation pistols?’
‘Rory was just saying how impressed he was by how much we’ve done in such a short time,’ Anna said quickly, seeing Michelle’s face darken. ‘He’s been away.’
‘Indeed. When I left, it was a shell, and now it’s the new Waterstone’s. Mixed with Liberty.’
Michelle stared at him, trying to work out whether he was one of those men who’d been told that ladies like a bit of sparring, or if he was genuinely standing there, criticising her shop for making money. Rory Stirling was hard to read, especially behind his glasses. They were a bit like Anna’s, square and tortoiseshell, only Anna’s were ironically geeky, and Rory’s seemed bona fide geek issue. Luckily for him, they didn’t make his eyes look all weird and distorted, and she could see he had sandy lashes to match his hair.
‘It looks like you’ve found a real book person here,’ he added, and Anna beamed happily.
‘Rory was just saying he was in the Puffin Club too.’ She pointed to the ever-present pile of kids’ books on the front desk.
‘The Puffin Club?’ Michelle pretended to look blank. ‘No idea. Was that like the Tufty Club? Or the Pony Club?’
‘Michelle! Don’t tell me you weren’t—’ Anna began, but Michelle wasn’t in the mood for more of Anna’s rose-tinted nursery reminiscences.
‘No, I wasn’t in the Puffin Club. I went to actual clubs with actual friends,’ she said. ‘I didn’t read about girls who had ponies, I rode ponies. I didn’t read about tomboys who went on adventures, I was a tomboy who went on adventures. And boarding school is not like in Enid Blyton, let me tell you.’
Anna looked shocked by the force of her outburst, but Rory folded his arms, amused.
‘I think the lady doth protest too much, don’t you, Anna?’ he said, tapping his long fingers on his sleeve. ‘I think she’s hiding a box set of Worst Witch stories.’
‘Certainly not. Not everyone spent their childhood indoors with their nose in a book,’ she retorted. ‘That doesn’t make me a Philistine, and it doesn’t make me the wrong person to run a bookshop, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
A smaller, quieter voice pointed out that she might be overreacting, but she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Of course it doesn’t!’ Anna started, in her conciliatory tone. ‘No one’s saying that.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Rory. ‘You seem to have got the shop part perfect. It’s looking . . .’ He waved a long arm in the direction of her table displays.
He had arms like a spider, thought Michelle waspishly. She raised her eyebrow, waiting for his adjective.
‘. . . More shop-like than I’ve ever seen it.’
‘Have we moved the boxes?’ she asked, turning to Anna.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Rory.
‘No, there’s no need.’ Michelle pushed her sleeves back. ‘My brother can do it. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of post-Christmas family break-ups to be sorting out.’
‘Actually, I’m on holiday,’ he said. ‘Been doing family things for a few days, and I’ve got the rest of the week off.’ He turned back to Anna. ‘Luckily, the buggy’s gone for the time being, but it’ll probably be back sooner or later. And I need to be able to get my fishing stuff up there anyway.’
Michelle had started to walk over to the door to get Owen, but now she spun round. ‘Hang on. You live up there?’
‘With your . . . family?’ Anna prompted innocently.
‘No, it’s just me most of the time,’ said Rory.
Michelle wasn’t interested, though; a big penny had just dropped. That totally explained why he was so adamant the place shouldn’t be turned into some noisy café or busy phone shop. Talk about vested interests. It had less to do with Cyril Quentin’s so-called legacy and more to do with Rory Stirling’s lie-ins on a Saturday morning.
‘Oh. Now I see why you’re so keen on this staying a bookshop,’ she said meaningfully.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said, reading her cynical expression at once. ‘My living here has got nothing to do with anything. I’ve been here a year or so, and yes, I came to be good friends with Cyril, being a book lover myself, and—’
‘No need to go into the heart-rending details.’ Michelle held up a hand. ‘I’ll shift the books and you can rest assured you won’t have any more access problems.’
‘Let me help.’
‘No thanks. Don’t want you suing me for personal injury.’
Michelle pulled her spine up to its full length and glared at him. She felt wrongfooted. Rory Stirling should have said something. It was unethical. Besides which, the thought that he was upstairs, keeping an eye on her, was very, very unsettling.
