Flora's Lot

by Katie Fforde

  ‘These are pretty chairs,' said Annabelle. 'I might put in an offer myself. We've got some nice ones, but they're rather large, you can't fit many round the table.'

  ‘And you could always put the ones you've got now in the next sale.'

  ‘Of course. I don't know why I didn't think of that.' Flora didn't know either, after all she'd worked in an auction house much longer than Flora had.

  ‘It's exciting, having a half-decent sale for once,' Annabelle went on. 'There's been loads of interest. And I think that little item we had on the local news probably helped quite a lot. Several local antique shops have put in stuff that's been hanging around too long. You just need one or two items to attract a lot of attention, and people realise there's going to be extra interest and put their own stuff in. Charles has roped Bob Butler in to help as he can't do it all.'

  ‘Well, I'm glad you see it my way at last,' said Flora evenly.

  Annabelle was inspecting the underside of a Windsor chair. 'It's a bit wormy - still, caveat emptor and all that.’

  Flora didn't speak Latin. 'As long as we don't imply it's perfect in the catalogue. Oh, I never asked you about the school reunion.' Flora had lost track completely of when it was and felt it must have happened by now.

  ‘The school reunion?' Annabelle looked blank for a moment. 'Oh, that! It was fine, thank you. Caught up with some old chums I must invite to the wedding.'

  ‘How are the preparations going? And the portrait?’

  Annabelle smiled, looking a little dreamy, which was perfectly understandable. 'Fine for both. And by the way, I was going to ask you - it's a bit short notice I know, because dresses take ages to be made, but I wondered if you'd help me choose mine? I was originally going for something very traditional, but since you took me in hand, I thought I might have something a bit simpler. I've got the dressmaker all lined up, but she tells me I've got a week or so before she really gets going so there's time to make a few changes.'

  ‘I'd be thrilled to help!' Manfully, Flora summoned up enthusiasm for a wedding that was going to end her chance of happiness for ever. 'I see you in something quite slim-fitting, oyster satin, something like that. Elegant and simple.'

  ‘Great. We'll have a look at some mags together soon, but we'd better get this sale over first. I'm going to be on the phones most of the day. Will you and Louisa share the book for Charles? You know, make sure he doesn't overlook any commissioned bids? God! I hope I wasn't being patronising! I've had a lot on my mind lately.’

  She strode off, leaving an amazed Flora dumbstruck. Annabelle apologising for being patronising! It was like the sea apologising for going in and out all the time, apparently never able to make up its mind. Annabelle had definitely improved lately, and not just because she'd had her hair cut shorter, and was emphasising her physical assets to the full. She had more enthusiasm for life. Flora decided it was because Stanza and Stanza was looking up at last, becoming more the sort of business Annabelle would like to be concerned with. And she was going to help Annabelle decide on a wedding dress . . . Flora sighed. Usually, she liked irony, but now, it felt like a poisoned dart.

  There wasn't much time for further philosophical speculation as ten o'clock came and the public were let in for half an hour's viewing before the sale started at ten-thirty.

  *

  The sale had been going fantastically well, but now, at nearly four o'clock, it was almost over. Flora had been deputed earlier to apologise to the landlord of the local pub, whose car park had become full of buyers. Fortunately Flora had managed to convince him that the extra busi- ness would make up for some loss of local trade. It was something to think about. If they were going to become much bigger, parking space had to be considered.

  Although the room was still quite full, earlier it had been positively heaving with people. A lot of bids had been left 'on the book' by people who had put in a bid but were unable actually to be present, and most of the day, Flora had sat next to Charles (or whoever was on the podium), just in case a bid got overlooked. It never was overlooked when Charles was there, but he had said it was good training for her.

  Having been sent off for a break, Flora had taken her cup of tea to the back of the room, not wanting to leave the excitement of the saleroom. Or at least that was what she'd told Virginia when they'd met at the tea counter. Flora knew it was so she could watch Charles in action.

  I'm sure it's not just that I'm in love with him, she decided, watching him hold the attention of the room with such skill and mastery. He's simply a fantastic auctioneer. And having the room so full and so busy was making him even better. It was brilliant! She found herself smiling with joy because he must be happy.

