True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  After her outburst in that blighted hotel room in Amsterdam, Adam hadn’t said anything at first – not one single word – which should have been a relief except it wasn’t. Not when he had the look of a cartoon character a nanosecond before a cartoon anvil landed on his head. Then Adam had blinked and one solitary tear had trickled down his cheek before he could furiously scrub it away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Verity had gasped, but Adam had held up his hand to silence her.

  All her life Verity had craved, yearned, hungered for silence but the silence between she and Adam in that hotel room was so loud it screamed and slashed the air with tooth and claw.

  She’d stared at the floor, ashamed, heartsick after what she’d just said, and when Verity had found the courage to lift her head, Adam was staring at her as if all his love was gone. Worse, as if all that love had turned to hate.

  ‘You don’t deserve my love,’ he’d said in a voice that was as quiet as Verity had ever wished it to be. But she hadn’t been careful about what she wished for. ‘I would have done anything for you but it’s never good enough.’

  ‘It’s not that …’

  ‘I have tried and tried but I’ve always known that you don’t love me like I love you. You’ve never really let me in. You’ve always kept me at a distance.’ Adam had frowned, his face screwed up in concentration as he tried to explain exactly what was wrong with Verity. And she was curious to find out herself, because despite the counselling and the meditation and the mindfulness techniques, she still suspected that the way she was simply wasn’t right. ‘You’re just not capable of feeling emotions the way other people do.’

  ‘I do feel things,’ Verity had protested, though admittedly the things she felt tended to be quite low key. No rapturous delight, no towering rage or deep wells of sadness either. Verity was strictly middle of the road but that didn’t make her …

  ‘You are a cruel person, Very,’ Adam had pronounced petulantly. ‘I will never be able to trust another woman after this. You’ve ruined all my chances of ever being able to have a normal relationship.’

  Then he’d walked out and, far from not feeling anything, Verity had felt so many things. She’d cried and cried. Angry tears. Sad tears. Tears at the injustice of the things that Adam had accused her of.

  But when the tears had dried and Verity was splashing her face with cold water, it was guilt and self-loathing that came calling. There was something wrong with her that she needed so much space that there simply wasn’t room for anyone else.

  Despite having Elizabeth Bennet as her role model and Pride and Prejudice as her bible, Verity had always had a horrible suspicion that she simply wasn’t the type of person capable of great passion and now she knew it to be true.

  Three years on and Verity was older and wiser and had made her peace with the sad truth that tempestuous love affairs were not her thing. They were the domain of women like Nina and Posy who wore their hearts on their sleeves, whereas Verity preferred to tuck her heart away, out of sight, where it was safe and couldn’t get broken again. Because Adam had broken her heart in a hotel room in Amsterdam and it had never properly healed.

  ‘He came back to the hotel eventually but he still wouldn’t speak to me and when we got to the airport to fly home, we had to sit next to each other and it was terrible.’ Verity gave another little shudder. ‘He wasn’t even angry any more, just utterly miserable and I was responsible for it and I decided then that I was done with relationships. I’d only ever make someone else unhappy or make myself unhappy trying to please them. Either way, there’d be unhappiness.’

  ‘You don’t think that it was simply that you and this Adam just weren’t meant to be?’ Verity didn’t think she’d imagined the way Johnny’s lip curled as he said the name of the man she’d wronged. ‘He sounds spectacularly needy, if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he was,’ Verity conceded – Merry’s name for Adam had been The Drainer. ‘Still, it’s not unreasonable, is it, to want to hold hands and spoon and be both giving and receiving of affection?’

  ‘Do you think your Elizabeth Bennet and what’s his name …?’

  ‘Oh, come on! You must know his name or are you deliberately trying to wind me up?’ Verity asked. Unbelievably she could feel a smile tugging the corners of her mouth upwards. ‘It’s Darcy. Fitzwilliam Darcy.’

