Love-40 (6 page)

‘Children?' Liam made them sound like an alien species. ‘But…'

‘People do.' Suzi put the bowls down for the dogs and cats. ‘She's only thirty-nine. It's not too late.' She paused, thinking of the biological clock that women talked about, that she'd never even heard ticking. And she felt a sudden sadness. ‘Is it?'

Liam seemed to have gone into shock. His eyes glazed, his eyebrows met in a frown and he pushed a hand through his dark curls. ‘Marriage? Children?' Shaking his head, he managed to recover sufficiently to yank out the cork, pour himself a large glass and down it in one. ‘I've asked her,' he said. ‘I used to ask her quite often.'

‘Oh.' Suzi was surprised; guilty, she supposed, of falling into the stereotypical way of thinking, that it was the guy who was unwilling to commit. ‘And she refused you?' Part of her couldn't imagine any woman refusing Liam. But then again, not every woman saw Liam through rose-tinted sisterly spectacles.

‘She said, weren't we fine as we were. Are. Were,' Liam told her. ‘She said she wasn't sure.'

Of what, Suzi wondered. Or of whom? She had known Estelle for practically her whole life, and yet she could be so secretive. She had never, for example, discussed with Suzi how she felt about marrying her brother. How on earth had that subject got left out? ‘And children?' she ventured.

‘Need security,' Liam snapped. ‘Or that's what she's always said. Although why she imagines –' He broke off abruptly, looked at Suzi. ‘Do you want to marry Michael?' he demanded.

‘Good grief, no.' Suzi was surprised he had to ask. Liam and Estelle had been together for ever, but it was still early days for herself and Michael. And she and Michael had never had the intensity Suzi associated with love. Not that she knew anything about it – having never been in it – but she could make an educated guess. She had dated various men, enjoyed their company, been to bed with one or two who had – like Michael – crept past her wariness, who had liked animals, not tried to dominate her, been kind, sweet, tender. And OK, those men were few and far between. She had to admit that the majority of her adult life had been spent living alone, her passions reserved for CG's, her animals, her cottage and the books she still consumed voraciously, although she no longer worked in Pridehaven library. But as for love …

Anyway, she bent to stroke Castor's sleek coat and received a head-butt in return. She had her animals, didn't she? She had no reason to feel sad. What did she need with love?

*   *   *

It was Saturday afternoon and Estelle paused mid-vacuuming to scan the local paper she'd picked up from the floor. She flicked the switch, the whine of the vacuum faded and the heavy throb of Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon
took over. Goodness knows how, but it energised her just to have it on in the background; she could hear the thrust of it deep in her senses, over and above everything else. Either that, or she was having an eighties reversion. She'd better be careful, if she went any further back she'd be needing therapy and wearing love-beads.

HOUSE CLEARANCES WANTED
, the advertisement read. With a jokey illustration of a man bent double carrying a wardrobe – but still with a smile on his face.
CLEAR THE DECKS … START ANEW … FAIREST DEALERS IN TOWN.

Estelle sat down heavily on Aunt Mo's old rocking chair, practically the only piece of furniture she owned, despite the shopful downstairs. The chair seemed more at home here than it had in Liam's garret, Estelle reflected, remembering the childhood evenings she'd spent curled up on the sofa, telly down low, faintly aware of Auntie Mo in the corner, scribbling on a notepad, rocking for all she was worth. ‘Helps me think,' she used to say. Every now and then the steady rhythm of the creaks would change and she would come back to the real world, ask Estelle, ‘Do you want anything, ducks?'

But Estelle would long ago have got hungry and helped herself. She shook her head at the memory. Such loneliness. It was easier all round when she started spending her time at Suzi and Liam's.

She rocked slowly, looking around the small living room that was at least hers – for a while. She might paint it, she thought, something decadent and seriously seductive like chocolate and cream, or fruity like tangerine and cranberry. Something that reminded her of youth and having fun. Only, who was she being seductive for? And was she over-reacting to the fact that she was nearly forty?

