True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  It would have been perfect but for one thing. Johnny. Or rather Johnny’s phone, which beeped regularly with messages that Verity would bet at least five English pounds were from Marissa. Perhaps the beeping was a sign of a celestial kind and the good Lord had sent Johnny her way so that Verity could free him from the Marissa-shaped millstone that was dragging him down. After all, Verity was a Love woman, which meant, though it pained her to admit it, that she had the meddling gene hardwired into her DNA.

  Then the beeping gave way to Johnny’s ringtone. Nothing fancy, just the classic brrrrrr brrrrrr but it was as unwelcome as an outbreak of chicken pox in a primary school.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Johnny said, as he’d said so many times before for exactly the same reason. ‘I have to take this.’

  He didn’t have to take it. It wasn’t as if there was some kind of Marissa-related emergency and only Johnny could save the day.

  ‘Marissa? What’s the matter? You sound upset. What? What’s that? You’re breaking up. I can hardly get a signal. Damn it!’ Johnny veered left, his phone held out in front of him as if he were divining for water.

  Maybe that was another reason why Verity loved the country. When she came to visit, mobile phone reception was terrible unless you took a chair out to the northernmost point of the vicarage garden and climbed on top of it.

  Verity walked on until she came to a stone bridge and waited for Johnny, who eventually appeared, flushed and apologetic. ‘So sor—’

  ‘Your phone.’ Verity didn’t need any more apologies. ‘Is it insured?’

  ‘What?’ Johnny looked at her as if she’d started speaking in tongues. ‘Um, yes. Why?’

  Verity was undeterred. ‘And do you back up regularly?’

  ‘Yes and anyway, pretty much everything is uploaded to the Cloud,’ Johnny replied, with a frown. ‘Again, why?’

  Verity folded her arms. ‘Because I’m seriously considering taking your phone and throwing it down there. That’s why.’

  They both peered over the bridge where a little stream merrily flowed over pebbles.

  ‘If you did that, I doubt it would work again even if I stuck it in a bag of rice for a week,’ Johnny said gravely.

  ‘I’m not going to do it but I’ve thought about destroying your phone a lot,’ Verity admitted. ‘Because, and I’m really not trying to pry, but you did mention that you and Marissa were meant to be giving each other some space this summer, but that …’ she gestured at Johnny’s iPhone, his gateway to Marissa, ‘… hardly counts as you and Marissa giving each other some space.’

  It was Johnny’s turn to fold his arms and treat Verity to a look that would have withered a lesser woman. As it was, it wilted her slightly. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said crisply. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem that complicated to me,’ Verity muttered. ‘She’s married, has been for the last umpteen years, and not to you.’

  She didn’t have the courage to say the words any louder or add that Johnny would still be single on his deathbed if he continued to hold out in the faint hope that Marissa would one day come to her senses.

  ‘You seem quite the expert on love,’ Johnny noted, with a touch of acid to his voice, as they began to retrace their steps.

  ‘Not an expert, not by any means,’ Verity said shortly.

  ‘What about that guy you met at university? Alan?’

  ‘Adam!’ Just saying his name out loud, as ever, made Verity’s hands clammy. ‘What about him?’

  ‘You said you were in love with him,’ Johnny reminded her and Verity wished that he’d let the subject drop. She didn’t want to even think about Adam, much less talk about him.

  ‘I was in love with him and that’s why, when it ended, I knew it was best to make a clean break. No regrets, no recriminations, absolutely no texting,’ she said firmly. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about you, not me.’

  ‘So, you’ve had one relationship that you were able to get over pretty quickly? Doesn’t really sound like any kind of love that I know,’ Johnny said as if Verity couldn’t begin to understand any torrid affairs of the heart, which was absolutely untrue. She still bore the emotional scars of that one relationship and though she’d stayed resolutely single since then, she knew plenty about love. After all, she’d read Pride and Prejudice hundreds of times and Johnny hadn’t read it once because if he had, he’d know, as Verity had on first meeting her, that Marissa was a Caroline Bingley through and through.