  ‘Who has a name like Fitzwilliam anyway? But from what I’ve gathered about that book, him and Elizabeth Bennet, they didn’t moon about declaring their love every five minutes and indulging in public displays of affection.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Verity was aghast at the very notion. Neither Lizzie nor Darcy could ever be described as snugglers. ‘Even when they danced together, they’d barely have touched.’ Verity couldn’t help but sigh a little. ‘I really think I’d be much better suited to life in Regency England.’

  ‘Apart from the likelihood of dying young of some illness that would easily be treated with modern medicine,’ Johnny said dryly. ‘There’s a service station coming up. Do you want to stop and get tea? It seems to be the one thing that your mother didn’t pack for the journey.’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Verity had shared her darkest secret with Johnny. She still wasn’t sure why: she hadn’t even told her sisters. She was so ashamed of what had happened and so used to carrying that shame around on her back like a hairshirt, that she didn’t want anyone to try and make her feel better, which was what her sisters were contractually obliged to do.

  But Johnny had listened and though he wasn’t contractually obliged to, he’d stuck up for her. Hadn’t judged her actions too harshly. Hadn’t turned his face away from her in disgust. He’d even made a joke about Pride and Prejudice. And Verity’s reward for opening up and trusting someone in a way that she’d never been able to do with Adam was to realise that the world hadn’t ended just because she’d been genuine with her emotions. Also, that metaphorical hairshirt wasn’t half as itchy as it had been. If Verity ever were to decide that she did want a relationship, she’d be lucky to find someone like Johnny. Not Johnny because …

  Verity’s eyes drifted down to Johnny’s phone, which had been inactive for a good ten minutes. What a pity that Marissa had already claimed him, because Johnny’s friends were right, he really was too lovely to be left adrift in a romantic limbo and Verity really should gently try to disentangle him from Marissa. Make a concerted effort to find him someone equally lovely. She knew lots of wonderful women. Perhaps Mattie or even Pippa.

  ‘So … thank you for telling me about Adam,’ Johnny said, as they flashed past a sign that promised that they were three miles from the nearest service station. ‘If I thought I could persuade you that you can’t judge all relationships on the basis of one bad one and that there is someone out there for you who would never, ever crowd you or hold your hand without your consent, then I’d give it my all.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t,’ Verity begged. ‘Not when we’ve been getting on so well.’

  Their eyes met again and this time Johnny’s smile was amused but maybe a little frustrated too. ‘Still, you’ve made me realise that perhaps I need space too.’

  For one horrible heart-slamdunking moment, Verity thought that Johnny was dumping her. That her fake boyfriend was breaking up with her because she was just as rubbish at fake relationships as she was at real ones. That he had actually been repulsed by her revelations. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you needed space,’ she croaked.

  ‘Yes, because you were right when you said that all this texting and calling Marissa every few minutes isn’t giving either of us the distance we said we wanted,’ Johnny said and Verity’s heart gave one last emphatic thump then settled back into its normal steady pattern. ‘I have to at least see what life is like without her in it, don’t you think?’

  Verity didn’t reply because it seemed as if Johnny was searching his own soul for the answer rather than wanting Verity’s opinion.

  ‘So, my mind is made up,’ Johnny decid
ed. ‘I’m going cold turkey on Marissa for a month. No phone calls, no text messages, no tweeting, no liking her photos on Instagram. There are a hundred ways not to give each other any space and I’m stopping them all.’

  ‘Cold turkey seems a bit drastic,’ the outer Verity noted, while the inner Verity punched the air. ‘But they say, don’t they, the best way to give up smoking is to not bother fannying around with patches and gum but to just stop?’

  ‘Right,’ Johnny agreed, turning onto the slip road for the service station. ‘It’s the twenty-third of July today and I’m going to have nothing to do with Marissa until the twenty-third of August.’

  ‘And you might even find that by then, you won’t want anything to do with her. Not that I’m saying she’s horrible,’ Verity quickly added. ‘But you might realise she’s not what you want any more. That you want to move on.’

