It was all very well having a new name for the shop and a unique selling point, but Posy still wasn’t sure how to get her plans from flip chart to reality.
Luckily, Verity and Nina were fired up and full of can-do spirit when they burst into the shop the next morning. Or rather, Verity sidled in, not being one for bursting, waved at Posy who was going through a box of new deliveries and said, ‘I’ve had a think about it overnight and I’m completely on board with Happy Ever After. In fact, I’m very excited about it.’ Verity shook her fists like they were cheerleader pompoms. ‘See? This is me being excited. Now I’ve got to do the VAT returns, but later in the week, I think we should come up with an action plan. Maybe a spreadsheet too. And definitely a schedule. What fun!’
It didn’t exactly sound like fun, but a moment later Nina burst – literally this time – through the door.
‘I have paint samples!’ she cried, holding up a fistful of colour charts. ‘And I spoke to Claude, my tattoo artist, and he said that he’d design a logo for us. For free. I’ve given him so much money over the years that I always used to joke he should give me frequent-flier miles.’
‘Paint samples?’ Posy queried. ‘Are we going to paint then?’
‘I think we should. It is rather dark and well, woody in here, isn’t it?’
It was, and in between dealing with the odd customer, two tourists who couldn’t find the British Museum even though it was a massive building heavily signposted and only five minutes away, and many browsers who were more interested in sheltering from the leaden February skies and the seeping drizzle than buying books, Posy and Nina spent a very enjoyable morning debating colour schemes.
They decided on a light but warm grey for the shelves and a smudgy pink for accents. ‘I did promise Tom I wouldn’t paint the shop pink, but it’s only a highlight colour,’ Posy said as she held up the swatch. ‘It’s not a girly pink.’
‘It’s a clover pink. I had my hair that colour during my gothic Lolita phase,’ Nina said. ‘Now, shall we have a bash at coming up with a shop layout?’
As they pondered the ‘flow’ of the shop and how many bookcases they’d have to cull to achieve it, Posy wondered if she should speak to Sebastian, give him a heads-up. Not that she needed his permission to make sweeping changes to what belonged to her legally. Maybe she’d be better off hiring a lawyer, a kindly, avuncular lawyer, who could write Sebastian a letter telling him that. A kindly, avuncular lawyer who charged very reasonably for his time, Posy thought.
They were in the main room now, Nina chattering happily away about how to make the shop more welcoming ‘Do you think there is anything in that Feng Shui? Have we got any books on it?’ as Posy imagined Sebastian’s lip-curling derision when he spotted the splashes of her clover pink accent colour dotted around the shop.
‘Sebastian!’ she muttered contemptuously.
‘Yeah, what is he doing out there?’ Nina asked. ‘And who’s that guy he’s with? Do you think he’s fit?’
‘What? Is who fit? Sebastian? Can hardly see him at the gym lifting weights. The only bit of his body that ever gets a workout is his tongue,’ Posy said as she crossed over to the window where Nina was watching Sebastian and another man on the opposite side of the yard.
‘You saucy mare!’ Nina nudged Posy and treated her to a theatrical wink. ‘How would you know what he gets up to with his tongue? Something you need to tell your Aunty Nina about?’
‘What?’ Posy looked at her friend in confusion then wished she hadn’t as Nina did something obscene with her own tongue so Posy could see the underside of her piercing, which always made her feel slightly vomitous. ‘I didn’t mean like that! His tongue has been nowhere about my person. As if! I meant his mouth! Not like that either. That he never stops talking and usually the content of his conversation consists mostly of unmitigated rudeness.’
‘Protesting a little too much there, aren’t you?’ Nina teased.
They’d been standing at the window while carrying on this conversation, so it was inevitable that Sebastian spotted them. He looked past the other man, who was gesticulating wildly, then raised his hand in greeting.
No, that would have been too polite. What Sebastian was in fact doing was beckoning Posy with an imperious finger.
