‘I go travelling and see different worlds every day through reading. I’ve been coming to this shop all my life. It’s worth more than money. Books can change people’s lives. They can be friends when there’s no one else to turn to. They can help people. They can be an escape. They can—’
‘Ah, a bookworm, eh?’ He puts unnecessary emphasis on the worm part. ‘I’ve got one of those in my family too. Honestly, I’ve never met a bigger bore. Always on about “Have you read this?” and “Have you read that?” nonsense. Trying to get me interested in the most boring plots and talking about fictional characters like they’re real people.’
‘Do you honestly think insulting fellow bookworms to a bookworm is going to help your cause?’
‘Who has got the time for all that reading? Some of us are too busy living to get lost in books for hours on end. If a book is worth reading, they’ll make a movie of it eventually.’
I try to school my face into not showing how much of an insult that is. ‘But the book is always so much better. Authors spend years researching and writing, and there are so many little touches and details that can’t possibly be re-created on film. You miss out on so much by trying to condense a four-hundred-page novel into an hour and a half of screen time—’
He does an exaggerated yawn, and I stop myself because it’s pointless. He isn’t interested in a word I’m saying. I despise people like him who look down on reading and think books exist solely to fill cinemas further down the line. All he wants is this shop, and he is not getting it.
The paper is still dangling in his hand and I grab it and stuff it back into his briefcase, screwing it up in my fingers as I ram it in and slam the top down with a resolute click. ‘The shop’s not for sale – not now, not ever. I will not be the one to break tradition. Thirty grand doesn’t tempt me. This is my dream job. It’s not up for grabs to the highest bidder.’
‘Everybody has a price, Miss Winstone. It’s just a matter of finding it.’
A shiver goes down my spine. I’m utterly creeped out by the fact he knows my name and it’s taken him this long to mention it. Thankfully the bell above the door jingles and a woman carrying a ‘Books Are My Bag’ tote bag comes in.
‘Good morning!’ I greet her in my cheeriest voice, sounding shrill because of the change from anger at Drake Farrer to delight at the sight of a customer. The simple fact of not being alone with him makes me feel less edgy than I have until now.
She returns it with a smile and congratulates me on being the new owner.
As she wanders around browsing, I give Drake Farrer a sarcastic smile. ‘There’s the door.’
He lifts his briefcase from the counter and smiles a wolf-like grin. ‘I always get what I want. Persistence is my middle name.’
‘That must be very awkward on official forms,’ I call as he starts walking away. ‘I bet you get questioned about that at the passport office every time you leave the country.’
The bell jingles again as he leaves, and I pull out his business card and tear it up into tiny pieces, vaguely aware that he’s outside the window watching me.
‘Wolves at the door already?’ the customer asks as she walks around the picks-of-the-week table near the counter – a selection of Robert’s weekly choices with twenty per cent off.
‘Something like that. An actual wolf would’ve been much more welcome. At least then there’d be a handsome hunter along in a minute to fill its belly with rocks and drown it.’
She laughs and picks up a book from the table and puts it down again, not hiding the look of disappointment.
‘You wouldn’t happen to know when Robert usually updated his picks of the week, would you?’ I ask her.
‘Monday mornings, before nine. I start work at half past and always pop in on my way to see what undiscovered gems he’s found this week. Sorry, I know it’s your first day.’
Great. Another failure. I thank her and promise to have chosen some new picks by tomorrow as I grab a nearby biro and scribble it down at the top of the instructions on the counter. Robert wasn’t joking about giving me only basic instructions. Underneath the step-by-step bullet points for using the till, he’s put the computer password and log-in details for the accounting software, a list of the book distributors he uses and their websites in order of preference, and overleaf is a load of dates for upcoming local car boot sales to find second-hand books, and a list of how book club members like their tea and coffee when they meet on the last Saturday of every month, and a note telling me to make sure I buy both Custard Creams and Chocolate Bourbons for the occasion.
