Harriet Evans - Love Always

When I push open the door, an old bel jangles in a pleasing way. Inside, it’s empty and silent. The distressed white floorboards glow in the late-afternoon light, and as I look around, wondering what I should do next, I hear a voice say, ‘Hel o? Natasha?’ From a back room Guy emerges, pushing a pair of half-moon spectacles off his nose. They hang on a chain around his neck. He blinks, rather blearily.

‘I’m not early, am I?’ I seem to have caught him unawares. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘I was having a nap.’

‘Oh.’

‘Quite nice in the afternoons, when it’s quiet, you know. Put the radio on and have a doze – there’s an original Eames chair out back I can’t bear to part with, it’s too comfortable.’ He catches himself. ‘Good grief. I sound like I’m ready for the old people’s home.’

This reminds me of something. ‘That’s funny. I literal y just left a message at the home for Arvind on my way here,’ I say, more to myself than to him. ‘He was out for the afternoon, they said. Do you know, is Louisa down there?’

‘Yes, she is. She went down yesterday.’

Archie was going to see him around now, too. I’m not even sure Mum’s been down since the funeral. ‘On her own?’

He misunderstands me. ‘Oh, yes. My brother likes an easy life.’ He smiles, rather sadly I think. I think of the indolent, good-looking Bowler Hat, so often to be found sleeping in an armchair or deckchair while Louisa brings him tea. I frown at the thought. ‘She’s a kind soul, Louisa, she loves to help.’ He scratches his chest and yawns. ‘She loved your grandmother, Natasha, Frances was like a mother to her. They were very close.’

‘Louisa had her own mother,’ I say. ‘Yes . . .’ Guy’s expression is non-committal. ‘But I think Louisa loved it down there, and she wasn’t a threat to your grandmother. Never was. Frances adored her, and she didn’t have to raise her. And – wel , Louisa just likes doing things for other people.’

‘I know.’ Fond as I am of her, I can’t help rol ing my eyes at this.

Guy ignores my expression. ‘Now, this is unpardonable, not offering you anything. Can I get you a drink, some coffee? Maybe some whisky?

It’s very cold outside.’

‘Tea would be great if you have it,’ I say. ‘Just PG or anything.’

‘No problem,’ says Guy, motioning me to come through to the back room with him.

The office is a smal , chaotic space, overflowing with papers and books, some old and clearly antiques, others dog-eared paperbacks.

There’s a pile of old Dick Francis novels by the side of the worn Eames chair. Two dirty coffee cups sit on the floor and a fan heater purrs amiably beside them. There’s a worn footstool, too, upon which lies a sleeping cat, also purring.

Guy pushes the cat off. ‘That’s Thomasina,’ he says. ‘Stupid thing. We thought she was a boy for ages, cal ed her Thomas, and then she suddenly produces kittens, three of them.’ The cat straightens herself languidly and glides away.

It looks as if nothing’s been changed for years. Everything in this shop is slow; the warmth is soporific, as is the smel of old, musty things, the rumbling sound of the heater. It is getting dark outside, and I wish I could just curl up in the chair and sleep.

‘It looks very cosy here,’ I say. ‘Must be nice, if you’re having a quiet day, to come in here and relax.’

He gestures to the chair, and turns away to fil the kettle from a cracked old sink in the corner of the room. ‘Yes, though lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot of napping and not enough sel ing of antiques. Not very good.’

‘It’s a hard time,’ I say, sitting down. ‘That’s true,’ he says. ‘But I’m not keeping up. Not been going to the markets enough, getting new stuff in.’

He waves around the shop, and I see now that, while every piece is lovely, the space is bare. ‘We need more stock.’

‘You have some lovely things, though,’ I say. ‘It’s a beautiful shop.’

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly. ‘Thanks. My wife used to keep it looking rather better than it does now. She had a wonderful eye for that kind of thing.’ He stops. ‘But she died five years ago, and I’ve let it go since then.’

I’m sure Hannah was with Guy at Octavia’s confirmation, but that was years ago. I’m sure I vaguely remember her, curly hair and a wide smile.

‘Wel , I’m sure she’d be very pleased,’ I say.

Guy pours hot water into a mug. ‘You’re very kind,’ he says.

‘But I fear she’d be angry with me if she could see what an old man I’ve turned into lately.’ He looks around and down, in disgust. ‘Reading specs, for Christ’s sake! On a chain! Pah.’ He taps them gently with one finger. ‘Dozing in the afternoon, doing the Telegraph crossword and listening to Radio 3 – if my younger self could see me now.’ He stops.

‘No one wants to think they’l be doing a crossword and dozing in the afternoons when they’re twenty,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself.

When I was twenty, wow. I wanted to take over the world. I was very angry. I even took part in a sit-in.’

‘How admirable of you. What for?’ Guy asks. He hands me the mug and gestures vaguely towards a nearly-empty pint of milk on a little fridge by the door.

‘Do you know,’ I admit, ‘I can’t remember. Something about students’ rights. Or maybe animal rights.’

Guy gives a shout of laughter and sits down on the foot-stool, smiling.

‘So you sat in some student hal al night and you can’t remember why?’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I think I fancied one of the blokes organ-ising it.’

Jason, Oli’s best friend, our best man, was a radical student leader straight from central casting: he even owned a khaki jacket and had a beard. ‘Now he’s head of year at an exemplary secondary school down the road,’ I tel Guy, blowing onto my tea to cool it down. ‘He wears a suit to work. He and my husband aren’t at al how they were when they were twenty. They used to want to change the world. Now they just want an app on their phones that’l tel them how to go about changing the world.’

Guy looks at me, and he is sober for a moment. ‘Perhaps we’re al guilty of that,’ he says.

‘How so?’

‘Oh, I was the same,’ he says easily, but his voice is sad.

‘Thought I had al the answers, like your friend there. I thought we lived in a stagnant, rotten country, run by elderly upper-class white men. And we did need to change, but I didn’t do anything to help it.’ He smiles, but there is bitterness in his eyes. ‘I run a shop sel ing pretty old things to people. I live in the past now, and the country’s stil run by upper-class white men as far as I can see. Banks, government, committees – it’s just that most of them are younger than me. Younger and richer.’

I don’t know how to respond to such honesty, and the silence is rather uncomfortable. After a few moments, Guy recal s himself.

‘Rather maudlin,’ he says. ‘Too much time to think. Bad thing.’ He pats his knees and stands up, rather stiffly, for the stool is a long way down.

‘Time to explain why I asked you here.’

He goes over to the corner of the room. ‘Now, Natasha, I have something to give you, and that’s why I wanted to meet up. To – explain.’ He opens a cupboard door and turns back towards me.

He is holding a smal , flat thing in his hand, and I stare down at it, not real y thinking.

‘Here,’ he says, holding his hand out to me. ‘Cecily’s diary.’ There’s a thud and a squeal from Thomasina the cat. I have dropped my cup of tea, boiling water is everywhere.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It takes a few minutes to clean up, and I am very sorry. There is a painting that is probably ruined, as hot tea and water-colours don’t mix, and I keep apologising as I help Guy wipe down various cases and books and random antiques, but he is completely relaxed about it. As I am on the floor, mopping up the tea with a cloth, I say, ‘Where the hel did you get this?’