  She shifted her position so she was standing in front of a complete set of Georgette Heyers, early editions and potentially very valuable. Charles and Geoffrey had been a little dismissive about them when they were discovered in Burnet House, but Flora knew they were special and her instinct was borne out by the interest in them shown on the website.

  Her attention was distracted by a woman's striking, obviously home-made cardigan for a moment, but when she looked up again, she saw Louisa hand Charles a cup of tea and a home-made rock cake. He didn't usually drink tea while he was at the podium, but he'd been there a long time. Louisa probably felt he needed some sustenance. He acknowledged the tea, took a sip and a bite of the rock cake and then winced sharply, as if in pain. Louisa, having taken her seat beside the podium, stood up again and put her hand on Charles's arm. Her face as she looked up at him was worried, and he leant down and whispered something in her ear, at which she looked even more worried, and urgently whispered something back. Charles shook his head.

  ‘I'm awfully sorry, ladies and gentlemen,' he said awkwardly, 'but I seem to have done something to my tooth. I hope you can hear me all right.’

  He leant back to Louisa and spoke again, and she whispered to Virginia, who was on hand near the front. Then he carried on, appearing nearly normal, but Flora longed to get to him. She edged her way to the front. Then Bob Butler appeared. 'I'll now hand you over to Bob Butler for the last few lots,' he said, smiling through his obvious agony. 'I'll be back with you tomorrow.'

  ‘Charles! Are you all right?' said Flora. She followed him into the little side room they used as an office on sale days.

  ‘Broken a tooth. Bloody rock cakes.'

  ‘Oh, I'm so sorry!' said Virginia. 'It was my fault! My sister made them.'

  ‘Nonsense,' said Annabelle, 'he should have had that tooth sorted out ages ago! We'll make an appointment. They always keep a slot for emergencies.'

  ‘I can't go to the dentist when there's a sale on,' Charles said with a panicked look in his eyes. 'If you're in pain, you must!' said Flora.

  ‘I can't! This is the biggest sale we've done. I must be here.'

  ‘That's just silly,' said Flora, aware she was being bossy, but too worried about him to help herself. 'Bob and George will do it for you. I'll catch Bob when he's finished and ring George at home. He's in the book under Woodman, isn't he? Bob's here tomorrow anyway, to finish off the furniture.’

  Charles shook his head. 'No, that won't do. Bob doesn't usually do books and he's nearly eighty, his wife will never speak to me again if I make him do even more. He's got a bad heart, he shouldn't work when he's tired, and he'll be exhausted after today.'

  ‘He loved it today. He'll be fine,' said Louisa.

  ‘He won't,' said Charles forcefully. 'Look, I can't just abandon ship because I've got toothache! I'll just have to keep going.'

  ‘You wouldn't be abandoning anything. It's called delegating, and it's a very good thing to do. You go to the dentist. We'll manage here until you get back.'

  ‘I can't.'

  ‘You can. No one is indispensable, Charles.' Still he remained looking at her. Flora decided it was time to pull rank. 'I am your partner. And I'm telling you to go to the dentist!’

  He laughed, in spite of his pain. 'You're getting to be a very bossy
woman, Flora.'

  ‘I know. Good, isn't it?'

  ‘God, Charles! You would never have agreed to that for me,' said Annabelle. 'It must be because Flora's the senior partner.’

  Flora felt herself go white. She would never be the senior partner, even if she owned every share in the business and Charles owned nothing. She looked at him, aghast that he might think she valued herself so highly. 'Urn, not really,' she murmured.

  ‘Well, until Charles has got his tooth fixed anyway,' said Louisa, to Flora's enormous relief.

  ‘Come on. I'll take you home and then make an appointment,' said Annabelle.

  Watching them leave the building together forced Flora to confront the idea of them as a couple, to imagine them, years down the line, a happy, married twosome. Even with Annabelle's arm round Charles, she couldn't quite picture it.