Though Auntie Mo had never been a bad parent substitute, Estelle reminded herself. She had taken her brother's child in without hesitation, given her as much time and love as she could spare – for a woman obsessed with the other world of the romantic fiction she created. And best of all, she had left what money she had – not a lot, writing fiction clearly not being as lucrative as one might have thought – to Estelle, when she eventually died. Not of a broken heart or something faintly romantic like leukaemia, but of a stroke that wiped her out quickly and cleanly, shortly after she'd written the words,
THE END.

Sad though Estelle was to lose her, she was grateful on Auntie Mo's behalf for the timing (for imagine how distressed she would have been to leave her hero and heroine entrenched in misunderstanding) and certainly grateful for the small legacy that had enabled her to join forces with Suzi to create Secrets In The Attic. She was just getting to the point in the customer complaints department she worked in – customer services really, but complaints summed it up more accurately – when she was likely to lose her cool. Just about to reach that career point of no return, when she might adjust her headphones one day and say to some moaning old git,
look, why don't you just fuck off?
It wasn't easy working in a complaints department. After all, listening to abuse all day couldn't possibly improve one's self-esteem.

And when all was said and done, Estelle agreed with most of the customers who were complaining – they
were
being overcharged by a bureaucratic, autocratic monopoly of a company. And they still got lousy water when they turned on their taps. The River Pride still flooded and there was always a hosepipe ban come August, even when it had rained all through July. So who could blame them for complaining?

What a relief then, to leave it all behind. To be, with Suzi, her own boss. And to be living next door to the fairest dealers in town.

Fairest dealers in town? Estelle folded the paper with a sigh. They'd be the only dealers in town at this rate. It was her turn to do the Saturday stint today and how many customers had she had all morning? Three – only one had bought anything, and that was an old Bunty annual priced at three quid that Suzi had paid £2.50 for at a car boot sale six months ago. So she hadn't felt a moment's guilt about shutting for lunch and coming up here instead. At least she could use her time constructively instead of staring into space and thinking about Liam. Liam – too much and not enough, that just about summed it up.

Someone, she realised, was banging on the door downstairs, shouting, ‘Shop!'

Reluctantly she dragged herself to her feet. She should show willing, she supposed. She'd never forgive herself if it turned out to be the customer she'd been waiting for – the one who was desperate to take that disgusting Victorian mahogany tallboy off her hands, and who wouldn't say no to the inlaid writing desk while he was at it.

It wasn't, though – it was Stan from next door.

‘Yes?' Estelle glared at him. His navy blazer was shiny at the cuffs and there was a brown stain just below the waistband of the fawn slacks – peculiar to men over sixty, Estelle thought. He looked seedy. He did not look like one half of the fairest dealers in town.

Stan grinned his ratty grin – a million miles away from
Wind In The Willows,
Estelle thought – revealing nicotine-coated teeth and receding gums. ‘This isn't the way to run a business, now is it?' he said, tapping the ‘closed' sign with the stained forefinger of his right hand. ‘We won't make any money by keeping the punters on the pavement, will we, eh?'

‘I can't see it has anything to do with you,' Estelle snapped. ‘What do you want anyway?' She ground her teeth and thought calming thoughts. Like how therapeutic it would be to dip this man's head in the River Pride on a winter's day. Like how surprising it was that outside the antique shop, there was life, people, colour and sunshine. ‘Well?' She kept her voice level but drew the line at a smile.

‘Any chance of a cuppa tea?'

He had to be joking. ‘I'm busy,' she informed him tartly. ‘So if you could get to the point?'

‘The point…' He leaned on the doorway and Estelle reminded herself to give it a wipe down afterwards, ‘… is that me and Terry, we couldn't help noticing that you and your lady partner don't do a lot of trade.'

Estelle waited. She was damned if she was going to give him the satisfaction of a response.

‘And Terry thought we should apologise, like.'

‘What for?' Estelle shifted her weight to the other foot and glanced pointedly at her watch and then outside. Her green Mini Mayfair was sitting by the roadside – luckily, restricted parking hadn't yet hit Pridehaven.

‘For muscling in. Though a spot of healthy competition might do you some good, love.' Stan waved at a customer coming out of the shop next door. ‘That's what the punters want,' he said. ‘A bit of a bargain. Good quality furniture at rock bottom prices.'

