True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  ‘OK. You’d better come in,’ Verity decided then realised how ungracious and unwelcoming she sounded. ‘I have gin upstairs and a bottle of my mother’s elderflower cordial, so we can have cocktails. Or red wine if you prefer it. Also, salt-and-vinegar Pring— Jesus! Strumpet! Catch that cat!’

  Strumpet had followed Verity downstairs and was attempting a lumbering streak across the yard so he could reach the earthly delights of No Plaice Like Home. Verity doubted whether he’d be able to squeeze through the railings of their new gate, but she didn’t want to put her theory to the test. Or call the fire brigade if Strumpet got stuck.

  Disaster was averted by Johnny easily overtaking Strumpet then gingerly scooping the cat up as if he were handling molten lava. ‘Your famous cat. Is it friendly?’

  ‘It’s a he and he’s ridiculously friendly,’ Verity said as she followed Johnny back into the shop. ‘Strumpet doesn’t believe he’s a cat, he thinks he’s a lapdog.’

  ‘Why is he called Strumpet?’ Johnny asked as the cat in question squirmed ecstatically in his arms.

  ‘Because he’s an absolute tart and I thought he was a she,’ Verity explained as Strumpet wriggled and wiggled until he was lying on his back, cradled in Johnny’s arms, front paws waggling frantically. ‘He wants you to rub his belly.’

  ‘I’m not really a cat person,’ Johnny said, as they climbed the stairs. ‘You know where you are with a dog. Apart from Chihuahuas. I’d never trust a Chihuahua.’

  ‘When we used to live in Grimsby, the local park was ruled by two Chihuahuas called Lola and Tinkerbell. Our old Labrador John Bunyan was terrified of them.’ Verity paused at the door to the lounge, quickly scanned the room for any incriminating evidence, and decided it was safe for visitors. ‘Take a seat. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to go to any trouble,’ Johnny said, which wasn’t yes so Verity decided the answer was probably no.

  ‘Won’t be a tick.’ She was back four minutes later with a motley assortment of left-over grilled halloumi and salad in some pitta bread, a selection of day-old cakes and pastries courtesy of Mattie and a bottle of red wine, which was a step up and a couple of pounds more expensive than the red wine she and Nina used for cooking.

  Johnny was sitting on the sofa with Strumpet sprawled in gay abandon on his lap, legs akimbo, back arched as Johnny rubbed his belly. Strumpet didn’t even stir when Verity put her laden tray down on the coffee table. There was only one thing in the world that Strumpet loved more than food: the attentions of a man and he currently had all of Johnny’s attention.

  Johnny smiled lazily at Verity and nodded as she held the bottle up, then turned back to Strumpet. His long fingers rubbed circles on the cat’s furry tummy as Strumpet purred so loudly Verity feared he was about to detonate.

  ‘Oh, you like that, don’t you?’ Johnny said to Strumpet who purred his agreement. ‘What about when I do that?’

  He tickled Strumpet under his chin for a while then went back to belly rubbing. ‘You really do love it. Maybe a bit too much. Should I stop?’ Johnny’s fingers stilled for a moment until Strumpet head-butted his stroking hand so that Johnny would resume his ministrations. ‘You’re insatiable, you little hussy.’

  Verity’s limbs turned alarmingly jelly-like so she sloshed the wine she was pouring over the coffee table instead of into a glass. ‘That’s quite enough,’ she said desperately, because parts of her were coming to life that had been lying dormant for years. ‘Any more of that and Strumpet will demand to come home with you.’

  ‘Oh, we can’t have that,’ Johnny drawled at Strumpet who was gazing up at him with a blissed-out look in his green eyes. ‘Next door’s ginger tom would eat you for breakfast. Oh, is that food for me? You’re setting a dangerous precedent here, Very. I could get used to this kind of treatment.’

  ‘It’s a bit makeshift, I’m afraid,’ Verity said, as Johnny, encumbered as he was by a cat who refused to leave his lap, reached forward for the plate that Verity handed him. ‘Sorry about the mess, by the way.’ She glanced up and winced. ‘And the holes in the ceiling. We’ve just had the flat rewired. They’re coming back to do the plastering at some point but we’re not sure when.’