  ‘Maybe. But first I’m giving her up for a month and if I look like I’m about to fall off the wagon, you have my permission to throw my phone in the nearest pool of water.’ Johnny pulled into a parking space and turned off the engine. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  They shook on it. A firm handshake between friends. And if they locked eyes just long enough for it to start to get awkward, well that was because it had been a long day and Verity was still off her game from her emotional meltdown and Johnny … well, Johnny had obviously had too much sun.

  20

  ‘There seemed a gulf impassable between them.’

  After her heart-to-heart with Johnny in the car, it had occurred to Verity that if one good thing had happened as a result of the awful break-up with Adam, it was the life lessons she’d learned. Not just swearing off coupledom but that, if she set very clear boundaries from the start, then people would have very low expectations of her socially.

  So, as the summer’s giddy whirl of parties and celebrations continued, on non-going-out nights, she was in bed by nine. Even missing The Midnight Bell pub quiz, much to Tom and Nina’s dismay because Verity could answer questions on obscure saints and feast days and was no slouch on geography, beekeeping and the collected works of Enid Blyton (though admittedly those last two categories rarely came up).

  ‘You can’t expect me to be social all day and every night of the week too,’ Verity said with absolutely no remorse. ‘I’m having to spend a lot of time making small talk with strangers and eating things in pastry that I really don’t want to eat. I’m stretched too thin.’

  It still didn’t stop people expecting Verity to be social. Especially Nina who’d refused to read the memo (an actual literal memo that Verity had emailed to her) and frequently tried to persuade Verity that a quick drink in The Midnight Bell wouldn’t kill her. Though a quick drink with Nina often turned into a four-hour session, as Verity knew only too well.

  They were closing the shop on a Thursday afternoon nearly two weeks after the visit to the vicarage: two weeks during which Verity had attended a wedding, both a thirtieth and fortieth birthday party, and several unprecedented during-the-week dos. From the tearooms came the clink of china and cutlery as Mattie, Sophie and Paloma cleaned up. Tom was sweeping the floor and doing a very poor job of it, Verity was cashing up, Posy was shelving the many books that had become unshelved and Nina, who’d won tickets in a Twitter competition for an al fresco showing of Grease at Somerset House, was trying to raise a posse.

  ‘It will be fun,’ she insisted. ‘We could dress up as Pink Ladies. I know it’s short notice but everyone has something pink in their wardrobes, right?’

  Verity was too busy doing sums on her calculator to reply at first but she could hear Posy say, ‘Normally, I’d love to but tonight is our ten-week anniversary and Sebastian will have something planned.’

  ‘You have week anniversaries?’ Tom and Nina asked in unison and disbelief.

  ‘It’s a thing,’ Posy mumbled. Verity glanced up to confirm that yes, Posy’s face was flaring red. ‘Well, it’s a thing with Sebastian. He really is a lot more romantic than anyone would give him credit for.’

  ‘No disrespect, Posy, but I preferred Sebastian when he was being unspeakably rude,’ Nina said with a sniff, because as far as Nina was concerned, romance didn’t begin to compare to passion and heartache.

  ‘He’s still unspeakably rude too,’ Posy said but Nina had already turned to Verity.

  ‘You’ll come, won’t you, Very?’ she asked fluttering both her real eyelashes and her fake eyelashes at Verity. ‘If Posy would rather be boring and spend the evening with her husband, then we could ask Merry along instead. We’d make amazing Pink Ladies, especially if you let me pin-curl your hair.’

  Verity winced. Not at the thought of dressing up as one of the Pink Ladies, though that was never ever going to happen, but at memories of her sisters singing along to a warped vinyl record of the Grease soundtrack. Con and Merry would always come to blows as to which one of them was Rizzo. Needless to say, Verity got stuck with Jan or Marty. Either way, it was a no.

  ‘Sorry, but I can’t. I have other plans for tonight,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘You and that Johnny are joined at the hip,’ Nina muttered.

  ‘You never saw this much of Peter Hardy, oceanographer,’ Tom commented with the little grin he broke out whenever he mentioned Verity’s former fake beau. Then he did a couple more flourishes with the broom but not much actual sweeping of dust. ‘Where’s your new boyfriend taking you? Engagement? Housewarming? Maybe a little dinner à deux?’