  Flora went to find Geoffrey, her prop and source of advice. Everyone had obviously heard the news and knew that, for the time being, Flora was in charge. She looked for Geoffrey everywhere except the Gents'. And then went back to ask Virginia.

  ‘Have you seen Geoffrey, Virginia?' she enquired. 'I've looked for him in every logical place and several illogical ones.'

  ‘I saw him go out the back with a huge armoire. I expect he was taking it to someone's van and will be back in a minute. Give us a hand while you're waiting.' Virginia at least was not treating Flora any differently. 'We'll spot him when he comes back in.’

  Flora joined Virginia on the raised stage where Virginia was matching slips of paper to items stacked on and under the trestle tables.

  Flora took a slip from a middle-aged man who looked like a successful dealer and saw he'd bought some glasses at a very good price. 'Would you like me to wrap them for you?'

  ‘No, thank you, dear. Newspaper damages them. I'll do it myself with the proper stuff. If you just bring them over to me, a few at a time, I'll be fine.’

  Flora, worried in case she missed Geoffrey while she was doing this, got the glasses to him almost too quickly for safety.

  There was still no sign of Geoffrey, so she took another slip. She stared at it for a while and then said, 'I have no idea what a companion set is!’

  Virginia pointed to a corner. 'Poker, tongs and shovel, over there.' Then she picked up a blue and white printed meat dish, which would have been worth a small fortune if it hadn't been damaged, and carried it carefully to its new owner.

  ‘Oh, there's Geoffrey,' Flora said to the owner of the fire irons. 'You don't need me, do you, Virginia?'

  ‘No, it's all right, Anne and I can manage. We know where stuff is.’

  Dismissed, Flora followed Geoffrey into the kitchen, where he was eating one of the rock cakes that had caused Charles to break his tooth. He too had already heard about it.

  Flora had decided that Charles was right about Bob: it wasn't fair to ask him to do more work tomorrow when they'd stretched his capacity to the limit already today.

  ‘Geoffrey, I don't think we can ask Bob to stand in for Charles, but I'm sure George will, until Charles gets back after the dentist. And you could stand in too, if necessary, couldn't you?'

  ‘Well, the thing is . . . Oh, you ring George. See what he says.'

  ‘Flora!' George Woodman declared delightedly when he heard her voice on the phone. 'You can be the first to congratulate me! Our daughter's had a little girl! It was a difficult pregnancy and she's been in hospital for the past week, but now the baby's born and she's fine.'

  ‘Oh, congratulations! You must be so thrilled!'

  ‘We are. My wife's just throwing a few things together and we're off to see her. They've got a little boy already and her parents-in-law have been there, helping to look after him. Now they've got to go and we're taking over. Was there anything you wanted?'

  ‘Nothing that won't wait until you get back,' said Flora. 'And congratulations again.’

  She found Geoffrey again. 'He's just had a new grandchild and they were off to look after his daughter, so I didn't ask him.'

  ‘Oh.'

  ‘Bob's going to finish the furniture though. It's only the books. You can do books. They're your subject.’

  ‘I can do them up to a point, Flora.'

  ‘What do you mean?'

  ‘Quite a lot of books towards the end of the catalogue are mine. I can't auction those. It wouldn't be ethical.’

  Flora gulped. 'It's quite likely Charles will be back by then.'

  ‘Quite likely.'

  ‘And if he wasn't, you could do them. No one would know they were yours.'

  ‘I would know,' he said firmly. 'If it got out it would damage the reputation of the firm irrevocably.'

  ‘Oh.' For once, Flora was lost for ideas. 'So we'll just hope it won't come to that. I wonder what they'll have to do to Charles's tooth?'

  ‘I couldn't say, but, Flora . .

  ‘What?'

  ‘If Charles isn't here, you'll have to do it.'

  ‘Do what?'

  ‘Auction the books.’

  A fine film of sweat covered Flora as she realised what Geoffrey meant. 'Oh no. I couldn't do that.’

  ‘Everyone's got to start sometime.'

  ‘But . . . I wouldn't get the best price for you! This must be your pension, after all. You need to get the very best price for your books. So you don't want someone who's never done it before selling your life savings.'