I was expecting slightly more thorough instructions than that. I don’t know much about Once Upon A Page’s book club, other than the fact multiple copies of Robert’s pick for it are displayed on the wall behind me, along with CD copies of the audiobook and DVD copies of the film. I look over at the display. It’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas this month. Oh, thank God. At least I’ve read that so I can vaguely seem like I know what I’m talking about, and there are two weeks until the last Saturday in May so I’ve got time to flick through it and refresh my memory. Maybe we can have a book-vs-film chat about it. They do that sort of thing at book clubs, right?
After the customer leaves with a promise to come back tomorrow to see what my picks of the week are, I’ve got time to tidy up and try not to worry about which books I’m going to choose and if I can live up to expectations. Robert’s picks were always an eclectic mix of something for everyone.
For now, I concentrate on tidying up because the shop is a mess. The display in the window is dwindling where books have been removed from it but not replaced, and the shelf itself doesn’t look like it’s been cleaned for a good few months. There are dead bluebottles and spiders knitting fine webs in the corners and although a window cleaner comes to clean the outside of every shop on the street once a week, when I run my finger across the glass on the inside, it leaves a line through the layer of dust.
The goldfish doesn’t seem to mind as it looks out, its mouth moving as it watches a Jack Russell dashing around the fountain that’s burbling away across the street. Things are quiet at this time of day. There are a few people walking past but none of them come in. It gives me a chance to wander through the shop, and I discover that the dust is more widespread than just the window display, and the only shelves the dust hasn’t settled on are the shelves that are so packed and piled with books that there isn’t a spare millimetre for dust to gather.
Anyone could see that the work was getting too much for Robert, but I’d never noticed how much he must’ve been struggling to keep on top of things. I only came in once every two or three weeks, and to me, the shop was as charming and whimsical as it always had been, but as I walk around with a different perspective now, as someone who actually has to sell these books to keep people like Drake Farrer from the door, I can see that it needs work. A lot of work. The cleaning is one thing, but there are so many books piled at the front of the shelves that it’s impossible to see what’s behind them. There are piles on the floor that look precariously close to toppling over, and woodlice keep scuttling back underneath shelves when I get near them.
Upstairs, the children’s section is better. It’s obviously been refitted fairly recently. The white shelves aren’t as tall so Robert must’ve been able to reach them for dusting easier. Downstairs the walls are all shelving, but up here, they’re painted a buttercup yellow, and I pull the net curtains back and open the upper window to let the breeze blow through. The Peter Pan mural is breathtaking. The dark purple of a midnight London skyline with the silhouettes of Peter, Tink, Wendy, John, and Michael flying across it, and the ‘second star to the right’ quote is painted in big white letters underneath.
I pick up the squashy beanbags one by one, give them a shake and re-plump them as I set them back on the rainbow-spotted carpet. I would’ve loved sitting here when I was little. The mural is so huge that it makes everything feel magical, like you’re really standing there
watching people fly across the rooftops of London, a perfect metaphor for the magic feeling you get from reading, especially as a child when you become so immersed in the fantasies that it’s like you’re really living them. I remember the books I read when I was young like they really happened, like I witnessed the events in them happening to real-life friends, and I have an overwhelming desire to find a copy of Peter Pan and curl up in one of the beanbags to read it.
The breeze blows hair from my ponytail into my face and I pull it back and wipe dust off my glasses with the bottom of my Pemberley Manor T-shirt as the bell jingles the arrival of a customer. I run back downstairs, but I can’t see a thing without my glasses on, so I trip over my own feet and crash into the banister at the bottom, startling the couple who have just come in.
By ten o’clock, things have started to pick up. Buntingorden High Street is bustling outside, and the smell of roasting coffee and fresh-baked bread from the deli filters in every time someone opens the door. There are three people in here browsing, and I listen contentedly to the rustle of pages as people stand with their noses in books. I’ve made one sale and almost learnt how to use the till, and also learnt that I haven’t got the reflexes not to get my fingers trapped in it yet, which answers why Robert keeps a box of plasters so prominently on a shelf under the counter.