  ‘FYI, Peter Hardy was away a lot oceanographing,’ Verity said grandly, though she wasn’t sure oceanographing was a proper word. ‘I’m not seeing Johnny tonight: I’ve been out for three successive evenings and I need alone time. I need to potter and not do anything and especially not talk to anyone. And, by the way, sweeping the floor doesn’t mean spreading the dust from one side of the room to the other.’

  The three of them left eventually. Posy back to her newly wedded bliss and Nina, with a reluctant Tom in tow, had managed to persuade Mattie and Paloma to take the other two tickets.

  Verity couldn’t wait to climb the rickety stairs to the flat where Strumpet was waiting for her. Just as Verity was starved of the solitude she craved, Strumpet had been starved of company and of food. Since the tearooms had opened, Verity had taken to locking the flat door after an incident when Strumpet had burst into the tearoom and managed to get his podgy self airborne enough to land in a woman’s lap so he could help himself to her cream tea. The woman had taken it in very bad humour and threatened to phone the council. Since then Strumpet had been confined to quarters.

  Now he howled his outrage, weaving in and out of Verity’s legs then stalking off in a huff when he remembered that he was furious with her. As ever, Strumpet’s fury lasted the time it took for Verity to open a tin of catfood and while her feline dictator was occupied, Verity took the opportunity to rid herself of the workday kinks with a little light yoga until Strumpet came to lie on his back on her yoga mat while she tried to do sun salutes.

  It was odd that neediness in a pet, be it Strumpet or Poor Alan, was much easier to deal with, even charming, than it was in a human being, Verity reflected as she showered while Strumpet, scared of water as he was, meowed plaintively at the bathroom door.

  They shared a light supper of grilled halloumi cheese and salad, then Verity read her current book, a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which wasn’t half as good as the half a dozen other modern retellings of Pride and Prejudice she’d previously read.

  It was a boring evening, even by Verity’s standards. She did some laundry. Painted her toenails. Tided up her bedroom. Ate a second supper of salt-and-vinegar Pringles and a bag of Percy Pigs and it was exactly what she needed after two action-packed weekends and lots of mid-week parties.

  By nine o’clock, she felt zen and chilled enough to log on to WhatsUpp to check in with Con but before Verity could, she heard a sound downstairs. She surreptitiously peered out of the window to see if the neighb
ourhood hoodies had scaled the electronic gate that had been installed last week but there was no one congregated on the seating outside.

  She heard another noise, as if the gate were being rattled but she couldn’t see that far out of the window and as she was wondering, with mild panic, what the best course of action was, her phone buzzed.

  It was a text from Johnny.

  Sorry to call around so late. I’m at the gate but I can go away if you’d rather be alone?

  Verity took a moment: would she rather be alone? It turned out that she wouldn’t. She texted back.

  The code for the gate is 2811813.

  It was the date that Pride and Prejudice had first been published. Not a date that everyone would remember but a date that they could look up if they forgot the code.

  It was just as well that Verity had had three hours of alone time so the flat was vaguely presentable for visitors. Now, she stuffed the half-eaten Pringles and Percy Pigs in a kitchen cupboard and removed her damp bras and pants that were hanging up in the bathroom to dry.

  Too soon, there was a knock at the shop door. Verity ran down the stairs.

  Johnny waved through the glass as Verity hurried over to the door and unlocked it. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, because there had to be something up for Johnny to visit. They might be friends but they weren’t the kind of friends who simply dropped by unannounced. Verity didn’t have friends like that – they all knew better.

  ‘I was just in the area,’ Johnny said smoothly. Although it was a hot, humid night, he was wearing a suit, tie loosened, top button of shirt unbuttoned. Maybe he’d had a meeting that had run late. Even so, he looked delightfully dishevelled; all he needed was someone to ruffle his hair to complete the picture of slightly louche abandon. Verity mentally shook herself. That was what came from reading one of Posy’s beloved Regency romances. ‘Actually that’s a lie. I wasn’t in the area at all until I walked here from Clerkenwell.’