by Debbie Young
“Thank you, Billy, if I need your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
The man at the counter unfolded his arms and pointed one finger at his chest. “He’s here. I’m Hector. Thank you for brightening my bookshop with your presence. I don’t believe we’ve met before?”
Despite Hector’s parents having only recently retired, I’d been picturing someone only marginally less aged than himself. After all, when you’re eighty-six, most people qualify as younger. Perhaps it was the archaic name that threw me. Hectors should be wrinkly grey-haired curmudgeons in cardigans, not gorgeous, enigmatic Greek gods.
Hector held out a warm, soft hand for me to shake, before coming out from behind the counter to stand alongside me. “But the more pressing question for me is, how can I help you? No, don’t tell me, I’ve got just the book for you.”
He strode over to the fiction section, plucked a paperback from among the Gs and presented it to me, deadpan.
“Here we are: Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene.”
Billy guffawed. “Point to you, young Hector!”
I gasped. “How did you know who I was? Did you recognise her skirt?”
I’d put on a long mulberry velvet one from my aunt’s wardrobe to try to look cultured.
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” replied Hector. “You are obviously related to May Sayers. Billy tells me that you’re living in May’s cottage.”
“Actually, my name’s on the deeds now. My great aunt left the cottage to me.”
“You’ll have to wait about twenty years before people round here call it your cottage. Your name being…?”
“Sophie. Sophie Sayers. Sayers, same as my aunt.”
“Yes, you certainly are,” put in Billy, who clearly considered himself part of our conversation. “Don’t let old Joshua see you looking like that, whatever you do. It’ll be too much for him. We’ll be carrying him off to the graveyard to lie alongside her, if you’re not careful.”
Hector shot him a withering look. “Billy, really! Drink your tea or I’ll take it away.”
That shut him up. He must have needed the tea to sober him up after his early start on the stout the previous afternoon.
In the ensuing silence, I noticed for the first time the music that was playing softly in the background: Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Great Auntie May had long ago taught me to love this classic album from the 70s. It’s not something you hear much in public these days.
“You’re playing—”
Hector’s smile had a hint of smugness about it. “Your tune? Your Auntie May always loved it, so I thought you might too.”
“What? Did you see me coming and put it on specially?”
“Spot on.”
We both listened appreciatively for a moment to the music’s gentle meanderings, while he set the Graham Greene book on the counter, facing me, presumably as a hint. But I wasn’t so easily hoodwinked by his charm into buying a book I neither wanted nor needed. May’s house was stuffed with books.
I pulled myself together, remembering the serious and pressing intent of my visit. If I wasn’t able to get a job here, I’d have to look further afield, and soon.
“So, as I was saying, Carol Barker said you were looking for an assistant. And Joshua Hampton, next door to me, encouraged me to apply. So please may I have an application form?”
Hector patted his pockets as if searching. “Sorry, I seem to be fresh out of them. Bit of a run on applications this morning. How about an application cup of tea instead?”
He gestured to the tearoom. I chose the table furthest from Billy.
“So, tea?” offered Hector, sitting down opposite me. “Not you, Billy, you’ve had enough for one morning.”
Behind me, Billy drained his cup noisily, and scraped his chair across the old oak floorboards. “No matter, I’ll be heading off to The Bluebird for my dinner soon.”
“But it’s only eleven o’clock.” I wondered what scenic route he’d be taking to the village pub, a few hundred yards away, to make his journey last till evening.
“That’s The Bluebird’s opening time. I has a ploughman’s lunch up there for my dinner midday every Tuesday. Washed down with a nice pint of old Donald’s special. Good luck with your interview, girlie.”
He rolled the word interview around his mouth like a euphemism for some lascivious delight.
The shop door jangled to allow Billy’s exit as Hector set down a loaded tea tray on the table between us. The crockery was decorated with the titles of classic novels in old-fashioned typewriter fonts. He’d given me Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and himself Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale. The teapot was branded Love in a Cold Climate, by Nancy Mitford.
