Claire took the throw with her the next day. With the work in her knitting bag she set off to Mrs Venables’s shop, her flyer tucked beside the project.
She stepped into the store, hoping she wasn’t going to be received as a nuisance. But Mrs Venables greeted her with a smile. ‘Take a look,’ Claire said and placed the uncompleted piece on the counter.
The woman picked it up carefully. Claire had done the bottom border and almost half of the rows of stripes. Bobbins hung off willy-nilly but the old woman was not only careful, but very exacting in her examination. ‘Why, my dear, this is extraordinary.’ She looked up at her. ‘Quite ambitious!’ Claire felt herself color. ‘And very well done.’
‘May I show you something else?’ she asked.
‘Another project?’
‘Not exactly. Well, sort of.’ Claire took out a flyer and handed it across the counter. She held her breath as the old woman looked at it. ‘What an original idea!’ Mrs Venables held the paper out as if to get the full effect. ‘An advert. I would never have thought of it.’ She paused, tilted her head to the side and looked at Claire. ‘Do you think it might work?’
Claire shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘I’ve never tried anything like this. But if you don’t mind teaching there’s really nothing to lose.’
‘Oh, but I love to teach. Of course it might be difficult to teach a large group, especially here.’
Claire laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I doubt we would get a large group.’ She paused, flustered because she had said ‘we’ and must not presume. She was also taking in the fact that Mrs Venables had actually assumed the classes would take place at her shop. ‘Anyway, I could help if it comes to that.’
‘Of course you should, my dear.’ Mrs Venables paused and looked at the flyer again. ‘But if we offer the classes for free how would you be paid?’
Claire smiled. ‘Well, the classes are free, but you know how we knitters are,’ – she looked around at the goods lying on the shelves – ‘people will want needles and yarn and knitting bags …’
Mrs Venables laughed. ‘Of course. They’ll want to be kitted out.’
‘And you know how enthusiastic we get. I’m only half through with my throw and I’m already thinking about a cotton sweater for summer.’
Mrs Venables’s watery blue eyes surveyed her again. ‘You are a really clever girl, Claire.’ She looked down at the flyer again. ‘Why don’t we tie them up with colored yarn?’ she asked. ‘So much more original than Sellotape. And a kind of promise of things to come, isn’t it?’
Did that mean she would do it? It must! ‘What a good idea!’ Claire exclaimed.
Mrs Venables picked up some scissors and selected a cherry red four-ply yarn. ‘How many flyers do you have?’
‘Only the one, but I’ll make photocopies.’ Her heart was beating so hard she was afraid Mrs Venables might hear it. ‘Do you think I should make fifty?’
‘As many as that?’ Mrs Venables asked. ‘Where would you put them all?’
‘Oh, I’ll find places,’ Claire promised. ‘Corner lamp posts, church railings, next to post boxes.’
‘What a good idea!’ Mrs Venables exclaimed. ‘Here, help me cut the yarn.’
It was half-past three that day when Claire walked into Toby’s shop. As she emerged from the dark stacks, Toby looked up and smiled. ‘Hello,’ he said and Claire smiled with relief. She was afraid of the day that he wouldn’t seem glad to see her. Today, luckily, was not that day. ‘Have you finished with Uncle Matthew and Co?’
‘Oh, yes! I loved the whole family,’ Claire said, referring to the Mitford book. ‘Time to move on, though. Something more …’
‘Oh, don’t tell me. It’s time for Barbara Pym.’ As usual he walked back to the stacks and rooted around. George Eliot, hearing the activity, jumped down from the desk and followed him, just the way Claire would have liked to. When Toby returned he had a book with a green and gray jacket. Claire took it.
‘You’ll love it,’ he said. ‘Vicars and jumble sales and lots of warm, milky drinks. Just what the doctor ordered.’
Claire took out a little wrapped box and put it on the table beside Toby’s chair. ‘What’s all this, then?’ Toby asked, assuming another of his funny accents.
‘Just a little gift for you,’ she said. ‘I wanted to thank you for setting me up with Imogen.’
‘Oh. The flat? So it’s working?’
‘It’s wonderful. It’s really the best place I’ve ever lived.’ Claire began to describe it and went on and on until she realized that she was gushing and that Toby was staring at her with an odd expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m boring you.’
‘On the contrary. Your enthusiasm is charming – I haven’t been that excited since I was sent down from Oxford. Well, I’m glad it’s working out. And this –’ he picked up the box – ‘this wasn’t necessary. But it’s very welcome.’ He opened the gift. ‘Chocolates! Perfect,’ he said. ‘Let’s eat them all.’ He popped one in his mouth and handed the box to her. She laughed. ‘So, what else are you up to?’ he asked.