‘I wonder what he wants,’ said Posy, making absolutely no effort to find out. A moment later the beckoning turned into a clicking of Sebastian’s fingers, as if he were summoning an underperforming lackey.
‘So rude, but I’d better go out and talk to him,’ Posy muttered without enthusiasm.
‘Keep away from his tongue!’ Nina cheerfully called after her as Posy squared her shoulders against the bitter February wind and opened the door.
‘Morland! Over here! Haven’t got all day,’ was Sebastian’s peremptory greeting.
Posy shuffled across the courtyard, thankful that unlike their last meeting, this time she was fully dressed in bra, jeans, jumper and cardigan, unadorned with anything that could be mistaken for piles of poo. ‘And hello to you too!’ she said as soon as she was near enough not to have to bellow. ‘What’s up?’
‘Brocklehurst, this is Morland, quasi-owner of the bookshop,’ Sebastian said to his companion even as Posy turned on him.
‘There’s nothing quasi about it. I am the actual owner,’ Posy said furiously.
‘I told you she was uppity,’ Sebastian sighed. ‘Morland, this is Brocklehurst. We were at Eton together.’
‘Hello, I’m Piers,’ said the other man. ‘And I refuse to call a beautiful woman by her surname.’
‘Posy.’ She held out her hand but instead of shaking it Piers Brocklehurst raised it to his lips in a practised move so he could kiss the back of it. ‘Nice to meet you.’
It wasn’t exactly … nice. In fact, Posy longed to rub the back of her hand against her jeans. There was something about the smooth gesture, an oily quality to Piers’ patter, the failure of his easy smile to reach his eyes, which remained flat and rather dead, that spooked Posy. In fact, Piers sent shivers rippling down her spine, in spite of the fact he was textbook good-looking, albeit in an ex-public schoolboy kind of way. He was tall, with blond hair slicked back from his ruddy face, and muscles that rippled beneath his blue pinstripe suit. The man wouldn’t have looked out of place in an aftershave ad, smirking to camera as an unseen woman ran a caressing hand down his chest, but he wasn’t Posy’s type. She already had one extremely irritating ex-public schoolboy in her life – she didn’t need any more.
‘No, really, the pleasure’s all mine,’ Piers murmured throatily, and that flat, dead gaze of his rested on Posy’s hips, breasts, face and then looked beyond her to the bookshop as if there was nothing there to hold his interest.
‘That’s quite enough of that,’ Sebastian snapped, coming to stand between Posy and Piers. ‘Posy only likes men in soppy romance novels, so you’re on a hiding to nothing there. Now about the bookshop, Morland, Brocklehurst has been talking about redeveloping the site, maybe building a boutique hotel here.’ Sebastian gestured at the row of boarded-up shops. ‘And where the bookshop is, he was saying that we should put up a fancy apartment block, with concierge, basement gym, swimming pool and—’
‘Do you ever listen to a single word I say?’ Obviously not. ‘Bookends is mine for at least two years and, as I tried to tell you the last time I saw you, it’s going to be the only bookshop in the country dedicated to romantic fiction.’ Posy finished with relish because she’d shocked Sebastian into silence.
Annoyingly, Sebastian still looked handsome even with his mouth hanging half open in a gormless fashion. ‘Are you mad?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘Quite sane,’ Posy assured him as Piers muttered something under his breath that suggested he too doubted Posy’s claims to sanity. ‘And as I was saying, I’m the owner of Bookends for at least the next two years.’
‘More like two months if you insist on going through with some ridiculous scheme to turn it into a lavender-scented palace crammed wall to wall with bodice-rippers. Two months for the business to fail horribly and the bailiffs to turn up on your doorstep,’ Sebastian summed up with obvious pleasure.
Posy felt shivers run down her spine as if Sebastian’s words, aside from being hurtful on about a hundred different levels, were a prophecy.
‘It won’t come to that,’ she insisted, fingers crossed behind her back to be on the safe side.
