True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  It was as if Marissa’s powers of attraction only had a shelf life of twenty minutes maximum. No longer charmed and taken in by her seductive sway, Verity reverted to her former position. Marissa was poison. A very dangerous, insidious poison and keeping far away from her was the only effective antidote.

  ‘I’m sure you can remember what it’s like at the start of a relationship; Johnny and I just want to spend as much time alone together as possible,’ Verity said so sweetly that it made her back teeth ache. ‘So, an invite to what?’

  ‘Our tenth anniversary celebrations,’ Marissa said. ‘Harry and I are making a weekend of it. We’ve booked a huge house on a small island in Cornwall and we’ve invited all our dearest friends. Of course, we invited Johnny months ago and I’ve been trying to contact him to confirm but, like you’ve just said, he doesn’t have a moment to himself, the poor lamb.’

  ‘He still has quite a lot of moments to call his own,’ Verity said crossly because, despite what she’d just said, she would never be a clingy girlfriend. Never. ‘Maybe he just hasn’t got around to getting back to you.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ Marissa said just as crossly and for a split second, so afterwards Verity would wonder if she’d imagined it, she glared malevolently at Verity as if she were nothing but a blight on Johnny’s life that had to be removed ASAP. Then Verity blinked and Marissa was back to looking wide-eyed and winsome. ‘You’re invited too, obviously. It’s this weekend …’

  ‘What a shame. I think we’re already booked this weekend,’ Verity said, though if they were, she couldn’t think what the occasion was. It was August bank holiday weekend. The summer season was almost over, the invitations dwindling and soon there’d be no need for her and Johnny to carry on this charade. The thought made Verity panic though outwardly she didn’t so much as twitch an eyelash. ‘I’ll talk to Johnny tonight. See what he wants to do.’

  It was a very girlfriendly statement. Marissa’s eyes flashed again and she embarked on a long speech about the private chef who’d be catering the weekend, how he’d worked for all sorts of celebrities, and that he needed final numbers and it was very rude to leave it so late to confirm.

  ‘… he’s cooked for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and even they managed to produce a final guest list a month in advance …’

  ‘We’re closing now. If you’re not waiting to have your purchases rung up, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ said a voice behind them and Verity swivelled around to see Nina standing there with her hands on her hips. ‘Also, Very, the cashing up isn’t going to do itself.’

  Marissa gave a little shudder at the words ‘cashing up’ as if this glimpse into the working day had made her skin crawl. ‘Look, I really have to go now,’ she said as if Verity was the one who’d been keeping her there against her will. She stood in one fluid movement. ‘Please let me know about this weekend. Johnny knows where to find me.’

  Then she was walking out of the shop as if the scarred wooden floor was a Milan catwalk.

  ‘My spider sense was tingling,’ Nina explained as Verity hauled herself up from the sofa depths with a lot less grace than Marissa. ‘I never trust anyone whose hair is that shiny. It’s not natural. I mean, who is she?’

  ‘One of Johnny’s university friends.’ Verity tried to keep her tone noncommittal but that telltale muscle was twitching away in her eyelid. ‘Apparently she has a first from Cambridge in English Literature and I really do not like her.’

  ‘Very!’ Tom popped up from behind the counter. ‘You know it unsettles me when you express an uncharitable thought.’

  ‘And you a vicar’s daughter too.’ Nina supplied the punchline with a throaty gurgle of laughter.

  As was so often the case, Jane Austen could sum up Verity’s thoughts on the matter far better than Verity could. ‘She is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds,’ she said with a sniff. ‘But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.’

  Nina and Tom slowly backed away. ‘Well, we’ll just leave you in peace to do the cashing up,’ Tom said, making sure to keep his voice low.

  ‘You just take your time,’ Nina cooed. ‘And I’m going out tonight. With a guy I met on HookUpp who says he’s in the Marines so you can have the flat all to yourself. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘More than you could ever know,’ Verity said feelingly.

  22

  ‘I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.’