  It wasn’t just Pride and Prejudice or the countless romance novels that Verity had read. She was also surrounded by love on all sides. Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife were devoted to each other. There was Con and Alex, Merry and Dougie, Sean and Emma, even Posy and Sebastian. So Verity might only have been in one relationship but she hadn’t forgotten what love looked like and it didn’t look like Marissa and Johnny riding off into the sunset together any time soon.

  The gabled roof of the vicarage came into view just as Verity’s own phone pinged.

  We’re about to get a second round in. Hurry up! Merry x

  Verity decided to let the matter of Johnny and Marissa drop for now. It was only her first foray into meddling and if her sisters were anything to go by, you had to keep meddling, wearing your meddlee down until they were so weakened that they’d agree to anything to get the meddling to stop. Besides, she hated fighting with people and it turned out that she particularly hated fighting with Johnny. Didn’t care for the sharp tone to his words to match the sharp look on his face.

  ‘Look, shall we just agree to disagree about love?’ Verity said. ‘It’s hardly worth arguing about.’

  Johnny looked at Verity incredulously. ‘I think love is absolutely worth arguing about.’

  Verity was saved by her phone pinging again. It was a text from Nina who’d sent a photo of Strumpet sitting on his bottom, back legs splayed, like a tiny little drunk man, with a glass of red wine and the remains of a kebab in front of him.

  Come home soon, Mama. Auntie Nina is corrupting me. Lots of love, Strumpet (Mr)

  Verity snorted with mirth in a very unladylike fashion and dared to show her screen to Johnny, who was silent and scrunched of face. Verity almost sighed in relief when he grinned. ‘Are we going to have to hotfoot it back to London to save your cat from a life of vice?’

  It was a tempting thought, but so was the prospect of a gin and tonic at the Lambton Inn. ‘I think Strumpet will be all right and if he’s not, I’ll check him into cat rehab on Monday. Talking of which, shall we head to the pub?’

  As soon as Verity and Johnny appeared in the doorway that led to the beer garden of the Lambton Inn clutching a gin and tonic and a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps apiece, they were greeted by an ear-splitting cry.

  ‘Very! Come and give your big sis some love!’

  ‘That would be Con,’ Verity told Johnny as her eldest sister, all six glorious feet of her, stood up from the bench she was perched on and waved wildly.

  ‘The bossy one?’ Johnny queried out of the side of his mouth as they walked over, Verity smiling as various people turned to look at her and say hello. Everyone knew everyone in Lambton and being one of the vicar’s five daughters, even one of them who lived in that London and didn’t visit as often as she should, conferred celebrity status on Verity.

  ‘The bossiest one,’ Verity confirmed as they reached the table and benches where the Love sisters and Alex, Con’s fiancé, were sitting with, shudder, George, her father’s curate. George was wearing shorts with beige socks and black sandals and didn’t look up because he was explaining to Immy, who had a frozen expression on her face, that being an art teacher was all well and good but it didn’t give her real-world skills.

  ‘I have a pretty mean right hook,’ Verity heard Immy mutter under her breath to Chatty. ‘Would that count as a real-world skill?’

  And then Verity couldn’t hear anything because Con had seized her and was hugging her so tightly that rib breakage seemed a distinct possibility.


  ‘Very! It’s been too long,’ Con said and she didn’t let go, testing the theory that the longer she squeezed her tight, the more Verity would squirm and wriggle.

  Verity had long suspected that her sisters had a book running on how long she could be forced into an embrace and now she heard Merry say, ‘Past the minute mark. Is that a new record?’

  ‘Gerroofffffff!’ Verity fought her way to freedom then punched Con on the arm. ‘You all set for wedding prep bootcamp? Are you in a decision-making frame of mind?’

  ‘Plenty of time for that tomorrow,’ Con decided with a shake of her gorgeous strawberry-blonde curls. She had pointy features, which were softened by her riotous hair and the ready smile she always wore, which was much in evidence now as she ran her eyes up and down Johnny who’d been buttonholed by Immy so she could be rescued from George’s mansplaining. ‘Oh my word, Very! Is that Johnny? You never said how handsome he was!’

  ‘Shhhh!’ Verity flapped her hands at Con and by the time Johnny turned away from Immy, the eldest Love sister had a serene, innocent smile on her face.

  ‘I’m Con,’ she said. ‘You must be Johnny. I’ve heard so much about you!’