  Verity, looking around the room, saw it through the eyes of a critically acclaimed architect, who probably didn’t care that Verity and Nina had gone to great lengths to choose the books displayed on the shelves inset on either side of the fireplace. Or that the fifties minibar shaped like the prow of a ship was Nina’s most prized possession, even though it clashed with the sofa and chairs, formerly belonging to Lavinia, covered in a flowery William Morris print.

  It wasn’t chic but it was definitely shabby.

  ‘Beautiful fireplace,’ Johnny said enthusiastically. ‘Art nouveau influence on the tiles. I’d say late Edwardian, though the building is older, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Verity admitted, but as Johnny ate supper she told him about Lady Agatha Drysdale, Sebastian’s great grandmother, who was gifted the bookshop by her parents in the hope it would distract her from her work with the Suffragettes. ‘She chained herself to the railings outside Buckingham Palace and got sent to Holloway Prison for public disorder offences. I suppose that must be where Sebastian gets it from.’

  After he’d eaten, Johnny asked for a tour and Verity could hardly refuse, though she made him wait in the living room for several panic-stricken moments as she charged around the flat to check that she really had removed anything incriminatory first time around.

  Unlike other people, say Merry, Johnny didn’t pass comment on Verity and Nina’s soft furnishings or knick-knacks but ummed and ahh-ed at the cornicing and architraves. Sucked in a breath when he saw the ancient geyser in the kitchen and clasped his hands together in quiet joy when he caught sight of the old butler-style bell pull installed so Lady Agatha could summon people from the shop. The whole time that he peered into corners and ran his hands over their mouldings, Verity was free to peer at him.

  There was a man in her house. Johnny was in her home and as soon as Verity realised the enormity of this – having a man who wasn’t her father or an electrician or Tom (though Tom hardly counted as a man) in her home – she didn’t know what to do with herself. Or her mouth and hands, both of which twisted nervously.

  What was Johnny doing here?

  ‘There are so many charming quirks to this building. I think it originally dates from the eighteenth century with a lot of renovating done when it became a bookshop,’ he was saying as he poked at the window casement in the kitchen. ‘Not very skilled renovations, I’m afraid. I’ve already counted at least ten serious health and safety issues. Do you want me to have a word with—’

  ‘Why did you walk all the way here from Clerkenwell?’ Verity interrupted because she already suspected the flat was a deathtrap but it was a rent-free deathtrap and Posy and Sebastian were going to do something with the antiquated hot-water system next. Verity wasn’t entirely sure what, but that wasn’t important right now. ‘Because we’re friends who go to social engagements together but I didn’t think we were friends who dropped in on each other.’

  ‘You’re more than welcome to drop in on me,’ Johnny said casually, even though they’d already established the boundaries of their friendship/fake relationship. He held Verity’s gaze with his cool stare but Verity was a past master, a grand champion, in staring competitions with her sisters so it was Johnny who blinked and looked away first.

  ‘So, really, why are you here?’ Verity asked gently.

  Johnny sighed, long and low. ‘I’m wavering,’ he said. ‘Marissa.’

  If his sigh spoke several volumes, then the three-syllable word that was his beloved’s name contained the entire collected works of Shakespeare with particular reference to the Bard’s tragedies. ‘Oh.’ It was Verity’s turn to sigh. This wasn’t entirely unexpected. There’d been a restlessness to Johnny over the past two weeks, similar to the restlessness she’d witnessed when Dougi
e had stopped smoking earlier in the year. Same fidgeting, same drumming of the fingers, same faraway look in Johnny’s eyes, though he was probably imagining Marissa standing in front of him and not a packet of Marlboro. ‘But you haven’t actually wavered?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it. She’s been calling. Texting. Using a variety of social media platforms to try and make contact.’ He dug his phone out of his back pocket.

  Verity folded her arms. ‘Have you replied to her at all?’ It was quite an effort to keep her voice calm and neutral when she didn’t feel at all calm and neutral.