Everyone has been so warm and friendly and welcoming. Robert’s retirement and the subsequent raffle for the shop is a big talking point around here, and it’s no secret that today is the day I take over, and everyone who comes in says hello and congratulates me, even though most of them leave without buying anything.
I’m trying to get to grips with the underneath of the counter, which is a lot of shelves full of doodled-on notepads, enough pens to weave a blanket, spare reels of till receipt, and stacks of books presumably put aside for some reason, when the door flies open, sending the bell jangling as a man falls through it. Literally.
He lands with a thud on the floor. The armful of sketchbooks he was carrying go flying, floating down around him like a blizzard of pages. A vase he had with some daffodils in it rolls across the floor, crushing the flowers and spilling water in its wake, and the satchel over his shoulder has opened, sending a slew of pencils, pens, and sticks of charcoal skittering across the room. A customer screams in fright as a pencil sharpener rolls into her shoe.
He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks between the door and the debris scattered around him. ‘That went well.’
The deadpan sarcasm makes me snort as I rush over. ‘Is that not the standard way to enter a building?’
He gives it some serious consideration while still lying on the floor. ‘Depends if you’re part of the arse-over-tit brigade. I definitely am. Don’t let this fool you – I totally intended to do that. Go arse-over-tit was top of my to-do list today.’
‘Are you okay?’ I crouch down and my eyes lock onto his blue ones, enlarged by the lenses of his thick black-framed glasses and I suddenly feel unnecessarily hot and flustered.
We hold each other’s gaze for a long moment and then he blinks and looks away. ‘What, this? This is nothing. It wouldn’t be a day that ends in Y if I wasn’t falling through something I shouldn’t be. Nothing but a bruised ego.’ He glances down at himself, his quiff of light-brown hair flopping forwards. ‘Maybe a bruised arse and tit too. Or maybe that’s still bruised from the parked car I walked into yesterday. To be honest, I don’t think even my ego can be bruised anymore – I think it was knocked out entirely decades ago.’
His cheeky grin makes me smile back at him.
‘Sorry, everyone,’ he says loudly, addressing the whole shop. ‘Tripped over my own feet. Again.’
I automatically look at his feet and realise he’s wearing odd Doc Martens boots – one blue and one orange. He gets onto his knees and starts pulling coloured pencils towards him while the bell finally calms down enough from its flight to stop jingling.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says to me. ‘I’m sure that was all you needed on your first day. You can’t say I don’t know how to welcome people. I might do a little jig next and crash through the window or knock over a display stand to fully complete the horror.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ I start collecting up the sketchbooks while he shovels art supplies back into his satchel. ‘I’ve fallen through many doors in my time, usually with a coffee in one hand and a white shirt on. You can guess how that ends.’
His laugh is musical and infectious as he crawls across the carpet to grab more pens and pencils, and I’m not sure which to be more impressed by – how far they roll or how many one bag can hold.
I crouch down and start pulling his sketchbooks towards me, smoothing out bent pages as I go, and I can’t help noticing the array of pencil drawings in them. ‘Is that a … giant flea?’ I say loudly, my volume control gone with the surprise of how detailed it is.
‘The drawing, not me.’ He finally gets to his feet and holds his hands up to the rest of the customers because the closest two are watching this spectacle with amusement. ‘My owners Frontline me regularly.’
It makes me snort again and he looks down at me with a cheeky grin. ‘These are amazing. I didn’t mean to look, but …’
‘Oh, it’s fine.’ He waves the hand not still stuffing things back into his satchel. ‘They’re just scrapbooks, my practice pieces. But thank you.’