‘It won’t happen again,’ said Anna quickly, eager as ever to smooth out any wrinkles. ‘And come back soon and buy some books! We’ve got a whole box of old Puffin Club specials. Maybe you could get something for the baby?’
Rory shot an amused glance over to Michelle, then smiled more readily at Anna. ‘Maybe. Thanks for the coffee,’ he added, as he loped towards the door.
‘You gave him coffee?’ Michelle hissed, when it closed behind him.
‘Yes! We got chatting and I’d just put the pot on . . . Why? Shouldn’t I have done?’ Anna squinted at her. ‘Why were you so off with him? What’s he done to you? I thought he was nice.’ She looked pensive. ‘Bit weird about the buggy, though, if he lives alone. Whose baby was it, do you think?’
‘I don’t care about the baby. He should have said he lived upstairs.’
‘He did. Just then.’
Something niggled at Michelle. Hadn’t he said he didn’t have a family when she’d gone in to see him? That he was in the office because he didn’t have family ties?
Anna looked at her more closely. ‘Come on, Michelle, what’s up? You were fine this morning. Rory’s fine, honestly. I’m sure he won’t make a big deal about it.’
Michelle knew it wasn’t really Rory Stirling; it was Harvey. After three years of peace, suddenly Harvey was in the back of her head the whole time like a permanent stress headache. She was constantly wondering when the next unwanted floral reminder would appear, wondering what her mother was ‘advising’ him to do, wondering what he was saying to her mother about their marriage. It was worse than him just turning up on her doorstep.
‘I’m feeling a bit stressed,’ she admitted. ‘Harvey’s . . . Harvey’s been talking to my mother. He wants to try again.’
‘What?’ Anna was instantly and gratifyingly outraged for her. ‘He’s got no right, you’re divorced!’
Michelle took a deep breath. ‘Actually, Anna, we’re not. Not officially.’
‘I thought you were?’ Anna’s brow creased. ‘Why did I think that?’
‘Because I never said. It’s not something I’m very proud of,’ she admitted.
‘Then divorce him.’ Anna turned her palms up, as if it was the easiest thing in the wo
rld. ‘Get on with it.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ said Michelle. ‘Harvey refused to get divorced when I asked for one, even when I said I’d be the unreasonable party. He hates losing. I was going to wait out the five years’ separation, then he has no choice. But now he’s decided that’s not going to happen either. And if my mum’s behind him, too . . .’
Anna opened her mouth to argue back, but Michelle’s hooded eyes obviously stopped her. She seemed shocked to see her so beaten.
‘Don’t say anything,’ warned Michelle. ‘There’s nothing you can say I haven’t already said to myself a million times.’
Anna grabbed her hand. ‘You know what always cheers me up?’
‘If you say Winnie the Pooh, I will have to kill you.’
‘No! Once round the park and a big meringue from Natalie’s café. I’ll go halves if you want.’
Michelle managed a wintry smile. ‘I prefer exercise. I’m going to shift those boxes for Rory myself.’
Moving the heavy boxes made Michelle’s muscles ache, but it sapped the worst of her headache. What it didn’t do, though, was distract her from the shifting sensation she felt inside, that her own neatly stacked life was starting to escape its storage.
9
‘I wish I could give 101 Dalmatians to all my new dog owning clients, so they’d know (a) how much exercise a Dalmatian needs, and (b) how much of a pickle humans can get their dogs into.’
George Fenwick
Anna had never really thought of herself as an organiser, but the collection/delivery plans she’d put in place to keep Lily, Chloe and Becca’s various schedules in the air at the same time as her new job and Pongo’s exercise needs made FedEx look like a bunch of rank amateurs.
Michelle or Gillian covered the first hour so she could do the school run and walk Pongo, then Jack’s mum walked Lily home to the bookshop on Mondays and Wednesdays, while Isabel’s mum picked her up on Tuesdays. On Thursdays, Becca had a free study afternoon, so she covered for Anna in the shop for an hour while she went to get Lily, and on Fridays Phil finished work early to collect her, amidst coos of adoration and sympathy from the other mums, which he milked shamelessly.