Читать книгу: «True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop», страница 4
‘The oceanographer.’ Johnny nodded again. ‘Do you want a drink, Very Love?’
Hearing her name said in that dark-grey velvet voice made her name sound less like a cheesy Valentine’s card translated from English to Japanese and back to English again. She suppressed a shiver. ‘It’s Verity, really. My name. But everyone calls me Very. Sorry.’
Verity really should have made her excuses and tucked herself away in her usual corner, but she agreed that a drink would be nice and then Luigi hurried over so they could order a glass of Malbec each.
It was easy to pick up the thread again that stitched together all of Verity’s dating woes. She’d been single for three years, after her first, last and only relationship had imploded spectacularly and messily and painfully. After the fallout of fallouts with Adam, Verity was happy to be single, but the world wasn’t happy that she was happy.
‘They’re not being mean, my friends. They’re really not. It’s just most of them are coupled up or obsessed with being coupled up and they expect me to want to be one half of a couple too. Also, they have very low standards when it comes to picking out dates for me.’ Verity winced at the memory of an awkward blind date with a man Nina had met at a party who turned out to be what he called a ‘full-time dominant’ and wanted to know if Verity ‘needed a man in her life who could wield some affectionate but firm control?’ Verity hadn’t known what to say but luckily her most glacial look had said it all for her.
‘I get set up by my friends too. It hasn’t been a great success,’ Johnny said as their drinks arrived. He lifted up his glass so Verity could clink hers against it. ‘Cheers. And judging from the women they try to pair me with, it seems like my friends think very little of me. Usually it’s girls who are so young that I feel like I need to ask them to provide photo ID, or bitter divorcees. The last one wanted to take out a hit on her ex-husband. Of course when I complain, my friends accuse me of being picky. Say that I should settle.’
‘That’s why I went with the fake boyfriend. It’s also very convenient that his job means that he’s not around much.’ Verity couldn’t believe that she was talking about her imaginary boyfriend with a complete stranger. ‘I’m absolutely one hundred per cent happy being single but I’m having a hard time getting my friends on board with that.’
Johnny pursed his lips thoughtfully, which did delightful things to his mouth. ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right person.’
‘I don’t want to meet the right person. I have a busy job, great friends, an extremely needy cat. I don’t need anyone else in my life.’ Verity clutched her glass tighter. ‘So, what’s your story, then? Surely you can’t have any trouble meeting women?’
Johnny ducked his head. Verity was sure it was to hide his pleased but bashful smile. He must have mirrors in his house so he could see that he was very pleasing aesthetically. ‘No, no trouble meeting women.’
Of course! It was obvious. Now that she was no longer crucified on the altar of her own embarrassment, Verity could process the raw data sitting opposite her. No man could look like that and … ‘Oh, right. You’re gay. OK. And you haven’t told your friends? Really? Well, it’s none of my business, I suppose.’
‘I’m flattered that you seem to think that,’ Johnny said, his voice all barbed wire now, instead of velvet vowels. ‘You didn’t even make it a question, just an unequivocal statement, but no, not gay.’
Verity put her hands to her crimson cheeks. ‘Sorry. I don’t usually run around outing people … One of my best friends from uni is gay. And two cousins. I’m all about the LGBT rights. I love the gays!’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that but I’m still not gay.’
Johnny’s eyes were a very definite blue now. Like the sea in winter; frost-tipped and cold. Verity suspected that he was a Darcy. It was very rare to meet a Darcy.
It probably came from having read Pride and Prejudice so many times that she knew it off by heart, but on meeting new people, Verity always found herself assigning them roles in Pride and Prejudice. She’d met a lot of Jane Bennets and Charles Bingleys, far too many Mr Collinses, an occasional Wickham, but a Darcy was rarer than a single man in possession of a good fortune who was in actual want of a wife. And actually meeting a Darcy wasn’t that much fun.
In fact, it was unbelievably awkward for a count of ten, then Johnny’s phone beeped. As he picked it up Verity realised that there was no good reason to stay and suffer.
She said goodbye, quickly got up, though Johnny was riveted to his phone and gave no acknowledgement of her hasty departure. ‘Stick both glasses on my tab,’ she yelped at Luigi who still couldn’t hide his disbelief that Verity had broken with her usual Friday night routine for the first time in three years. Not only that, she’d also been seen in the company of a man.
3
‘This is an evening of wonders, indeed!’
Her plans for dinner thwarted, Verity retraced her steps back to Rochester Street and There’s No Plaice Like Home for a small cod and chips and a tub of mushy peas to go.
‘And can you take your cat with you?’ asked Liz from behind the counter. ‘Been out the back for hours making an awful sound.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Verity muttered. She’d only moved into the flat above Happy Ever After the week before and had been determined to keep Strumpet indoors for at least a month so he could acclimatise to his new home and not make tracks back to Islington. But as soon as Strumpet had realised that his new home was less than one hundred metres from a chippy and a Swedish deli with a smokehouse in its backyard for curing salmon, he’d become determined in his efforts to make an escape. Usually the laziest and most languid of moggies, lately Strumpet had taken to racing through any open door so he could taste freedom … And fish.
Verity had been reduced to putting posters up all along Rochester Street featuring a photo of Strumpet in all his fully fleshed glory and begging her neighbours ‘Please do not feed this cat. He’s on a strict calorie-controlled diet.’
Strumpet hadn’t got the memo about the diet. He was at the back door of the chippy, up on his hind legs (Verity was amazed that they could support the rest of him) as he demanded entrance.
‘What are you doing?’ Verity demanded but Strumpet pretended that he couldn’t hear her. He did that a lot. Somehow he managed to remain deaf to Verity’s pleas to leave her alone and stop using her face as a pillow but could hear a sliver of cheese being munched from several rooms away in the middle of a thunderstorm.
In the end, Strumpet would only let himself be lured away from the chippy by Verity breaking off a tailpiece from her own fish supper. Then she scooped him up and carried him, furiously squirming, along the street and into the cobbled mews where Happy Ever After née Bookends had stood for over a hundred years.
Rochester Mews had really smartened up its act in the last few weeks. True, there was still a row of empty, dilapidated shops along one side of it, but Happy Ever After was resplendent with its new smudgy-grey and clover-pink makeover. Verity hadn’t quite got used to the burst of pride in her chest (though some of that burst was currently Strumpet’s claws) when she caught sight of her place of employment and her new home.
She wasn’t the only local resident pleased about Happy Ever After’s change in fortune. Since Posy had spruced up the wooden benches and pruned the trees in the mews, it had become the preferred hangout of a gang of hoodies from the nearby estate who now congregated at the benches most evenings to smoke weed.
Nina had asked them if they’d mind smoking weed somewhere else, but apparently all their usual haunts ran the risk of them being spotted by a parent or teacher. They had agreed that they’d only assemble after closing hours and Nina and Verity had decided it was best to stay friendly and establish an emotional rapport with them.
‘All right, Very? You be looking fine, girl,’ the smallest hoodie said and Verity smiled in a way that she hoped was polite but not the least bit encouraging and hurried over to Happy Ever After, keys clutched in her hand so they could double up as a weapon if need be.
Strumpet still unhappily wriggling under her arm, Verity unlocked the door and stepped inside the shop. She took one moment for another burst of pride as she surveyed the shelves, some of which she’d painstakingly painted herself, and inhaled the whiff of new books and the lingering scent of the Happy Ever After candle they’d had specially commissioned.