  ‘No. I told her that Sunday that we travelled back from your parents that I was going radio silent so we could give each other space like we agreed. She hardly seemed bothered about it. Whereas I’ve been very bothered by it.’ Johnny wasn’t even trying to be calm and neutral. As soon as he started talking about Marissa, his shoulders fell, his voice grew hoarse; as if he’d already admitted defeat. ‘It’s been hard. I’ve been twitchy. Thought time and time again that one little text wouldn’t hurt, but I stayed strong.’

  ‘You’ve been very strong,’ Verity said encouragingly, because after all she’d witnessed the twitchiness first hand and had fretted that Johnny would cave in long before the month was up. ‘It’s only another fortnight or so. It’ll be over before you know it.’

  ‘It’s been almost two weeks and not a phone call, text, she never even liked a single one of my tweets, which was a little hurtful,’ said Johnny as if he hadn’t heard Verity’s pep talk. ‘I made a really funny joke about Donald Trump, even if I do say so myself. Then last night, the onslaught started.’

  Johnny switched on his phone, which beeped frantically like there was a fire close by, then handed it to Verity so she could see that he had fifteen missed calls, twenty-seven text messages, all from Marissa, and who knew how many emails, tweets and WhatsUpp alerts?

  ‘Do you think there might be an emergency? That she needs to talk to me?’ he asked Verity a little desperately.

  ‘Well, if there was a genuine emergency, then she has Harry,’ Verity reminded Johnny. Normally Johnny was quite suave and smooth. Not in the horrible smarmy way of men who wore snakeskin loafers with no socks and thought they were charming because they called every woman ‘sweetheart’, irrespective of whether they wanted to sleep with them or not.

  No, Johnny was the kind of man who could meet your parents, even your four sisters, and do nothing to embarrass you. More than that, he would be accepted and welcomed by your flesh and blood without once having to ingratiate himself. And fifteen minutes earlier, when Verity had been lamenting the dripping tap in the bathroom that Posy swore had leaked for the entire twenty-five years she’d lived there, Johnny had stated with quiet assurance that if Verity had a wrench, he could fix it. You could even argue that in some ways, on paper, Johnny was too perfect.

  When Con and Alex had got engaged and Merry had asked Con how she’d known that Alex was the one, Con had said simply, ‘He brings out the best in me.’ But Marissa did not bring out the best in Johnny. She brought out the insecure, sad bits of Johnny and held them up to the light so everyone could have a good look then say in pitying tones, ‘Poor Johnny.’

  ‘You understand why I’m here, don’t you?’ Johnny asked. He loosened his already loosened tie then shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘It was either come here or ring Marissa and lose myself all over again or worse.’

  ‘What would be worse than losing yourself?’ Verity asked, because she liked to know where she was at all times.

  Johnny shook his head. ‘I could go out and get very drunk and pick up someone so I can forget about her for a night.’

  ‘Does that even work?’

  ‘Not really.’

  It must have been much easier to forget someone, cut them out of your life completely, in the days before people were expected to be contactable twenty-four/seven. Verity looked at the phone again. For a man about town and a busy architect, it seemed odd that the only person that ever contacted Johnny was Marissa.

  ‘This isn’t your only phone, is it?’ she said slowly.

  ‘It’s my Marissa phone,’ Johnny said then quite rightly cringed at how that sounded.

  ‘Well, that makes things simpler.’ Verity walked down the hall to her bedroom. Johnny followed her as far as the doorway and watched as Verity dropped the cursed phone in the top drawer of her old-fashioned desk and locked it. ‘Is that all right? If you prefer I could flush it down the loo?’

  Johnny stared at the closed drawer and then wriggled his shoulders like someone shrugging off a heavy weight. ‘I’ve never had anyone I could confide in until you came into my life. You seem to understand me in ways that I don’t even understand myself.’

  Verity swore she could see his troubles leaving him. He stretched his arms above his head; his shirt riding up so Verity could see a sliver of taut skin. She quickly averted her eyes then wished she hadn’t when she saw the pile of damp pants and bras on her bed that she’d dumped there after she’d removed them from the bathroom.

  ‘I can do this. I can be Marissa-free for a month and then … and then …’

  ‘And then …?’ Verity prompted.

  ‘And then we’ll see,’ Johnny said. ‘Maybe we’ll realise that being apart is too painful and that we’re meant to be together. Properly. Just the two of us.’