  Johnny didn’t flinch. ‘I’ve heard quite a few things about you too. Are you any nearer to picking your signature wedding colours?’

  ‘Narrowed it down to a shortlist of about four. Maybe six. Possibly seven. It will all be fine,’ Con said though with a wedding less than two months away, it wouldn’t all be fine unless she started committing in the same way that she’d committed to Alex when he’d asked her if she fancied becoming a farmer’s wife. ‘Right, you sit down next to me, Johnny, so I can ask you loads of really personal questions. Go away, Very.’ Con gave her a not-so-gentle shove.

  ‘I told you she was the bossiest one,’ Very said, as she shoved Con back. She didn’t go away but sat on the other side of Johnny so she could talk to Chatty and eavesdrop on Con and Johnny’s conversation, which wasn’t as prying or inflammatory as Verity had feared.

  Mostly Con wanted to pick Johnny’s brains on the likelihood of it raining in late September – as if Johnny was a keen amateur meteorologist and familiar with the weather patterns of Lincolnshire.

  ‘My sisters are being so doom and gloom about it and insisting it will rain but I looked up the weather for late September on the internet and it doesn’t rain that much,’ she said to Johnny who had to be regretting his eagerness to meet Verity’s nearest and dearest.

  ‘Maybe a rain contingency plan?’ he suggested. ‘A marquee in your parents’ garden, though you have left it rather late to book one.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Con moaned like Johnny was family and not a guest. ‘I suppose there’s always a barn, but all of the barns on the farm have rats nesting in them or broken pieces of machinery that have been there since the First World War.’

  Verity tuned Con out because this was nothing she hadn’t heard a thousand times before and turned her attention back to Chatty who’d now been joined by Immy so they could whisper excitedly that ‘Johnny’s so dreamy-looking. Are you absolutely sure you’re not even the tiniest bit in love with him?’

  With a quick check to make sure that Johnny was still listening to Con and now Alex bang on about barns, Verity replied, ‘Look, I can appreciate him on an aesthetic level, I have eyes, but I’m just … just …’

  ‘An idiot who doesn’t know a good thing when she’s got one?’ Immy suggested sweetly.

  ‘I haven’t got him. He’s not mine,’ Verity said and in the pause between words she had to steel herself not to grind her back molars. ‘His heart is otherwise engaged.’

  ‘By that Marissa,’ Chatty muttered darkly. ‘Have you been on her Instagram?’

  ‘You’ve been on her Instagram?’

  ‘Only Kardashians take more selfies than her,’ Immy said disparagingly, so she’d obviously been getting in on the Marissa Instagram action too. ‘She was in Dubai …’

  ‘I know she was in Dubai …’

  ‘Twenty-seven bikini shots, all of them hashtagged thigh gap!’ Chatty said. ‘Isn’t she in her thirties? I expect hashtag thigh gap from some of the teenagers I teach but not from a proper grown-up woman.’

  ‘She’s very intelligent,’ Verity insisted though she didn’t know why she was defending Marissa. ‘She went to Cambridge.’

  ‘Who went to Cambridge? Are you talking about me?’ Johnny asked and as Verity had swivelled round on the bench to face Immy and Chatty, she had her back to him and so thankfully he couldn’t see the rosy-red hue of shame that swept over her skin.

  ‘No, we were talking about somebody else.’ Chatty fixed Johnny with her most doe-eyed look. ‘More importantly, has Very filled you in on all of the most embarrassing moments of her life up to date? We’d hate to think she was holding out on you.’

  Because she still had her back to him Johnny wouldn’t be able to see the pain-of-death glare that Verity levelled at her two younger sisters, but he must have been able to see how rigid her shoulders and spine were because he ever so carefully patted her arm. ‘Well, she’s told me that you’d pretend to be the Mitford sisters and how you’d also play at being the Bennet sisters but I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice so …’

  ‘Ugh! Just what kind of freak are you?’ Immy demanded. She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Did Very also tell you how we played at being Puritans who denounced each other as witches?’

  ‘We didn’t have a telly,’ Verity said, swivelling back round so Johnny could see the agony in her eyes. ‘We had to entertain ourselves somehow.’