“Nice china,” I couldn’t help but remark.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? I get it free from the Literally Gifted mail order company, in return for plugging their website on my shop’s bookmarks. It’s an arrangement that suits all parties. I don’t see the point in paying for something when I can get someone else to provide it for free. I make a good margin on their stock that I sell here too.” He indicated a dresser displaying fancy stationery and houseware with bookish themes. “I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to make a bit of money in other ways than selling books. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a bookshop at all.”
He settled down again opposite me and sat back in the chair, which creaked slightly, though there wasn’t a gramme of spare fat on him. “So, why would you like to work in my bookshop? Why should I employ you rather than any of the many other applicants? What would you bring to the game that others can’t?”
I took a deep breath; I’d been anticipating this question. While awaiting my answer, he poured us each some tea.
“I’m a local resident so I’d always be on time for work, being within easy walking distance. Plus, you’d have the satisfaction of knowing you were creating local employment for a fellow villager.” I’d taken on board what Joshua had said about Hector being supportive to the community. “And, as a writer myself, I have a great interest in books.”
“Oh, really? Have you written anything I might have heard of? Anything stocked on my shelves?”
He swept his arm around to indicate his small empire, inviting me to point out my title.
“I haven’t exactly had any books published yet, not to speak of.”
“Oh, you’re self-published? That’s fine by me, provided your books will fly off the shelves and make me a decent profit. Readers don’t care who’s published a book as long as it’s a good read.”
I grimaced, wondering how to break it to him that I wasn’t published in any shape or form. I bought time to think by taking a few sips of tea. It was surprisingly astringent, but in a bracing kind of way. I assumed he hadn’t rinsed the washing-up liquid off the china.
“I haven’t self-published any books, either, though that’s probably the route I’ll be taking.”
He nodded sagely. “Good, I like a girl with ambition. Are you good at dealing with customers?”
“Oh, I’m very good with people. I’ve spent the last four years abroad, teaching children and adults to speak English. That takes a lot of patience and tact. And I’m good at making sense of what people say, even if they’re not using the right words. I’m sure that must come in handy in a bookshop.”
Hector got up to fetch me a small chocolate cupcake from the tearoom counter. On top of the pale violet icing lay a white chocolate letter S, sprinkled with hundreds and thousands.
“Gosh, that looks lovely.”
“Yes, I’m famous for my buns.” Deadpan again. I couldn’t judge whether he was laughing at me, whether this was meant to be a practical diplomacy test, or simply indicated that he was happy to continue the interview for long enough for me to eat a cake.
“I don’t make them myself,” he added. “I buy them in from a lady in the village, Mrs Wetherley, and I pay her in books. She makes them specially for me.”
I’d remembered that
Joshua had tipped me off about Hector diversifying for the sake of profitability. Here was an opportunity asking to be seized.
“Surely you ought to be selling more than that? You could make them up into little boxes, and offer whole words for sale, like you see in sweetshops, with tiny lettered bars of chocolate to make up into names. Your lady ought to be more businesslike. If you packaged them in boxes with a smart business name on the side, they’d be brilliant gifts. And she could do bigger ones, to order, as birthday cakes. Or rectangular cakes, decorated to look like books, with appropriate titles iced on top. You could brand them ‘The Birthday Letters’ like the Ted Hughes book. I reckon they’d fly out the door.” Emboldened by his broadening smile, I continued. “Or how about ‘Eat My Words’? Oh no, hang on, that sounds like the tell-all confession of a corrupt encyclopedia salesman!”
“Ha! Encyclopedias! Now there’s a concept from the past. It’s all Google and Wikipedia these days. You may be young, but I suspect you’re an old-fashioned girl at heart, Sophie Sayers.”
He pulled a pen and a pad of Post-it notes from his trouser pocket and scribbled something down – the first notes he’d made during our entire interview. I took this to be a promising sign.