  All the worry that had left Johnny flew across the room and landed squarely on Verity’s shoulders so she buckled under the weight. That was not the plan! The plan was that Johnny would see that he could manage perfectly well without Marissa. He’d be free to find someone who appreciated that he was perfect but with an edge …

  ‘We will see,’ Verity muttered, suddenly as exhausted as if she’d been on one of Nina’s quick-drinks-that-had-turned-into-an-almighty-bender. She shifted towards Johnny to begin to gently chivvy him out but he moved towards her. Taking the two steps that meant he was standing in her bedroom, next to her, so he could take her hand.

  She stared up at Johnny, her eyes wide as he raised her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it, long enough that her skin tingled underneath his lips. ‘Very, thank you,’ he murmured. ‘You’re a real friend in need.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’ It felt like the right thing to say but Johnny hadn’t let go of her hand and he was gazing deep into her eyes as if he could—

  THUD!

  CRASH!

  BANG!

  ‘Wella … wella … wella! Uh!’

  They both sprang apart when the shop door opened with great force and was then slammed shut with even greater force and Nina could be heard singing with a lot of enthusiasm and not much tune.

  Then clomp clomp clomp up the stairs. ‘Very! You should have come! Tom tried to deny it but he knew the words to every song. We must tease him about it tomorrow. Oh!’ Nina rounded the corner and caught sight of Verity and Johnny now standing awkwardly outside Verity’s bedroom. ‘I had no idea that you were planning a night in. Just the two of you. Cosy.’

  One of Nina’s greatest talents was for making even the most innocuous words and phrases sound like the rudest double entendres.

  ‘Johnny was just going.’ Verity gestured at the stairs. ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘I was? Apparently, I was,’ Johnny confirmed. He turned to Verity, reached for her hand again but she put her hands behind her back and yet hated herself for it. ‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

  ‘You two! How many nights a week is that? Sounds like it’s getting serious,’ Nina decided, brushing past them. ‘I’m gasping for a brew. Do you want a cuppa, Very?’

  Verity led Johnny out. They walked through the darkened shop, past the books full of starcrossed lovers battling all manner of obstacles to get their happy ever after. That’s all you want for Johnny, Verity told herself, a happy ever after with someone who isn’t Marissa, because he really deserves it.

  Verity would settle for a different kind of happy ever after. One that inv
olved opening a cat sanctuary on the other side of the mews and seeing out her days surrounded by romance novels and moggies. There were worse ways to live.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Johnny asked as Verity unlocked the shop door. ‘You’ve gone all quiet on me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Verity summoned up a bright smile from somewhere deep in her vaults. ‘Just wondering what I’m going to wear tomorrow evening. It’s a restaurant opening, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. A friend is opening a month-long Hawaiian-themed pop-up in a car park in Dalston. I’m not entirely sure why.’

  Johnny and Verity shared a look of mutual confusion over the concept of pop-ups and serving food in Hackney car parks. ‘Well, I’m not going to wear anything fancy then.’

  ‘Good plan.’ Johnny stepped through the door, paused then turned back to place a hand on Verity’s arm and lean down to kiss her cheek, though until this evening they’d marked their hellos and goodbyes with a brief waggle of their fingers. ‘Until tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

  Another shared look, which lasted long enough that it probably counted as having a moment. ‘Um, you have to press the button on the right to open the gate,’ Verity said, because she’d been killing moments since 1989.

  ‘Will do.’ Johnny was already gone, striding across the mews, as Verity stayed frozen to the spot, her hand on the tingling spot on her cheek that Johnny had kissed.

  21

  ‘Heaven and earth, are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?’

  It was a pity that Con’s wedding planning was all but done – there was still a question mark over mason jars versus vintage tea cups – because over the following weeks Verity had become a world expert on weddings. She could go on Mastermind with weddings as her specialist subject.

  In fact, her newfound knowledge didn’t just extend to weddings, but all manner of parties. Every weekend throughout August, quite a few weeknights too, Verity and Johnny had attended weddings and birthday parties and garden parties and we’re-jacking-in-our-jobs-and-the-exhorbitant-rent-on-our-poky-flat-and-backpacking-around-the-world parties.