  ‘We also made up our own Puritan names,’ Chatty remembered. ‘Immy was Impatience Is A Loathsome Sin.’

  ‘And Chatty was Charity Always Goes To The Least Deserving,’ Merry shouted from across the table. ‘I’m still quite proud of that one.’

  Johnny looked around the five sisters with glee. ‘Con’s Puritan name was?’

  ‘A Constant Source Of Sorrow,’ Verity recited with her hands in the prayer position, as Merry hooted her delight.

  ‘Shut up, Very Vexatious To All Who Know Her,’ Con looked daggers at Merry. ‘And as for you, God Is Merciless …’

  ‘Actually I’ve always found God to be merciful,’ Mr Love said as he sat down at the neighbouring table with a pint of bitter. ‘I do hope this delightful trip down memory lane isn’t going to end up with Immy and Chatty tied to the washing line while you other three chant “Burn the witches! Burn the witches!” instead of setting a good example.’ He paused to take a refreshing sip of bitter. ‘Sermon’s done. I thought the return of the prodigal son was appropriate with all five of you home for the weekend.’

  ‘Where’s Muv?’ Con asked. ‘You haven’t left her on her own to deal with all those children, have you?’

  ‘Their father arrived just as I was finishing my sermon. Apparently he had to be airlifted off the oil rig. Anyway, your mother will be along shortly. She was hunting down an errant Barbie doll last I saw her … Oh! There she is!’

  Mrs Love, looking even more flustered and rumpled than before, arrived in the beer garden with a glass of red wine so large it could have doubled as a small bucket. ‘I asked Jean if she had something we might nibble on and she’s going to rustle us up egg and chips,’ she said. ‘I’ve already cooked tea for the kiddies. I’m not cooking tea twice in one evening.’

  ‘No one would expect you to, my dear,’ Mr Love said. He shot his wife a fond look. ‘And past experience has shown that I should never cook tea.’

  ‘When we were little, Muv was in Newcastle visiting our gran and Dad was left in charge,’ Merry explained to Johnny. ‘He forgot that he’d put sausages under the grill and they were charred to cinders. Of course, we only realised that after we’d put out the fire in the chip pan.’

  ‘One time my father decided to make a Thai curry and forgot that scotch bonnets were the hottest of all the chillis but I’ve managed to repress the memory,’ Johnny said. ‘Though I’m still waiting for my sense of taste
to come back.’

  ‘Talking of all things Scotch, I have several beekeeping friends in Scotland,’ Our Vicar said, because he could always find a way to make any conversation about beekeeping. ‘As luck would have it they’re based in Moray, which also has several rather fine whisky distilleries.’

  ‘Dad’s two greatest passions in life: bees and malt whisky,’ Con exclaimed, as Jean the landlady and her teenage son, David, who liked to refer to himself as the only goth in the village, started to bring out their laden plates.

  Verity was sure that it wasn’t what Johnny was used to when he went to the country for the weekend; egg and chips and a raucous conversation, everyone shouting across each other, which touched on the division of church and state, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which Con and Our Vicar’s Wife were obsessed with, and the Head of Modern Languages having a tempestuous affair with the Head of Pastoral Care at the school where Immy and Chatty both taught. But if Johnny was dying a thousand deaths and would rather be anywhere but in the beer garden of the Lambton Inn, he was putting a very brave face on it.

  In fact, his face was exceedingly smiley, which made him look even more handsome than usual so that all four of Verity’s sisters managed to give her a surreptitious thumbs up at some point. Even Our Vicar’s Wife caught Verity’s eye and winked at her.

  Which was embarrassing, and Verity would have been mortified if Johnny had caught any of this, but mostly she felt at peace even though the noise levels around the two tables they’d commandeered were inching towards deafening. This was her family; her maddening, loud, eccentric family. Despite their teasing and the way their volume knobs were all stuck on eleven, Verity was pleased she’d come home: a place which had nothing to do with that long journey up the motorway but was being with the six people who she shared DNA and a long, long history with. Who’d seen the very best and the very worst of Verity and accepted and loved her no matter what. If she could find those same qualities in a man who also had the ability to make her heart skip a beat just by smiling at her, then maybe she’d rethink the whole forswearing romantic love thing, Verity thought to herself.