Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Alison exclaimed. ‘You’re convalescing. I’ll do it.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Nina’s feet were soaking as her fingernails were being buffed and filed and the only criticism that Alison had made was that when she went into the bathroom to retrieve the foot spa from the cupboard under the sink, she couldn’t help but notice that the bathroom tiles could do with being regrouted.

  Nina quickly steered the conversation to the new gel polishes she’d picked up from the big beauty supply store on Shaftesbury Avenue and this was one thing that she and her mother still had in common. They discussed the new Chanel palettes, that no one had warned Alison that her eyelids would be the first thing to sag as she got older and how much primer she had to use to get her eye make-up to stay on, and if the Olaplex hair conditioning in-salon treatment was really all that it was cracked up to be.

  It was a conversation that nourished Nina’s soul. Not just because she and Alison hadn’t exchanged a single cross word or sniped at each other once. It was also one of the few things that Nina missed about working in a salon; being surrounded by other women who were obsessed with products in the same way that Posy and Verity were obsessed with books.

  Nina liked books as much as the next person. More than the next person, in fact, but she’d come late to a love of reading. She didn’t have much to contribute when Posy and Verity were really going for it on the book talk; exchanging titles of much-loved stories from their childhoods or reminiscing about their A-level texts or how they both spent their teen years reading Nancy Mitford and early Jilly Cooper novels.

  So to be able to discuss the benefits of a tinted moisturiser over a BB cream or even a CC cream with her mother was, well … ‘This is really lovely. I can’t remember the last time that we got together and managed not to have an argument.’

  Nina inwardly cursed herself as soon as she said it because it seemed guaranteed to lead to an argument, but Alison nodded her head in agreement.

  ‘I know,’ she said softly as she applied a second coat of deep-red polish to the nails on Nina’s right hand. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Nina, but sometimes I think you hate me.’

  Maybe it was because she was still weak from the flu and didn’t have the energy for a ruckus, but Nina decided not to tense all her muscles and go into fight mode. ‘Of course I don’t hate you,’ she said and she raised her head so she could look her mother in the eye. ‘But there are quite a lot of times that I think you hate me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Alison snapped, twisting the top of the nail-varnish bottle shut so violently that Nina was amazed that the bottle didn’t shatter. ‘I love you very much but you’ve made it clear what you think of me and my life and that you want no part of it.’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t want your life,’ Nina said very carefully. ‘I want my own life.’ Exasperation took over. ‘But come on, Mum, the way you brought me up meant that it was hard to see that there was another life out there. That I had options, choices …’

  Alison had pursed her lips, chin tipped forward. ‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get married and have children.’

  ‘I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with wanting those things but not at twenty! I hadn’t done anything, been anywhere.’ Nina shook her head. She still hadn’t done anything but been on at least a thousand first dates. Still hadn’t gone anywhere but on a few mini-breaks and hen weekends.

  ‘But all the women in our family marry young. Have children young. It’s tradition,’ Alison insisted, even if it was a pretty rubbish tradition that should have been phased out fifty years ago.

  It was time for Nina to blow her mother’s mind. ‘You do realise that the only reason why both Granny and Great-Granny got married so young is because they were knocked up,’ she blurted.

  ‘No! Nina!’ Alison shook her head, her mouth falling open.

  ‘Of course they were. Haven’t you ever done the maths?’ Nina watched as her mother narrowed her eyes and did the maths.

  ‘No! Oh my goodness!’

  Nina took advantage of her mother’s shock to press on. ‘I didn’t reject you, but I have been angry with you. You were so determined that my life should follow one path, your path, when actually I could have stayed on to do A-levels, maybe gone to university. But you wanted me to be exactly the same as you.’

  ‘I wanted you with me, is that so terrible?’ Alison asked, patting Nina’s knee. ‘We used to be best friends but now I feel like I don’t know you at all. You don’t want me to know you.’

  ‘Oh God, if you knew the real me, you’d be horrified,’ Nina exclaimed, Noah’s words echoing in her head as they had done ever since he’d thrown them at her.