The last thing Estelle wanted to do right now was listen to the sales pitch of a man she despised. ‘We're appealing to a different market,' she said, wishing she believed it.

‘Not really a game for a woman though, is it?' Stan looked her up and down with his heavy-lidded gaze, not in any kind of sexual way, she decided, but as if he were assessing how many wardrobes she could hump down two flights of stairs at certain times of the month. What should she tell him? That with wings anything was possible?

‘I don't see why not.'

‘Oh, no hard feelings.' Stan grinned.

Bastard, she thought. She'd like to give him hard feelings of the painful variety, right where it hurt the most. ‘None taken,' she assured him.

‘But if you ever want to pack it in…'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘We always wanted bigger premises, you see.' Stan peered over her shoulder, a look of the mental tape measure in his eyes.

‘Then perhaps…' Estelle moved sideways to block his view. ‘You should move on elsewhere.'

‘We've only just got here.' Stan laughed at this, emitting a stench of tobacco and musty old rope.

Estelle recoiled. She wished, she really wished she'd never made that chocolate sponge. ‘Sorry,' she snapped. ‘Nothing doing.'

‘Ah well, only asking.' Stan flicked back his cuff to reveal … yes, she could have guessed, a particularly ostentatious Rolex watch. Probably a fake, Estelle thought; it looked like one of those awful market jobs. ‘Gotta go, gotta whole lot of jewellery to buy,' he added, rubbing his hands together.

‘Jewellery?' Estelle's look around the bargain basement had revealed plenty of furniture, but no jewellery.

‘We're branching out.' She could tell he was enjoying himself. She'd love to slam the door in his face, but she didn't want him to see he'd got her rattled.

‘I'm buying a load from old ma Barnaby.' He grinned again, and Estelle just knew that Hilda Barnaby had told him that, yes, she'd already spoken to the ladies from Secrets In The Attic, before telling him exactly what price they had offered for the Victorian brooch, pearl ear-rings, necklace and amethyst ring that Mrs Barnaby wanted to sell. What was worse was that Estelle had spent hours listening to Hilda Barnaby's family history.
And
she had offered her a fair price, damn it. She had even felt sorry for the woman – having to sell what had been in the family for generations.

‘We couldn't offer as much for the jewellery,' Stan confided now, watching her face intently. ‘You went a bit over the top there, love, if you don't mind me saying – I mean we've all got to make a profit, right?'

If she stayed absolutely still, Estelle thought, she wouldn't scream and she wouldn't thump him one. Don't get angry, get even. The trouble was, anger was so cathartic, so cleansing, it gave you so much more satisfaction in the end.

‘But I offered to clear some other stuff out for her, might sell it, might not, you know the sort of gear. Offered to take it off her hands, like.'

Estelle did know the sort of gear. It must be the furniture Hilda Barnaby kept in her spare room, the furniture Estelle had been shown but had not valued because Estelle hadn't known she wanted to sell it – the furniture that was worth at least a grand of anyone's money.

And in that moment Estelle realised something about Stan and Terry, the fairest dealers in town. They weren't just rivals, a couple of blokes trying to make a living. They were con men – the kind of low life who would rip off an old lady as soon as look at her.

‘Heavy game for women,' Stan said. ‘In more ways than one. Think about it, love.'

Estelle tensed. ‘Is that a threat?'

‘Nah.' Stan turned to go. ‘Just a piece of advice.'

*   *   *

After he'd gone, Estelle didn't open up the shop as perhaps she should have. Neither did she go round to Suzi's as she was tempted to – Liam would be there, she just knew it, and the last person she wanted to see was Liam.

Instead, she thought for a moment, looked up a number in the phone book and made a call. Then she grabbed some money from petty cash, picked up her bag and headed for the door. Outside, to her right, Pridehaven's Saturday market was in full swing, stalls selling everything from cheese and chutneys to brightly printed sarongs like the one Estelle was wearing. In Pridehaven, women didn't restrict their wearing of sarongs to the beach. They wore them all through spring and summer – so long as there was a touch of sunshine. And today, the sky was clear, the sea breeze was fresh and Estelle had made up her mind. There were plenty of people around but the shop would have to stay closed.