Jane Green - Bookends

Not to mention the fact that every single one of Lucy’s home-made cakes and pastries has been eaten, and there hasn’t been a single minute during the day when the shop has been completely empty.

‘I’ve got to tell you,’ I say, turning to Lucy as we’re closing up the shop, having shared a bottle of wine with Bill and Rachel to celebrate. ‘I think we’re on to a winner here.’

‘As if you could ever have thought anything different!’ Lucy laughs. ‘Oh, Cath, you’re such a worrier. It’s going to be fine,’ and she gives me a big hug.

I walk around the shop, picking up books that have been left on tables and putting them back in their rightful positions, and marvelling at the fact that this is mine! Ours! Our very own business! But, more importantly, as Lucy pulls out the mop and starts cleaning the floor, I understand for the first time that she really is right after all.

But the fact that she is right does not mean that she is not completely mad. Two weeks later she is busy organizing this dinner party on Saturday, when any normal person (i.e., me) would be (is, in fact) completely shattered, but Lucy’s so fired up and excited she can’t seem to sit still for more than about five seconds.

She hasn’t been sleeping either, and at the moment she’s doing an incredibly good impersonation of Superwoman, having woken up yesterday at the crack of dawn and spent two hours cooking a variation of some well-known chicken dish for dinner tonight, and that was before the shop even opened.

And the shop? Well, as everyone predicted, so far it seems to be doing okay. Despite the initial flurry of interest on the first day we opened, things have settled down a bit, and there have been a couple of very quiet afternoons. It’s not, as Josh put it, what you might call an immediate runaway success, but then we are talking about a bookshop here, and you can’t expect people to come in and spend thousands.

But what has happened is the curiosity factor. People have been popping in to see what all the fuss has been about, and have ended up staying far longer than they’d originally planned. The old leather sofas seem to have gone down a storm, and last weekend a handful of people decamped permanently from La Brioche, spending almost all of Sunday sitting around the sofas at Bookends with their Skinny Lattes and copies of the Guardian .

As I said, in a rather embarrassing interview in the Ham & High , we can’t compete with the huge Books Etc. up the road, but then we’re not trying to. This was always going to be more of a community bookshop, somewhere for people to meet, chat, have a snack, and then stop on the way out as an interesting book catches their eye.

And the partnership between Lucy and I really seems to be working, despite the reservations Si had.

I love the feeling of waking up every morning and knowing that I’m off to work, and that it’s the job I’ve always dreamt of, and it’s my own business. There’s a hell of a lot to learn, and I know it will take a while before I’m completely comfortable with it, but I’m sure I’m getting there. We both are.

Lucy’s doing what she does best – cooking and playing the convivial host, and she’s completely adoring it. She’s on her feet all day, which always makes me feel slightly guilty, as I tend to be either sitting behind the till or sitting in the stock room. Either way, I’m sitting.

Josh went out and bought Lucy a foot spa as a congratulatory present, which Si and I thought a bit of a let-down – as Si said, wouldn’t diamond earrings have been preferable? But Lucy was thrilled, as her feet, she said, were absolutely ready to drop off by the end of the day, although she didn’t mind, she laughed. It was worth every second of sore feet.

And now it’s time for Lucy’s dinner party. I spoke to Portia once last week. She phoned me after Lucy had invited her, and she said I should go to her flat for a drink first, and that it would be lovely to see me on my own after all these years, and how excited she was about seeing me properly, talking to me properly.

You know how I felt after that phone call? I felt exactly the same as I used to feel when we were at university. I felt honoured by Portia’s interest.

I felt as if a small piece of sunshine were shining on me when Portia treated me like this, as if I were special, and, although I’ve relished breaking free from Portia’s shadow over the last ten years, there’s something about stepping into this old role that feels very familiar, very comfortable, and I wonder whether I’m happiest in the shadows after all.

‘What about that lovely James?’ Lucy asked last Tuesday when we were closing up the shop, ringing up the wholesaler to put through some orders that customers had requested. ‘I’d love to invite him over, and the two of you seemed to get on so well. Can’t I ask him, Cath, my love?’

‘No!’ I practically barked at her, almost dropping the pile of books I was carrying up from the stock room.

‘You know,’ she said carefully, ‘there is nothing going on between him and Ingrid.’

‘Oh?’ I have to admit, my interest was piqued, even though I’d tried to put him out of my mind, particularly because I hadn’t actually been in touch with him since the day he brought the flowers round, which I still felt fairly guilty about, although with every passing day it was getting harder to call.

‘Nope. I asked her.’

‘You asked her? What did she say?’

‘Well, it was most peculiar, actually. For a moment she looked completely stunned, and then I realized she hadn’t got the foggiest what, or rather who, I was talking about.’

‘Maybe it was so awful she wiped it from her memory.’

‘Cath, darling, come on. Seriously, I realized she didn’t have a clue, so I reminded her that she’d left with him, and then asked if something had happened, and if she were interested in him.’

‘And?’ I was trying to look as if I didn’t really care.

‘And she looked at me as if I’d gone completely mad and then laughed uproariously for about five minutes.’

‘Are you serious?’ I was horrified. ‘That’s appalling. Jesus, I mean James isn’t exactly Mr Universe, but she’d be bloody lucky to get someone like James. Who does she think she is?’

‘I know,’ Lucy said. ‘I mean, I couldn’t really say anything, but James is divine. He may not be her type, but still, there was no need to laugh like that.’

‘Lucy, when are you going to realize that the woman is completely vile?’

‘Cath, as long as Max is happy I don’t really care. And anyway, these au pairs apparently never last long anyway. I was talking to a woman in the shop yesterday who’s been through five au pairs in three months.

‘Apparently the first one brought her boyfriend to stay when they were away for the weekend, the second was lovely but didn’t have a bath in three weeks, the third was wonderful but decided her room wasn’t big enough, and the fourth walked out after three weeks for no reason whatsoever.’

‘And the fifth?’

‘The fifth is apparently perfect. Although how long it will last she said she didn’t know.’

‘When did she start? The fifth?’

‘On Monday. Anyway, according to this woman, Ann, I’m incredibly lucky to have a godsend like Ingrid, and I should be doing everything I can to make her life more comfortable because good au pairs are about as rare as gold dust on the streets of London.’

It’s a good job Lucy had turned her back to pick up a stray magazine, as she missed the sneer on my face. ‘I suppose you’ll be buying her little treats now?’

‘As it happens I did buy her one of those little gift sets of bath oils and delicious-smelling soaps yesterday. It smelt so gorgeous and I couldn’t just walk straight past the shop after what that woman had said.’