Jane Green - Bookends

Max runs upstairs shrieking for Ingrid, and minutes later there she is, Ingrid, coming down the stairs looking as sullen as ever. I examine her face closely, trying to see whether she had sex last night, even though I don’t really know what I’m looking for. She certainly doesn’t seem to have any sort of post-coital glow, which is what people always talk about, how they say you know . Not that I think I’ve ever actually seen a post-coital glow, but I’m sure I’d recognize one if I looked hard enough.

I remember talking about it with Portia all those years ago. We’d just run into someone we knew on the high street, and she seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Once we left, Si looked over his shoulder knowingly and said, ‘Well someone had a good time last night,’ and neither of us knew what he was talking about, or how he could tell.

Not long after that I had a wild night of passion with no one very interesting, and the next morning I ran out without washing and hurried back to the house, dashing into Portia’s room and grabbing her mirror from the dressing table.

‘Well?’ I said, sitting on her bed and examining my face in the mirror. ‘Do you see it?’

‘Hmm.’ She took my chin in her hand and turned my face this way and that, making me stand in different positions around the room for the light. ‘Do you want me to be honest?’ she said eventually.

‘Yup,’ I nodded. ‘Because I can’t see it, although Si says you can never see it on yourself.’

‘You look completely exhausted.’

‘Oh. Is that it ?’ I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest, and Portia nodded. ‘Oh well,’ I started walking out to run a bath. ‘Perhaps that’s what everybody’s talking about.’

And here I am, examining Ingrid’s face as she strides into the kitchen and stops in front of Lucy, left hand planted aggressively on her hip. Lucy looks up and smiles benignly.

‘I would like to know where you think Max’s blue pyjamas are,’ she says, as Lucy shrugs.

‘The wash?’ Lucy says hopefully, as Ingrid shakes her head. ‘Ironing pile?’ Ingrid shakes her head and pulls her right hand from behind her back. ‘They are here,’ she says. ‘In the laundry basket. Where they have been now for more than one week.’

Lucy grimaces at me, then starts to apologize to Ingrid, who merely says, ‘He is your son and tonight he will have to sleep in his day clothes,’ before heading for the fridge and helping herself to a yoghurt, which probably explains how she manages to stay so thin.

I haven’t taken my eyes off her, but I’ve stopped examining her for the post-coital glow and now I’m just looking at her in amazement, astounded by how she can talk to her employer like that. When she turns around again, she catches me looking at her, and she just stands there watching me.

She peels off the yoghurt top, slowly brings it up to her mouth, and licks it, all the while looking at me, obviously trying to embarrass me for staring at her. I look quickly away as she smirks and leaves the room.

‘So.’ I stand up and put the kettle on to hide the expression on my face. ‘What do you think about James and Ingrid, then?’

Lucy looks utterly bewildered. ‘What do I think about James and Ingrid what?’

‘Well, they left together last night. I’m assuming she didn’t come home?’

Lucy starts to laugh. ‘Sweet Cath, do you really think that Josh would have come back to rescue us from a night of debauchery if Max had been sleeping here alone?’

Why didn’t I think of that? Thank God.

‘But they did leave together,’ I continue. ‘And James looked as if he were practically salivating.’ This last bit isn’t quite true, as I couldn’t actually see his face when they left, but, if I had been able to, I’m pretty sure that’s what he would have looked like. ‘I’m certain they both fancied one another,’ I say decisively.

‘Really? I can’t see them together at all. Not that I know either of their types, but I wouldn’t have thought she was James’s type, far too obvious for him.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I find myself saying involuntarily, clapping my hand over my mouth as it comes out, because really, I’m not worried at all.

Lucy puts the knife down and smiles. ‘Does this mean that you’re finally admitting that you might have some feelings for the lovely James after all?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I say. ‘We’re just friends. Well, we were, anyway.’ And with that the kettle boils, and I busy myself with the intricate task of making a cup of tea.

Bill’s behind the till, Lucy’s busy arranging fresh pastries and croissants in baskets on the counter, and Rachel and I are racing round the shop checking that all the books are exactly where they should be, all the sofas at exactly the right angle.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I say, turning to the door with a grin as it rattles, and already there are two people outside, ignoring the fact that the closed sign is up, peering through the window and attempting to open the locked door, despite the sign saying we don’t open for another ten minutes.

‘Must be a good omen,’ Lucy laughs.

‘What do you think?’ I check my watch. ‘Shall we do it? Shall we let them be our first customers?’

The two women don’t show any sign of giving up, so I grab a key from the counter and go to the door to let them in, the smile on my face completely obliterating the fact that I’m as nervous as hell. Our first customers! What will they think? Will they buy anything? Will they stay and have coffee? Will they approve?

I catch Lucy’s eye, and she gives me the thumbs up. I swing the door open, wishing the women good morning and welcoming them in.

‘We just couldn’t wait,’ one of them says, bustling in with her shopping bags.

‘Sorry we’re so early,’ the other says, ‘it’s just that we’ve been watching this for weeks, and we were dying to have a look round. Goodness, are we your first customers?’

I nod, noting that all four of us have identical grins on our faces.

‘What do you think, Shirley?’ The shorter one turns to her friend. ‘Coffee first or browsing first?’

Shirley sniffs, then looks over at the counter, where Lucy is beaming.

‘We’ve got delicious home-made Danish pastries,’ Lucy says, tempting them over, and the pair of them succumb to Lucy’s smile and sit down in the café area to have coffee.

‘I must say,’ Shirley says, as they deposit their shopping on the floor, ‘you’ve done a beautiful job here. Look at how lovely and sunny it is. Just what this area needed.’

‘That’s exactly what we thought,’ Lucy says. ‘I hope everyone feels the same way.’

‘Just as long as I don’t walk out without Angela’s Ashes ,’ Shirley says. ‘Don’t let me forget, Hilary. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages.’ Lucy winks at me from behind the counter, and I scurry off to dig through the pile of biographies and memoirs on the table at the front until I find Frank McCourt, and take it over to Shirley and Hilary.

‘Oh, what an angel you are,’ Shirley says. ‘I wish more shops would take a leaf out of your book,’ and I walk away feeling a deep satisfaction.

An hour later and there have already been six more people in the shop. Four of them are still here, quietly turning pages, two on the sofas and two in the café, and the others just ran in to buy new titles.

But everyone does seem to agree with Shirley, or perhaps they’re just saying it to be polite, but people seem genuinely impressed with us, with what we’ve done, and by the end of the day we realize we’ve sold twenty-one paperbacks and sixteen hardbacks, plus taken orders for four more books that we haven’t got in stock, which, all in all, as Bill said, was ‘pretty damn marvellous’.