  There was nothing Verity wanted more than to lie down in a dark room with a damp cloth over her head, but first she had to talk to Johnny.

  Much as it pained her to admit it, it wasn’t the kind of talk they could have via the medium of email or text message. It wasn’t even a phone call kind of chat.

  When you had to break it to your fake boyfriend that the love of his life required his presence at the celebration of her tenth wedding anniversary to her actual husband, only a face-to-face would do.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to test the water with a text message, Verity reasoned and perhaps Johnny would be unavoidably busy for the next few days and by that time the weekend would be upon them and it would be too late to attend, much less give details of any food allergies to Marissa’s celebrity chef.

  Are you around this evening? We need to talk.

  She texted as soon as she locked the door behind Nina who was quite giddy about her date with the Marine.

  ‘An actual Marine, Very,’ she’d sighed in a very unNina-like way. ‘He says that he could easily pick me up and throw me onto the bed in a fit of passion and you know how I’ve always wanted a man who could do that.’

  Unfortunately Johnny texted back before Verity had even finished climbing the stairs to her blissfully empty flat.

  Have you forgotten that you were meant to be coming round for dinner tonight? Our ‘double date’ with my father and that Elspeth. Please hurry! (Though your message sounds ominous.)

  She had completely forgotten about it. William had sent a charming email with an invitation to dinner after he’d dropped by and though Verity had confirmed, she’d then repressed all memory of it, as she often did with things that she knew were going to be awkward.

  And now, as Johnny would have it, there was a whole other level of ominous added on to the ordeal. You don’t know the half of it, Verity thought to herself glumly. Johnny had attached a location pin with his message and, after feeding Strumpet and retrieving Johnny’s Marissa phone from her drawer, Verity set off for Canonbury with dread in her heart. No one liked to be the bearer of bad news and everyone knew what happened to the messengers of said bad news.

  Verity had planned to walk the two miles or so, weaving her way through the back streets of Clerkenwell and Islington, but it was just prolonging the agony so she squeezed onto a bus packed tight with hot, fractious people on their way home from work and became increasingly hot and fractious herself.

  Though the bus crawled through traffic-clogged streets, it arrived at Highbury Corner far too soon for Verity’s liking and it was only another five-minute walk along pretty, tree-lined streets of solid Victorian houses before she was trudging unhappily up the path and ringing Johnny’s doorbell. She’d read all about its four-storeyed glory in the Guardian, but still she wasn’t prepared for how huge his house was, how immaculate everything from plasterwork to pointing was; even his front door was the perfect shade of pale grey.

  Verity felt like a grubby urchin who should go round to the tradesmen’s entrance, especially when she glanced down and saw to her dismay that she was still wearing her Happy Ever After T-shirt. Hadn’t even thought to run a brush through her hair or dab on a little perfume. Oh goodness, she hadn’t even stopped en route to pick up a bottle of wine or a bunch of mixed blooms.

  It was too late for regrets. The door opened and there was Johnny, who had clearly h
ad time for a shower and change since he’d got home from work. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and looked pleased to see Verity, judging from his relieved smile.

  ‘Thank God you’re here,’ he said, yanking her forward for a kiss on the cheek that seemed to surprise them both, then ushering Verity through the door and into a wide hall with what looked like the original black and white tiles on the floor, a wooden bench built into the back of the staircase and delicate fretwork framing the top of the stairs, all of it painted white. ‘We’re having Pimm’s in the garden.’

  It didn’t sound as if it was going that well; Johnny meeting ‘that Elspeth’ for the first time. With even heavier heart, Verity followed him down the hall, glimpsing through an open door an open-plan living room flooded with light, walls painted a soft smudgy off-white, sofa and rugs and cushions and a collection of glassware on the shelves inset on either side of a grand fireplace, in different shades of blue.

  Then through to the kitchen, as featured in the Guardian. The units that Johnny had built himself and the gigantic burnished-steel kitchen table, the white walls this time relieved with cheerful green accents and a big Swedish-style dresser full of brightly coloured china.