‘Of course it won’t,’ Piers said, like it was any of his business. ‘Why don’t you leave this to me, Thorndyke?’ he suggested, slipping an arm around Posy’s shoulders – an arm under which she immediately stiffened like an angry cat. As Piers registered this, his dead eyes suddenly came to life, flashing with annoyance that his obvious charms weren’t working. ‘Look, Posy, I’m sure you mean well but it’s clear you don’t know anything about how to run a business. You’re never going to get the footfall you need tucked away down this dingy alley.’
‘It’s not an alley, it’s a mews,’ Posy countered and she couldn’t stand Piers’ arm around her for even another second so she shook her shoulders to dislodge him. His eyes flashed again. ‘Originally there were stables here. And we do get footfall – or we did and we can again. There used to be signs for the mews all down Rochester Street – and there will be again. Why don’t you do up the empty shops and rent them out?’ Posy turned back to Sebastian in the vain hope that she could win him round. ‘Do you remember when old Mr Jessop had the tea and coffee merchants? How he’d sell broken biscuits by weight and roast coffee beans on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and the whole area would smell wonderful?’
‘I always thought it smelt of burnt toast,’ Sebastian said crushingly. ‘Though of course there was the time he caught me shoplifting broken biscuits.’ He smiled wickedly, even reaching his eyes, which gleamed with memories of past wrongdoings. ‘Took my ear between thumb and forefinger and marched me across the mews to Bookends and wouldn’t let go until Lavinia promised to thrash me soundly.’
‘Which I’m guessing she didn’t,’ Posy said.
‘Of course she didn’t.’ Sebastian rolled his eyes at the very suggestion, but his voice had softened at the mention of his grandmother.
‘I can’t believe that you’re considering bulldozing the mews and putting up some ugly buildings in its place.’ Posy clasped her hands together in an imploring manner.
‘They wouldn’t be ugly,’ Piers said. ‘I work with an architect who specialises in cutting-edge design.’
Posy ignored him. ‘You could rent out the shops to independent businesses and you’d still make some profit. OK, not as much as a hotel and flats, but you already have loads of money, Sebastian, why do you need even more of it?’
‘Morland. Dear, simple Morland.’ Sebastian shook his head in a patronising way, which made Posy grind her teeth so hard she feared for her back molars. ‘You have absolutely no idea how capitalism works, do you?’
‘I do understand how it works because, unlike you, I didn’t get kicked out of university. But that doesn’t mean I agree with capitalism. I mean, it’s all right in moderation …’
At this, both Sebastian and Piers made a synchronised scoffing noise, which they’d probably learned at Eton. Realising that the discussion was veering off course, Posy abandoned her attempt to educate them on the dangers of excessive capitalism. ‘Anyway,’ she said, a note of desperation creeping in. ‘Anyway, you can’t just barge in here, even if you do own the place, and decide to tear it all down. There are laws against that kind of thing! You have to apply for change of use for a building. And I’m pretty sure that you can’t exceed the footprint of the existing buildings so—’
‘Someone’s watched a couple of property programmes, have they?’ Piers sneered. Posy had thought it impossible that there could be anyone on the planet more patronising than Sebastian, but Piers was doing a very good job of proving her wrong. ‘No need to worry your pretty head about that. An envelope of cash to the right person at the council planning department and we could demolish the entire alley and no one would bat an eyelash.’
‘I would! Sebastian, really! What would Lavinia say?’ Posy knew that deep down, deep deep down, Sebastian had a better nature – or at least, she thought he did – and she needed to appeal to it. ‘The mews, Bookends, all the things your grandmother adored – why would you want to get rid of them?’
‘They’re just things, places, Morland.’ Sebastian stood back and surveyed the cobbled yard. ‘You can’t live in the past for ever. Lavinia realised that she’d let things stay the same for too long. When things stay the same, they stagnate and fester and then drastic measures are needed.’
He made it sound as if the mews and her beloved Bookends were some monstrous carbuncle that must be removed as soon as was humanly possible.