  Alison reached out to brush the back of her hand against her daughter’s cheek.

  ‘You look so sad, darling. Not just today. When I see you, I think that you don’t look that happy for someone who’s meant to be living her best life.’

  ‘But it’s not my best life,’ Nina said and she was near to tears, determined to blame it on the flu or on the gentleness of Alison’s unaccustomed touch. ‘I feel like I’m lost. That for all my wanting to be wild and free, I’m as trapped as I ever was. My life feels so small, so dull.’

  ‘It’s not dull at all! You’ve got an interesting job with lovely friends and you live in central London.’ If Alison continued to list all of Nina’s achievements then this wasn’t going to take very long. ‘And you’re brave, Nina. You look the way you want, you live the way you want and I might not say it very often, but I am proud of you and I love you very much.’

  Nina was full-on big ugly crying by now. ‘I love you too,’ she sobbed.

  ‘You are a silly girl,’ Alison said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse as if the tears might be contagious. ‘Come here!’

  Her mother was far too bony to be a good cuddler but Nina was still happy to snuggle into her shoulder so what Alison said next sounded muffled: ‘I have to tell you, Nina, I was always a bit envious of your freedom. And I never thought I’d enjoy having a job, but I do! I bloody love it!’

  Nina struggled to free herself. ‘If you love having a job, then can you even imagine how good it’s going to feel when you let yourself eat carbs again?’

  ‘That’s never going to happen!’ Alison pretended to cuff her. Nina was starting to wonder if her real mother had been abducted by aliens and replaced with a new and improved model. Or was she taking HRT or Prozac or some other tablet that had chilled her out in ways that she’d never been chilled out before?

  But then Alison’s smile disappeared and she gave Nina a look. It was a look that Nina knew only too well. A look that asked, ‘How did I manage to spawn a creature like you?’ and was unable to come up with a satisfactory answer.

  ‘What?’ Nina asked defensively. ‘What have I done now?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Alison replied. She shook her head as if she were trying to rid herself of an unpleasant mental image. ‘What on earth is going on with you and that Harewood boy?’

  ‘What? Who? How? I mean – I don’t know what you mean,’ she finished lamely.

  ‘I’ve had years of practice and I can tell when you’re lying,’ her mother said though Nina was sure she hadn’t twitched or scratched her nose or displayed any other tells. ‘Besides, Paul said that he was sure it was the Harewood boy—’

  ‘His name is Noah—’

  ‘—who picked you up from little Ellie’s birthday party,’ her mother continued. ‘And then Posy was telling me that you’d been seeing that Hare … Noah or whatever his name is, that he took you away, overnight, and when you got back the two of you were broken up and you were at death’s door!’

  ‘He didn’t make me ill. Not really,’ Nina tried to explain though a small part of her maintained that she’d have probably got away with a bad cold if the pain of having her heart broken hadn’t upgraded it to flu. ‘We went for a walk on open moorland and I wasn’t wearing a proper waterproof coat.�
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  ‘Who goes for a walk on open moorland?’ Alison was horrified. ‘Honestly, that family! I expect he’s a vegan like that mother of his.’

  ‘He’s not a vegan, he’s actually really lovely,’ Nina said then burst into tears again.

  ‘If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.’

  On Monday morning, Nina decided that she was well enough to leave her quarters and re-enter the world of work.

  She’d managed to wolf down a huge curry the night before so she was obviously on the mend, even if she still felt terrible. But now it was only an emotional kind of terrible. She was mourning the loss of Noah and also the fact that she’d gone down two whole cup sizes.

  ‘No, I’m not wearing that horrible grey T-shirt,’ Nina announced to Posy as she barrelled down the stairs from the flat to find Posy standing in the hall sorting through the post. ‘I currently don’t have the boobs to fill it out. But on the bright side, I haven’t been able to get in this dress for years.’

  Nina was wearing a tightly fitted black crepe dress with a black velvet Peter Pan collar – sombre to match her mood – though she was trying to put a brave face on things.