  One wall of the kitchen was entirely taken up by glass doors, which were open onto a large garden, mostly given over to lawn. ‘I can’t say that it’s going terribly well,’ Johnny said to Verity out of the side of his mouth as they stepped out onto the decking. Just round the corner, sitting on a bench, were William and a woman in a pretty flowery dress, with delicate features that age could not wither.

  Their heads were close together as they whispered, then the woman giggled and William nuzzled her neck and, to the untrained eye, it looked a lot like they were canoodling.

  ‘I can’t leave you two alone for a minute, can I?’ Johnny asked with a touch of exasperation so that the woman laughed again, but very nervously. Johnny tugged Verity forward with a tight, desperate grip of her fingers. ‘We have company. Very, you’ve met this old reprobate before, haven’t you? When he was interfering.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it interfering so much as taking a keen interest in my only child’s emotional well-being,’ William said grandly. He put his arm around the woman. ‘And this is Elspeth, my friend. Elspeth, this is Verity, Johnny’s friend, who advised me to get you that beautiful cloth-bound edition of Pride and Prejudice.’

  ‘Oh, such an inspired choice!’ Elspeth said and she beamed at Verity, who smiled back and made ‘no, don’t get up’ gestures at the older woman.

  Then Verity looked down at her T-shirt again. ‘So sorry, I didn’t have time to change after work.’ She put a hand to her hair, which was feeling quite bedraggled.

  ‘True beauty needs no gilding,’ William said gallantly, then raised his eyebrows at Johnny. ‘This lovely girl needs a drink.’

  Soon Verity was clutching a glass of Pimm’s crammed full of strawberries and cucumber and as Johnny fired up the barbecue to grill some tuna steaks, she talked to Elspeth, who had been an English teacher until she’d retired a couple of years before, about books. Unlike say, Marissa, Elspeth had no problem with a lot of the greatest works of literature being classed as romantic fiction. ‘And who cares anyway?’ Elspeth asked. ‘Some of my happiest moments in life have involved a packet of dark-chocolate stem-ginger cookies and the latest Diana Gabaldon.’

  ‘Lucinda, my late wife, did love a romantic novel,’ William remembered and Elspeth smiled warmly and squeezed his hand while Johnny watched with narrowed eyes. ‘I’m sure she would have loved talking about books with you, Verity.’

  Verity mumbled something about how that would have been nice and lapsed into silence, like Johnny, who apart from asking how rare people wanted their tuna steaks, had been monosyllabic and boot-faced. Still, William and Elspeth attempted to keep the conversation going with Verity contributing where she could. Over dinner, Elspeth explained how she’d retired and been unexpectedly widowed all in the space of two months and to get herself out of her ‘dreadful funk’ she’d adopted a dog, a poodle cross called Peggy, and signed up for a yoga class, where she’d met William.

  Johnny scoffed very quietly though Verity wasn’t sure if it was because he was anti-poodles or anti-yoga, or more likely it was the thought of William and Elspeth locking eyes while doing the Downward Dog. His scoff was still loud enough that Elspeth faltered mid-sentence and William, no trace of twinkle, sent his son a hurt, angry look.

  ‘I think … Will you excuse me?’ Elspeth stood up. ‘I need to powder my nose.’

  ‘I’ll show you where to go,’ William said, standing up too, and shooting his son another baleful look before he took Elspeth’s arm and guided her across the decking.

  ‘I’m not sure this was a good idea,’ Verity heard Elspeth say, which meant that Johnny could hear her too, but he didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed of himself.

  ‘I never imagined that you could behave like such a dick,’ Verity blurted out, because she was too cross to choose her words with care or have to work herself up before she could say something. ‘You’re being so rude to poor Elspeth. She’s your guest.’

  Johnny had given a start at Verity’s opening salvo but now he was back to looking as if he were chewing rocks. ‘She’s my father’s guest,’ he corrected Verity.