Wow. If these are just practice, he must be very talented. It takes all my willpower not to be nosy and delve further into the books. I stack them together and get to my feet at the same moment a customer beckons me over, so I rush across and put them down on the counter while she asks me if we’ve got the third book in the series she’s currently reading and I have to admit it’s my first day and I haven’t yet found any sort of stock system to tell me what books are on the shelves. It makes me feel useless. I need to get on top of this stuff quickly.
The man continues trying to collect up the detritus from his fall, and the customer gives him a wide berth as she leaves without buying anything. I watch with a mix of amusement and sympathy because when he goes to pick up the flowers, the satchel falls forwards as he bends down, walloping him in the head and emptying out again.
He groans. ‘I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have got out of bed this morning.’
I can’t help giggling as he gives the satchel a look that says it’s seriously betrayed him. It’s funny when it happens to someone else. Usually it’s me walloping myself in the head with things. I go back over and help him gather up the rest of the pencils and art supplies. He really is the strangest-looking man. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blue top with sleeves that are far too long and fall down over his hands, and on top of that is a waistcoat, the kind you’d expect to see as part of a three-piece suit. Instead of a pocket square, there are three pencils sticking out of the chest pocket.
I stand up to give him the handful of pencils I’ve collected at exactly the same moment he bends down to get them, and our foreheads crash together with an audible bang.
‘Ow!’ we both say in unison and stumble backwards.
I wince and put a hand to my forehead.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’ He’s got one hand rubbing the back of his head where the bag whacked him and one hand rubbing his forehead. ‘This is certainly a first impression you won’t forget … unless that bang caused a concussion and amnesia. Do you remember the date and who the prime minister is?’
I laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget this date, and the prime minister is probably better forgotten anyway.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ he says with a laugh. ‘And I’m so sorry again. I am a mess of a human being who shouldn’t be allowed out in public. Clearly.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Honestly. I once got my handbag stuck in the doors of a bus as I was getting off, and while I was trying to chase it, I ran headfirst into the bus stop and knocked myself so senseless that the driver had to stop the bus and call an ambulance whil
e thirty bemused passengers looked on. Luckily it was in the days before mobiles recorded video or I’d have been viral on social media by now.’
He grins as he puts the last of his art supplies back into his bag and closes it with a determined click, and I go back behind the counter and watch him pick up the daffodils incident-free this time. He comes across and puts the vase on the counter and arranges the crushed flowers into it. ‘Have you got a cloth or something I can use to mop up that water?’
I look around like one might appear from thin air. ‘Not without going upstairs and searching for one, and there’s no one to watch the shop. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it’ll dry in no time.’
‘Ah, hang on, I might have a sponge on me.’ He lifts the satchel over his head and puts it on the counter, flipping the top back and picking through it.
How many more things are going to be dumped on my counter today? This one is more welcome than the last, though, and I can’t help watching the way his gravity-defying hair bounces around as he looks down, his face furrowed in concentration while he starts getting every imaginable item out of the bag and setting it on the counter, from handfuls of pencils, to a water bottle, a flask, smaller notebooks, paints and brushes, and a Tupperware container with his lunch in it, until the counter is completely covered in random items and he finally holds what can only be described as a make-up sponge aloft in victory.
‘For blending,’ he says when he sees my expression. ‘The drawings! Not my foundation. Not that I wear foundation.’ He throws his hands up and looks to the ceiling. ‘This is going from bad to worse. I should stop speaking altogether and sit in a darkened corner. Things might go better then.’
I can’t help giggling again. There are so many days when I’ve thought exactly the same thing. I try not to watch as he pushes the black-framed glasses back up his nose as they slide off every time he looks down at the wet patch he’s trying to soak up with his tiny sponge, but the counter is completely covered by all his stuff, and there isn’t much I can do other than watch him. That’s my excuse, anyway. He’s got a pencil tucked behind one ear, and his straight hair is short at the back and long on top, piled into the haphazard quiff that was probably a lot less haphazard five minutes ago.
The Little Bookshop of Love Stories Page 4