  Posy squinched up all her features in distress. Nina came to a halt on the third step from the bottom with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Honestly, Posy, the Happy Ever After T-shirt is hanging off me,’ she said plaintively.

  ‘It’s not that.’ Posy peered up at Nina, still looking mighty uncomfortable. ‘I really think you should still be convalescing.’ She made shooing motions with her hands. ‘Back to bed with you.’

  Nina carried on down the stairs. ‘I’m going stir crazy up there. You don’t even want to know how many old episodes of Masterchef I’ve watched this weekend.’

  ‘We can absolutely manage without you,’ Verity interrupted, poking her head round the office door. ‘I told you not to bother coming downstairs if you didn’t feel up to it.’

  ‘But I do feel up to it and you could hardly manage without me this weekend,’ Nina reminded them, because her back-to-back watching of Masterchef had been constantly interrupted by people texting Nina to ask about books that she’d put to one side for certain customers or to complain that the till drawer was sticking again and what was the special trick for hitting Bertha and countless other enquiries. ‘I’m not going to do any heavy lifting, but I can sit behind the till and take money. It’s not exactly brain surgery, is it? Posy! Get out of my way!’

  Nina had to squeeze past a motionless Posy, who seemed to be doing her best to block Nina’s passage through to the shop. ‘We’re not even opening this morning!’ Posy squeaked, grabbing hold of Nina’s sleeve. ‘So you might as well go upstairs and put your feet up.’

  ‘Posy! Don’t manhandle the vintage,’ Nina said crossly. She’d never had to work so hard to actually work before. ‘Why aren’t you opening this morning? Are you doing a stock-take? Why? We’ve never done one of those before, so why bother now?’

  ‘It’s not a stock-take,’ Verity said. ‘It’s a er, staff meeting.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Posy hissed at her and if Nina had been a dog her hackles would have risen. As it was, a little shiver raced its way down her spine.

  ‘A staff meeting?’ she queried suspiciously. ‘A staff meeting that I’m not invited to? Oh my God, you’re all going to discuss sacking me!’

  ‘Who’s sacking you? That would be madness. No one knew how anything in the shop worked while you were on your sickbed.’ Now it was Tom’s turn to stick his head around the door. ‘Are we starting anytime soon? Noah’s here now and I’ve finished my breakfast panini so we really should get on with it.’

  At the mention of Noah, Nina’s stomach lurched so violently that for a moment she wondered if she was relapsing and also if last night’s curry was about to put in an encore performance.

  ‘Noah …’ Nina echoed tremulously, one hand to her heart, which had started beating erratically, even though it was meant to be out of order for the foreseeable future. During her confinement, Nina had come to realise that the tragic, passionate love she’d always craved wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be. In reality, it was exhausting (as everyone had warned her) and added to that, it was soul-destroying and heart-breaking and what good was a heart that didn’t work?

  More than that, she’d ached for Noah and had played back his every smile, every kind, sweet and funny thing he’d said to her, every kiss, until the memories were worn thin. But the memory of the fight they’d had, of how Noah had ripped away the mask Nina wore to expose the miserable, mean-spirited girl behind it, still shone bright. And yet, here he was, just a few metres away when Nina had been half tormented/half comforted by the fact that she’d never have to see him again.

  ‘Yes, Noah,’ Posy whispered. ‘Why do you think I’ve been trying to persuade you back upstairs? Also, I did tell him that you’d be a no-show.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see me?’ Nina queried in a hurt voice. She couldn’t blame Noah for never wanting to clap eyes on her again, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.

  ‘He didn’t say that he didn’t want to see you, but he’s been so sad since he got back from taking you on that disastrous road trip.’ Posy shrugged helplessly. ‘And actually now that you are feeling better, what did happen with you and Noah? Did you really break his heart? He has the look of a man whose world has crumbled.’

  ‘What happened is between me and Noah,’ Nina said because she was ashamed enough of her behaviour without having Posy on her case.