  ‘She’s in your house and you’re making her feel unwelcome. That’s the very definition of bad manners,’ Verity persisted. ‘Come on, you are better than this. Or I thought you were.’

  For a second, Verity thought she’d overstepped her remit as fake girlfriend because Johnny narrowed his eyes all the better to glare at her. She glared right back, holding his gaze until he sighed. ‘I thought I was better than this too but it’s hard … seeing my father with another woman.’ He shook his head. ‘All the kissing and touching. They could take it down a notch.’

  ‘It’s not like they’re full-on snogging!’

  Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Very, please, don’t say things like that.’

  Somebody had to say something though and that somebody was Verity. ‘Elspeth is your father’s girlfriend whether you like it or not so I suggest that you do like it and you do get used to it because you’re hurting Elspeth and William’s feelings. Worse than that, you’re making your father feel guilty when he has nothing to feel guilty about. He’s allowed to find love again and that doesn’t diminish any of the love he had for your mother.’

  ‘But he did really love my mother,’ Johnny said, not in an argumentative way but as a wistful observation.

  ‘And how lonely it must be to keep loving someone for so many years when you can’t be with them,’ Verity said with heavy emphasis and she took Johnny’s hand, both thrilled and appalled at her own daring, so she could thread her fingers through his.

  Verity could see Johnny’s struggle in the furrowing of his brow, the tenseness in his fingers as he clutched hers. Then he shook his head, not in disbelief, but as if he were clearing out all the bad vibes. ‘Oh, Very …’ he murmured, then turned his head as his father and Elspeth emerged from the house.

  ‘Elspeth,’ he said and swallowed hard. Verity squeezed his fingers again. ‘I’ve just had it pointed out to me that I really have been behaving quite appallingly. I hope you’ll forgive me.’ Johnny smiled at Elspeth. One of his lovely, warm, kind smiles and Elspeth visibly relaxed and smiled back as she sat down, while William managed to look both tender and exasperated with his son.

  ‘You’re still grounded,’ William muttered and any remaining tension evaporated as if everyone had been holding their breaths and now that they could exhale, they were quite light-headed from the lack of oxygen.

  Perhaps that’s why none of them could stop laughing after Johnny described Strumpet as a ‘cat of very easy virtue’ and Verity was forced to defend Strumpet’s extreme sluttishness then show Elspeth and William the pictures she had on her phone of Poor Alan’s beekeeping outfit because words didn’t really do i
t justice.

  They made a very fine couple, finishing each other’s sentences, giggling at each other’s jokes, always with the little touches – Elspeth’s hand resting on William’s knee, him tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear – so that it was hard to believe that they’d only been courting for ‘not even a year. Gosh, though it seems longer, doesn’t it?’

  Now that he’d wrestled with his demons and won the battle, Johnny no longer seemed the slightest bit put out by his father suddenly acquiring a girlfriend after ten years of being a widower. On the contrary, Verity couldn’t help but notice that he made sure to smile every time he spoke to Elspeth.

  ‘I really liked Elspeth,’ Verity said later as she and Johnny were clearing up and William was putting Elspeth in an Uber that would take her back to Crouch End. ‘You do like her, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’ It was a sigh. ‘Very much and once I got over myself, I could see how happy she makes my father so that made me even more inclined to like her,’ Johnny said as he rinsed plates, then handed them to Verity to put in the dishwasher. ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘Thank me for what?’ Verity asked. ‘I didn’t really do anything.’

  ‘You gave me a stern talking to when I sorely needed one,’ Johnny said. ‘It made me see how rude I was being, how childish. That if my father likes Elspeth, even loves her, then it doesn’t take away any of the love he had for my mother.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ William said from the doorway. ‘I was devoted to your mother and I’ve been so lonely without her, which was the one thing she didn’t want me to be.’

  Verity fluttered the tea towel she was holding like a matador’s cape. ‘I’ll go out into the garden, so you can talk,’ she said quickly, but William shook his head and Johnny gently captured her wrist.