‘I do have a … a project that I’m trying to get off the ground.’
‘Really?’ He stood up, plugged in his kettle and shooed George Eliot off the tabletop where she had settled. ‘You can tell me all about it over tea and chocolates. Much more satisfying than sympathy.’
Claire withheld a sigh. It wasn’t that she didn’t like tea, but she could go for more than a quarter of an hour without a cup of it at her elbow. Still, she took the cup he gave her.
She began to tell Toby about the knitting class and showed him the flyer. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I could offer classes to teach people to read, just to drum up a bit of trade.’ They both laughed. ‘Where will you put the flyers?’
‘I thought I would try Imogen’s neighborhood. After all, people won’t want to travel too far on a Saturday morning. And besides,’ Claire paused to contain her enthusiasm, ‘I may have found a possible location in a small shop near there.’
‘Outstanding! And you’re probably right about the traveling,’ he agreed. ‘And they have more money to spend in Kensington. Good business sense you’ve got.’ He looked wistfully around the store. ‘Wish I had a bit.’
Claire had wondered how he stayed in business, but Imogen’s assurance that he had an inheritance comforted her. ‘Where could I get photocopies made?’ she said.
Toby took another look at the flyer. ‘Hmm. You don’t want this to go off like a damp squib. You know,’ he continued, ‘I have a friend on Shaftesbury Avenue. He’s quite artistic and runs a typesetting and paste-up shop. Why don’t you take it around to him? He’ll do it, although he’ll act as if it’s nothing but agro. He might just do something with the text as well – you know, improve on your handwriting a bit. Then he could print them from his computer.’
‘I’d love that,’ Claire said, ‘but I really can’t pay for …’
‘Oh, he won’t charge you. He’s … an old friend. I’ll call him now. And speaking of calling, you ought to have a phone number on this. People might want to ask questions, you know.’
Claire shrugged. He was right, but ‘I don’t have a phone. I’m not sure Imogen would like me to use her number, and the knitting shop doesn’t seem to have a phone although there is a number over the door.’
‘Ridiculous! I’m a Luddite, but even I have a landline and a mobile. Though there have been times when, according to British Telecom, I ceased to exist.’ She raised her brows. ‘I know it sounds rather existential but it’s actually financial,’ Toby went on. ‘It’s what they say when they cut your service. We had a little dust-up over the bill. But things are fine now. I’ll tell you what, you can put in my shop’s number and if anyone calls I’ll take the message for you.’
Before she could thank him he had scrawled some figures across the bottom of the sheet, lifted his own phone and punched in a number. ‘Hello, Thomas, dear? I’m sending a friend over. No, not that kind. Her name is Claire and she needs a few moments of your time. Yes, yes, I know. Like I’ve never helped you. By the way, can you make it?’
Claire was watching from the corner of her eye, and she thought she saw Toby’s usually cheerful face close up. Perhaps he was asking too much of his friend. She hated him to call in a favor on her account.
He didn’t seem to like Thomas’s answer. ‘Fine. No trouble. No, I have someone else lined up, anyway.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So, I’ll send Claire over. Right.’ He hung up the receiver, put a smile on his face and tilted his head. ‘That’s all fixed up, then. He’s on Shaftesbury Avenue – Piccadilly Circus tube.’
‘Toby, I don’t know how to thank you,’ Claire said. ‘You’ve done so much for me. I’d like somehow to …’
‘Then you’ll go to the opera with me tomorrow. Lucia. One of my favorites. What do you say?’
Claire had never been to the opera, she had to work in the evenings, and she had no idea who Lucia was, but she said yes, of course. And when she did she felt another flash of joy, as strong as the one she had had in the morning. Toby was asking her out! And even if she found she didn’t like opera, and she knew that nothing would come of it anyway, she couldn’t stop the hope that sprang up. Because she was almost speechless at the unexpected pleasure, all she could manage to say was, ‘What time?’
‘Curtain’s up at eight. Why don’t you meet me here at six? I know that’s ungallant of me, but I do need to close up shop and then we could tube to Covent Garden together.’
She agreed of course, paid for the Pym book and then wanted to linger, to ask him a little about the opera and even perhaps to get a book about it. But she realized that if she was to go to Thomas’s and get to work, she simply didn’t have the time. ‘Well, thank you,’ she told him. ‘Thanks so much for everything. I’d better be off.’
Toby nodded. He stood up and scribbled an address on a piece of scrap paper. ‘Thomas is on the third floor,’ he said. ‘At times he’s a total bitch but tell him I’ll smack him if he isn’t nice to you.’
She giggled, took the address and ran.