“I guess I am, or I wouldn’t be applying for a job in a village bookshop!” To my surprise, I was beginning to feel curiously relaxed, comfortable enough now to tease him back a little.
“And you seem full of bright ideas. God knows, we need bright ideas to keep this shop open. Any form of diversification that’ll help keep us afloat. Do you think you can come up with new ideas to put us back into profit?”
I nodded, even though my head at that point felt entirely empty of inspiration. Then I thought of an intelligent remark.
“Don’t you ever worry, Hector, that people might spill coffee on books before they buy them? I mean, the tearoom is awfully close to the shelves.”
“Not really.”
He pointed to a small handwritten sign above the coffee machine, which said, “Penalty for spilling coffee on books: twice the cover price, once for the cost of the book and once to teach you to treat books with more respect.”
“So at least if it happens, I sell a book. OK, one last question, then.”
I took a longer swig of tea to fortify me. This sounded like a make-or-break question.
“Are you any good with a Nespresso machine?” Hector indicated a shiny red one beside the cake stands.
“I sure am. What writer doesn’t like a cup of coffee?” I was starting to believe my own PR, always a dangerous sign.
“Then you’re hired. Five days a week, plus every other Saturday, so I can push off on alternative weekends. We don’t open on Sundays. I’m putting you in charge of the tearoom, by the way, and any tips are all yours.”
I opened my mouth to gasp in astonishment. When I hiccupped instead, I felt less embarrassed than I should have done.
“Don’t you want any references first? My CV?”
“Nah. May Sayers and Joshua Hampton are good enough for me. And if you’re anything like your old auntie, we’ll get on like a house on fire.”
He pushed back his chair, stood up and stretched. Then he sat down again, all of a sudden. Elbows on the table, he leaned forward and looked into my eyes. I tried to concentrate on how green they were to calm my nerves.
“I’ll level with you,” he said in a low voice. “Employing a second member of staff is essential if I’m to be able to keep the shop open nine till five, six days a week, instead of closing up whenever I need to go off and do something else. You are potentially the saviour of Hector’s House. Or not.”
I forced a smile. “No pressure then.”
The news alarmed me slightly – I’d hate my first impression in the village to be as the girl who put the local bookshop out of business. But it also flooded me with a sense of importance. At least here was a job in which I would really feel that I was making a difference – valued not as one in a series of itinerant teachers who would be called by the name of my predecessor for at least the first term in a new school, but as an individual. I could be someone. I could be a contender.
I smiled and held out my hand for him to shake. His handshake was firm, but gentle; confident, but not crushing.
“Deal. And by the way, there weren’t any other candidates. You were the only one. But don’t let that prevent you from celebrating your success.”
I laughed. “Funnily enough, I’m feeling in quite a party mood now.”
He tapped the teapot. “That’ll be the tea. Didn’t you notice?”
When he lifted the lid, I leaned over it and sniffed, catching for the first time the unmistakable whiff of alcoholic spirits.
“Oh my God, what on earth is that?” I clutched my throat. “Help, I’ve been poisoned!”
He laughed, unperturbed. “Just another little way to lure customers into the shop and keep them happy. Now, I suggest you start tomorrow, bright and early at 9am, which is when we open on weekdays, ready for our first rush of tearoom business after the mums have dropped their kids off at the village school.”
We got up and headed back towards the shop counter.
“Oh, and take this on the house as your starter for ten.” He thrust the copy of Travels with my Aunt into my hand, and wrapped around it a dog-eared copy of The Bookseller magazine. “Because you’ll never get time to read while you’re working here.”
After thanking him profusely, I left the store as a bookseller. I wondered how many people I was about to lead astray in the remarkable Hector’s House tearoom, and whether all of them would walk out the door relatively unscathed, like me. Or could Hector’s House be the book trade’s equivalent of Sweeney Todd’s?
I resolved to stick to his coffee in future.
7 Money in Books
“Carol, I cannot thank you enough!”
Entering the village shop, I threw the door against the wall, setting the bell jangling as if possessed.