  No, she wouldn’t hide. She was going to style it out, so she brushed past Posy, her nose in the air, sweeping into the shop with a haughty expression. Noah’s heart was no concern of hers because she was a badass bitch who ate men for breakfast. Then she came stumbling to a halt.

  Noah was standing by the rolling ladder, his attention fixed on the screen of his iPad. He was wearing the navy-blue suit that he’d worn on his first day at Happy Ever After, a white shirt and navy-blue tie. He looked so corporate, so smart – even his unruly cowlick of hair that would never lie flat had been tamed into submission – that Nina wondered what he’d ever seen in her.

  Then Noah looked up to look at Nina looking at him and his face seemed to draw in on itself, eyebrows pulling together, mouth puckering into an awkward shape, his body shrinking back as if the sight of her was a very unexpected, unpleasant surprise.

  Nina wanted to beg for forgiveness but instead found a reserve of strength from deep, deep within and plonked herself down on one of the sofas with what she hoped was a nonchalant grace. ‘Oh, hi Noah,’ she trilled, like them seeing each other again was absolutely not a big deal at all.

  Noah muttered something that might have been ‘Hi.’ Or could just as easily have been ‘I hate you,’ but then Posy bustled in with Verity bringing up the rear.

  ‘OK, we’re going to keep this civilised and on a purely business footing, aren’t we?’ Posy asked anxiously as she perched on the arm of the sofa that Nina was determinedly lounging on.

  ‘Of course,’ Nina scoffed, though actually she didn’t know what Noah was doing here, all suited and booted, and looking like he wished he were anywhere else, even if it involved being waterboarded.

  ‘This is strictly professional,’ Noah said huffily and Nina had missed his huffy voice, but she masked that by rolling her eyes at Tom sitting on the sofa opposite, who gave Nina one of his stern looks.

  ‘Let’s just get this over with,’ Tom mouthed at Nina as Verity asked Noah if he needed ‘a flipchart? We’ve found flipcharts very effective in the past.’

  ‘I don’t need a flipchart,’ Noah said gravely. ‘And I’ll be emailing my report to you all afterwards on your new Happy Ever After email addresses as part of Happy Ever After’s new digital network. I’ve also set you up with a shop WhatsUpp account. It’s much more efficient than Post-it notes and writing things on the backs of envelopes.’

  Posy gave a low-leve
l grumble. ‘Post-it notes are quite efficient.’

  ‘Yes, but a group email and WhatsUpp account are more efficient,’ Noah said and he was in full proper grown-up mode this morning; not prepared to take any nonsense. Much like the time he’d stood up to the awful Peter at Ye Olde Medieval Laser Tag, Nina remembered with grudging fondness, as Noah gave a short speech about how interesting it had been to spend time at Happy Ever After. Also, that he had lots of suggestions on how they could work smarter and grow the business.

  ‘They are just suggestions,’ he concluded with a tiny smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘For instance, you’d have a much better flow to the shop if you knocked through …’

  ‘No! Not another word,’ Posy yelped, jumping up so she could form a one-woman human shield against the new-releases shelves as if she suspected that Noah had a bulldozer waiting in the mews. ‘I’m not knocking through. End of.’

  ‘I suspected as much, but even you have to agree that you can’t continue with only one till, especially one that you have to thump at least once every ten minutes,’ Noah pointed out.

  ‘You have to agree, Posy,’ Verity chimed in. ‘When we’re really busy, Bertha has a meltdown so the queue ends up stretching all the way back to the door and then new customers can’t even come in.’

  ‘But Bertha has been here forever,’ Posy cried. Nina and Tom exchanged looks. It was hard to understand why Posy had agreed to Noah analysing her business if she was going to have conniptions at each one of his suggestions.

  ‘Which is why you can keep Bertha for cash transactions, though she really needs to be serviced, and you can take card payments, even PayPal or Apple Pay, on the shop floor if you give the staff iPads,’ Noah said smoothly, as if he was more sure of himself now that it really was strictly professional. ‘Then you can email the customer their receipt and add them to the mailing list at the same time.’

  ‘But … bagging up … complimentary bookmarks …’ Posy moaned.