‘Nothing drastic needs to be done,’ Posy protested. ‘All it needs is a bit of overhauling, rejigging. It’s amazing the difference a fresh coat of paint can make.’
‘You needn’t worry, Morland. I wouldn’t have you out on your ear,’ Sebastian said in what he must have imagined was a comforting manner. ‘You could have one of the fancy new flats, to own outright – because I know that’s what Lavinia would have wanted. And if you’re still set on this dreary business of bookselling, you could get a job in a bookshop, if you must …’
For one moment, a nano-moment, Posy entertained the idea of owning a fancy new flat and a stress-free job at a big chain bookshop. But only for that fleeting moment and then she was thinking of how every inch of Bookends meant something to her. It was where her heart was. Her haven. Her happy place. And if Bookends was gone, flattened to the ground, if Posy and Sam didn’t live and laugh and love in the same place that their parents lived and laughed and loved, then the memories of her parents would fade and dissipate like the dust from the rubble.
Posy glanced back at the shop and saw Nina still peering out of the window, though unashamedly gawping would have been a more accurate description. This wasn’t only about her and Sam. It was about the Bookends staff too. Until she’d come to Bookends, Nina had never managed to survive the probationary period of her previous three jobs. And as for Verity! Introverted Verity, where else would she find a job with people who didn’t mind if she never ever answered the phone?
‘… very secure location. We’re talking about a gated community. Keep out the riff-raff,’ Piers was saying. Posy realised that she’d tuned him out completely. It was odd. He was one of those people that, the more you looked at them, the less attractive they became. There was something quite feral about his smile. ‘And you needn’t worry about the neighbours. The other flats will be snapped up by foreign corporations as an investment and no one will ever live in them, so you’ll have the gym and the …’
She had heard enough! Her mouth opened on a gasp of sheer outrage. ‘It’s not even going to be affordable housing? It’s people like you who are sucking the soul out of London. Killing our community spirit,’ she said, wagging a finger at first Piers, then Sebastian, who sighed as if Posy was being wilful on purpose.
But she wasn’t. It was Piers and his ilk who were responsible for driving all the character out of an area and replacing it with multi-million pound housing developments for the wealthy, and estate agents to sell the flats in the multi-million pound housing developments, and maybe a couple of coffee shops owned by corporations that didn’t pay their tax. In fact, it was people like Piers who were responsible for the signs that had gone up locally declaring that the areas formerly and delightfully known as Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Clerkenwell were henceforth to be known collectively as Midtown. Over Posy’s dead body.
Speaking of which … Posy put her hands on her hips and her best fight face on. ‘I’m not listening to another word of this,’ she insisted. ‘This land, the shop, was gifted to your great-grandmother Agatha, in the hope it would distract her from being a Suffragette.’
‘Are you going somewhere with this?’ Sebastian asked, ostentatiously lifting his bespoke cuff to look at his watch, while Piers stared at Posy as if he’d quite like to demolish her along with the empty shops of Rochester Mews.
‘Yes! Agatha got sent to Holloway Prison for chaining herself to the railings of Buckingham Palace and I will chain myself to Bookends if that’s what it takes to stop you smashing it to smithereens.’ Posy hoped that she’d never have to make good on that threat, but if it came to bulldozers and wrecking balls in the mews, then by God, she’d do it!
Sebastian didn’t seem too convinced. ‘No disrespect to my great-grandmother, but you’re the poster child for why women should never have got the vote, Morland,’ Sebastian said, brushing down the front of his suit jacket as if Posy had unleashed a tidal wave of spittle during her impassioned rant, which she hadn’t. Or she hoped she hadn’t. ‘Since you got the vote, you’ve all got ideas above your station.’
‘Yeah, there’s only two things a woman’s good for,’ Piers sneered. ‘Or one thing, if you can afford your own private chef, which I can.’
‘Oh my God—’ Posy began, so furiously that she could barely choke out the words. Fortunately, she was silenced by a thump on her shoulder.
‘What’s the only other thing women are good for besides cooking, then?’ asked Nina in her most sultry voice from behind Posy. ‘Is it being generally amazing?’