“Been drinking Hector’s tea this morning, have you?” Carol smiled knowingly.
“I start work there tomorrow as a bookseller.” I hiccupped. “And it’s you I have to thank for that.”
Carol brushed my thanks aside with a wave of her hand. “Least I can do for you, my dear, after all your Auntie May’s kindness to me and my late mother, though she must have known I could never repay her.”
I put my hand over my mouth to disguise another hiccup. “Actually, Joshua Hampton encouraged me too, and offered to give me a reference. But I didn’t need one. The interview was enough to swing it. It was a very good interview.”
I stepped over to the counter and rested my book and magazine on it, before leaning forward to whisper confidentially, “Hector is awfully handsome, don’t you think?”
Carol took a step backwards. “So some say. A bit hard to pin down, though, by all accounts.”
“You mean he’s single?”
She nodded. “Don’t go getting any ideas there, Sophie. I’ve got him down as a confirmed bachelor, if you know what I mean.”
It took me a moment to catch her drift. “Oh, I see. That’s a pity. Still, he is lovely, don’t you think? And he has given me a job. So now I’m in the mood to celebrate. I thought I’d buy some scones to share with Joshua.” I put on an innocent voice, hoping it might winkle out any secrets about him. “He brought me some of his honey yesterday. Wasn’t that kind?”
“You are privileged,” said Carol. “Several ladies in the village have tried to get their hands on his honey and failed. That rude new woman round the corner, Mrs Absolom, is always pestering me to stock it in the shop. I don’t know why she can’t just go and ask him for some herself. It’s not as if she’s usually backward in coming forward.” She tapped the side of her nose meaningfully. “I reckon she’s been having a bit of a fling with that Rex. Though to be fair, her husband’s just as bad, running off with that woman from his office. Six of one and a dozen of the other, if you ask me.”
That made
me reconsider my assessment of Carol and Rex. If they had been an item, they clearly weren’t any more.
“So you reckon his honey’s all right then?”
Carol nodded. “I don’t see why not.”
With aluminium tongs, she lifted four scones from a plastic tray on the counter, and popped them into a paper bag. “That’ll be £1.20 please, love.”
As I fished the exact change out of my skirt pocket, she dropped the tongs on the floor, dusted them off on her apron and set them back among the cakes and pastries. Hugging the paper bag close to my chest, I all but skipped out of the shop and back to May’s cottage. I went straight out the back door and let myself through the gate to Joshua’s garden, where he stood weeding a raised bed of tomatoes. Hector’s tea had made me feel less nervous of him.
“Guess what?”
“You got the job?”
I beamed, and held out the bag of scones. “Come on, let’s celebrate! Honey and scones all round.”
He followed me into my garden, and I went inside to bring out a tea tray laden with honey, butter and May’s tea things. I set them down on the table in front of the bench by the garden window. Joshua was studying me carefully as I stumbled.
“Have you been celebrating already?”
“Yes, I confess, I did have some of Hector’s tea. But I think the effects are wearing off now, and the scones will absorb the rest of the alcohol. Honestly, I wonder how he gets away with it.”
“Lack of customer complaints?” suggested Joshua, turning his rheumy eyes to my long skirt. I was glad I wasn’t wearing a short one. “My goodness, you are indeed the echo of your aunt.”
“Great aunt,” I reminded him.
“Great indeed,” he replied, then coughed and changed the subject. “So, how are you settling in?”
I poured us each a cup of tea, considering the best reply. “Last night it felt odd sleeping in her bed, instead of the guest bed. It will take me a while to think of her bed as my bed. I thought sitting at her writing desk to put together my CV would inspire me, but I just felt inadequate, thinking of how many bestselling books she’s written there. Maybe I need to set up my own writing space somewhere different, like a writing hut in the garden. Roald Dahl had a lovely garden shed to write in. I’ve seen it in his museum, in Great Missenden. He used to write surrounded by all his favourite things.”