Sophia Money-Coutts - The Wish List

He turned the book over where, on the back cover, the author, Dermot Dooley, glared up at us.

‘Looks pretty angry with life, doesn’t he?’

I snickered. ‘True.’

Up close, he smelt fresh, of a lemony aftershave. Without moving my head, I raised my eyes from the book to his face. It was as if part of me recognized him. He felt familiar. But if he’d been in here before I would remember it, surely? Eugene and I would have fought to serve him and Eugene was normally quicker than me with the hot ones.

His eyes met mine and I blushed again. Busted.

‘Thanks for finding it. And my mother’s book. You’re brilliant, er…’

‘Florence,’ I said, smiling back at him, ‘and not at all. It’s my job.’

‘Thank you all the same.’

‘You’re into contemporary fiction then?’ I ventured, stepping back behind the till and taking the books from him.

‘Absolutely, when I get the time. Why?’

‘Sorry, nosy of me. Just…’ I stopped. ‘Well, I shouldn’t really say it but most men come in here looking for Wayne Rooney’s autobiography.’

‘Oh Christ,’ he said, clapping a hand to his forehead. ‘That was the other one I was supposed to pick up. Don’t suppose you’ve got a copy?’

I looked up from the till and laughed.

‘What about you?’ he asked.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘What do you read? I suppose I’ve never really thought about it before, but does someone who works in a bookshop have to read all of these?’ He gestured at the shelves.

‘No! Luckily not. We share it. I’m novels. Eugene, that’s my colleague, he takes on non-fiction and plays. There’s a system so that if someone comes in we can help them, er, find a book they fall in love with.’

I felt embarrassed for describing it like that but he didn’t seem to hear because he was concentrating on the cards in front of the till. ‘Sorry, can I chuck these in too?’ He handed me a pack of cards with Vermeer’s Girl in a Pearl Earring on the front, except the woman’s face had been replaced with a cat. It was part of a series of greetings cards that I’d insisted to Norris we should stock. And I’d been right. There had been Mona Lisa as a cat, a Van Gogh self-portrait as a cat and a cat dressed as Holbein’s Henry VIII , but they’d all sold out.

‘You like cats?’ He looked more of a dog person. Wellington boots on the weekend, three Labradors, a tweed hat.

‘I do. My mother has three Persians.’

‘Cute. And altogether that’ll be £ 36.45 please. Do you want a bag?’

He shook his head. ‘No, not to worry.’

‘But it’s raining,’ I said, nodding towards the windows. Outside, people scuttled under umbrellas like giant black beetles.

He grinned again. ‘A bit of rain won’t hurt.’ He tucked the books and his cards under his arm. ‘Not sure I’m going to fall in love, though,’ he said.

‘Huh?’ I said. I’d been gazing at his chest – at a small triangle of blond hair exposed at the top of his shirt – and misheard.

‘With him,’ the man said, flashing Dooley’s headshot at me again. ‘You said you find books for people to fall in love with.’

‘Right,’ I replied, laughing too loudly. He meant Dooley. Obviously he wasn’t talking about me. Come on, Florence. People don’t go about their lives falling in love with others they meet in bookshops. That only happened once in Notting Hill.

‘Thanks so much for all your help,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome,’ I replied as he made for the door. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’

He held his fingers to his temple, saluting. Then he was gone into the drizzle.

I felt a pang of disappointment at his disappearance but heard Norris coming upstairs, so tried to rearrange my face.

‘Pass us the order book,’ he said, standing on the other side of the counter. I handed it over in silence.

‘You all right?’ he added.

‘Yeah, fine. Why?’

‘Just look a bit flustered. Where’s Eugene?’

‘Upstairs, restocking travel.’

Norris opened the book and reached for a pen.

‘You missed Mrs Delaney,’ I went on.

‘My lucky day. She buy anything?’

‘No. But someone came in to collect an order and I sold another copy of The Struggle .’

Norris blew out heavily through his nostrils. ‘I’m not sure one hardback a day’s going to keep us open. Ah, we’ll see,’ he said, closing the book and handing it back to me.

‘I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve got a plan,’ I said, straightening up and deciding to broach my ideas.

Norris’s eyebrows waggled with suspicion.

‘We need to sort out the website. And I thought about a petition. Online and in here. I’ll get everyone who comes in to sign it.’

He didn’t reply.

‘And we really should have Instagram by now, Norris. I can run it, it’s easy. And Twitter.’

‘Twitter?’ Norris barked it as if it was a dirty word.

‘It’s free marketing, quite literally.’

‘No, no, no,’ he replied, shaking his head as he made for the stairs. ‘Can’t think about all this now. I’ve got enough on as it is.’

I stuck my tongue out at his back. ‘Didn’t want to think about it now’ was always his excuse. It was maddening. And irresponsible.

Then came the noise of Eugene clattering downstairs. He dropped an armful of empty boxes on the floor in front of the till.

‘They can’t stay there,’ I said.

‘Calm down, bossy boots,’ he replied, leaning on the counter and panting. ‘I’m famished. Do you mind if I have first lunch? Not sure I’m going to make it to second.’ Lunches in the shop were divided into first (an hour at twelve thirty) and second (an hour at one thirty), decided between us every day.

‘Nope, you go.’

‘Thanks,’ replied Eugene, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. ‘See you in a bit,’ he said, already halfway through the door before I could shout at him about the boxes.

‘Men,’ I muttered to myself. At home, I lived with two sisters who never put a mug in the dishwasher; in the shop, I worked alongside men who only thought of their stomachs. I wondered which was more trying. Not that long ago, Mrs Delaney had told me that gladioli plants were asexual. Sounded a much easier life, being a gladioli.

As I bent to slide my fingers under the boxes, the doorbell tinkled behind me so I stood up quickly, aware that another customer was being subjected to my bottom. ‘Sorry,’ I said spinning around, ‘I’m just tidy— Oh, hello.’

It was the man in the braces.

‘Hello again,’ he said, grinning. His hair was damp and there were dark spots on his shirt front from the rain. ‘I only… Well, I hope you don’t mind… The thing is I don’t go around London asking women I meet in shops this, but I wondered if you might be free, or might be interested, in perhaps having a coffee with me?’

‘A coffee?’ I repeated, as if I didn’t know what coffee was.

‘Or a drink,’ he said. ‘Whatever you like. I’d just like to talk to you more about books, if you wanted?’ He ran a hand through the wet strands of his hair and looked expectantly at me.

‘Er…’ I was so surprised by his reappearance that, as if witness to a baffling magic trick, I went mute.

‘If you can’t, or don’t want to, or if you’re taken and don’t for some reason wear a wedding ring – it’s often very hard to tell these days – then forget I ever asked and I’ll never come in here again. Although that would be a shame since it’s a splendid bookshop. But if none of those things apply then I would like very much to buy you some sort of beverage – hot or cold, it’s entirely up to you.’