  ‘Flora, they're not my life savings, and you're just as likely to get a good price for them as I am. If Charles isn't back, you've got to bite the bullet and get up there and sell. I'll give you a bit of coaching tonight.’

  Flora exhaled as slowly as she could. 'But, Geoffrey, I couldn't possibly! Think how nervous I was just singing in a choir with twenty other people! I couldn't stand up in front of all those people and sell things when I don't know what I'm doing!'

  ‘Yes, you could,' he said in a broken-record voice. 'I couldn't!’

  He sighed. 'Tell you what, you're tired and this idea has been sprung on you. You go and see to Imelda and the kittens, and then come back to me and Edie. Stay the night with us, and I'll give you a crash course in auctioneering. It's only counting in threes, fives and tens, that's not hard.'

  ‘I can't count in ones! How am I ever going to be able to do that?'

  ‘I'll train you. Now go home and sort out the cats and come straight back to me.'

  ‘I can't go now, there's so much to do here.' She was aware that inside there was a mountain of paperwork and tidying and sweeping to be done. No one else would leave for a couple of hours, at least.

  ‘They'll manage without you. They did before you joined the firm, didn't they?'

  ‘And Charles, and Annabelle? They're usually here, aren't they?'

  ‘I've told you, we'll manage. I'll explain what's going on. Now, shoo!’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Guilty, because she knew she should have stayed and finished the day's work with everyone else, but glad to escape, Flora climbed into the Land-Rover and set off for the cottage. The thought of a hot bath lured her like a siren; after it, she knew she'd feel much bolder about the prospect of standing up in front of a lot of strangers. It might not happen anyway. How long could any dentist appointment be? But she was worried about Charles. Not just the dentist, he was probably one of those hardy types who could tolerate his teeth being filled without vast numbers of painkilling injections, but generally.

  Was Annabelle really the right woman for him? Previously when she'd been in love (if you could call those girlish crushes love) her feelings had been very self-centred. She had wanted to go to Paris with him, she had wanted to share bubble baths with him, she had wanted to kick up dead leaves in autumn while they walked hand in hand through Richmond Park (or similar).

  But this time, while she would have sacrificed anything to be the one with him while he experienced those pleasures, simple or otherwise, she wanted him to have them with a woman he truly loved and who truly loved him more than she wanted the happines
s she would have gained herself.

  She didn't consider herself to be a selfish person. She was kind to animals (Imelda was proof of that), to people (sometimes too kind, indeed), and she wanted to do good in the world. But never before had she wanted another person's happiness more than she wanted her own.

  She kept on thinking like this until she turned into the lane that led to her cottage. Then she allowed herself to admit that if Charles wanted her, she would go to him, to hell with her pride. As long as he was honest with her, of course.

  The kittens were a wonderful distraction for a little while. They were everywhere in the cottage now. Annabelle would probably never be able to go inside there again, because of her allergy, but then, she probably didn't want to anyway. Would she let Charles have a kitten? Would she cramp his style for the rest of his life? And, most likely, would marriage to her allow him to become set in his stuffiness? What he needed was someone a bit younger, a bit more frivolous, as committed to the business as he was, who really liked cats, to be with. He needed her, in other words. But, being a man, and sadly lacking in intuition, he might not ever realise that.

  When she had fed the cats and made a cup of tea, about her tenth that day, Flora put on the television and curled up on the sofa so Imelda could have a proper cuddle. Watching Richard and Judy sitting on the sofa, bantering with each other and their guests, was very soothing. Imelda, who now had no time for her kittens, was very grateful for an opportunity to curl up on Flora's lap, hissing at any kitten that came near her. Flora closed her eyes. In a few minutes she would make sure there was enough food left to keep them going tomorrow, sort out the litter tray, pack a bag, and go to Geoffrey and Edie's house. While she was here, in her little cottage, she could pretend her life was both normal and happy. Once she arrived at Geoffrey's, she'd have to concentrate on learning to be a stand-in auctioneer. And all night she would pray she wouldn't have to perform.