Piers’ mouth hung open as he took in the vision that was Nina. As for Sebastian: well, he’d never stared at Posy like that. Not even when she wasn’t wearing a bra, but then Nina was built like Bettie Page, though Bettie Page had never been covered in tattoos, had a pierced nose and lip, or hair of a shade that Nina described as ‘washed-up mermaid’.
Piers smiled so ingratiatingly he looked like a hyena in a flashy suit. ‘Maybe I could tell you over drinks?’ he suggested, brusquely sidestepping Posy so he could get closer to Nina, his eyes roaming her curves, showcased in her retro little black dress. ‘I’m Piers, and you … you’re gorgeous. I bet you get that all the time.’
Posy pulled a face at the exact same moment that Sebastian pulled a face. At least they could agree that Piers’ chat-up lines were as vile as his plans to turn London into a desolate high-spec wasteland and that the only person who’d be foolish enough to fall for them would be …
‘Nina – and only some of the time.’ Nina, who had the worst taste in men of any woman that Posy had ever met, was smiling at Piers and batting her eyelashes. ‘Posy, there’s some woman on the phone who wants to know if you might be able to track down an out-of-print novel for her.’
‘Well, that’s sure to keep the bailiffs away,’ Sebastian said dryly and it seemed they were done agreeing with each other. Normal service resumed. ‘Anyway, Morland, I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but that would be a lie. I’ll be in touch.’
‘I absolutely won’t be looking forward to it,’ Posy snapped. Next time she saw Sebastian it would have to be just the two of them so she could talk some sense into him without an interfering audience. It would be the hardest thing she’d ever done. ‘Come on, Nina, we’ve got work to do, books to sell …’
Nina was still rapt under Piers’ lascivious gaze. ‘Just so you know, I don’t put out on a first date,’ she was saying.
‘Yeah, well, third date is industry standard, unless there’s champagne involved,’ Piers said, his gaze lingering on Nina’s breasts. ‘So, these tattoos of yours, how far do they go down?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ Nina said.
Posy couldn’t quite believe her eyes, and even Sebastian murmured ‘bloody hell’ under his breath, when Piers stuck a business card into Nina’s cleavage.
‘Call me,’ he said.
‘Well, aren’t you a cocky one?’ Nina purred.
Posy couldn’t bear it any longer. Once Nina started with what she called banter and what Posy called smut and innuendo, it never ended well. It ended with Nina going out with yet another man who wasn’t fit to kiss the hems of Nina’s wiggle dresses, and Nina getting her heart broken. Again.
‘I can and will dock your pay, young lady, if you don’t go back to the shop right now,’ Posy said in a very un-Posylike way.
‘All right, all right, keep your hair on,’ Nina muttered, but she let Posy tug her back to the shop.
‘To be continued, Morland!’ Sebastian shouted after them.
Posy raised her hand in acknowledgement and hustled Nina through the door. ‘If you go on a date with that Piers, I will sack you,’ she warned Nina.
‘That would never stand at an employment tribunal,’ Nina said. She hurried back to her spot at the window, Posy close behind her. ‘He is quite handsome, in a Wolf of Wall Street kind of way.’
‘He is appalling. How can you not see that?’ Posy asked wearily, because they had been down this well-trodden path many times before.
‘Oh no, I think Piers is different,’ Nina insisted.
They watched the two men walk along the row of disused shops, Piers pausing to gesture wildly with his hands again as if he were describing his grandiose plans to eradicate every last bit of character and history from the spot where they stood. Sebastian was uncharacteristically still and silent until he rocked back on the heels of his handmade shoes and said something to Piers, which made the other man’s mouth hang open.
Sebastian walked off, leaving Piers standing there. Sebastian turned as he reached the entrance to the mews to look back at the shop, his eyes searching for and finding Posy at her spot in the window. He lifted his hand, gave her a mocking salute then was gone.
Finally, Posy could begin to breathe again.