Czytaj książkę: «The Chic Boutique On Baker Street»

Two

Amanda dragged the silver metal shutter down with tired shoulders. The metal clanged into place, and she cursed as she dropped the key twice in her attempts to lock the deadbolts. Sighing, she secured the last bolt and straightened up. She winced as her back popped and clicked back into place. She had always thought that being sat ramrod-straight in court all day, followed by long nights hunched over her desk, would have been detrimental to her health, but after a long day in her shop, she now realised that the city girl in her had actually had it pretty easy compared to her new country bumpkin self.

The one thing she didn’t miss was the long commute home. She shuddered as she thought of all those early mornings and late nights crammed on the Tube with sweaty, cranky people and drunks, all trying to get somewhere, anywhere else but the tin can they were entombed in most probably. She remembered the stench, the awkward face thrust into an armpit journeys, the glazed eyes all framed within the condensation of the windows of the trains. To say Amanda had a new-found respect for sardines after all those years would be an understatement. Those fish were the Thors of the oceans, albeit that their journeys were done in the afterlife, but still, kudos.

All Amanda had to do now was pirouette on one foot from the shopfront to her own front door, the flat being directly above her livelihood. The living quarters had been one of the main draws for Amanda, one of the catalysts that had enabled her to even visualise embarking into a new life, far away from her old one.

She had kept the property listing bookmarked for weeks, occasionally taking time to moon over it in between sending work emails and IMs to Marcus. It was like her porn, property websites and Pinterest. They made her happy, and growing up in the dysfunctional family she had, Amanda had soon realised that happiness had to be grasped where it could.

Being the daughter of two law partners, Amanda’s childhood was less My Little Pony and more Mandarin lessons after school and organic vegetables on her dinner plate. Her parents worked hard, played hard and treated their only daughter like a science project, something to be worked on, altered and trotted out to show off at dinner parties. They worked all the time, and Amanda soon found a refuge: Grandma’s house. Dad’s mum lived alone in a neat bungalow on a leafy street in Muswell Hill not far from the impressive and sterile Highbury house she shared with her parental units. Amanda loved staying with her gran, a woman who despaired at her son’s clinical, detached treatment of her only grandchild.

Looking around her new flat, Amanda thought of the happy times she had spent in that house: the smells of cooking, washing on the line, life. That bungalow had more life and joie de vivre within its crooked walls than could be contained, and Amanda learnt everything from her grandmother, Rose. Sewing, cooking, baking: Rose could turn her hand to anything, and showed Amanda another side of life. One where work and money did not rule the world, and where creativity and enjoying life had more value.

She was thirteen when Rose died. She could still remember the bungalow, the smells, the laughter, but now it was tainted, tainted with the memory of her parents picking through Rose’s life, selling and discarding her possessions. She could still picture her mother’s face, full of disgust at the layer of dust on the surfaces, the baskets of wool around the rooms. Grandma Rose’s death affected Amanda deeply, whilst it was barely registered by her own son. After that, Amanda threw herself into schoolwork, working most nights in her room, and when she finished her schooling, she made her escape to university, the promise of a law career already mapped out since her infancy.

She wondered what Grandma Rose would have thought of her actions now; she suspected that she would be watching somewhere, geeing her on. Her parents, however, would not. She shuddered at the thought. Changing her life completely was something they would never understand. She reached out and touched one of the walls of her abode. It was cool to the touch. Perhaps that bookmark was fate, she thought to herself. Maybe it finally brought me home.

The flat was all high ceilings and bumpy plastering, and it looked to Amanda exactly how she was feeling—a bare shell.

She had pored over the pictures on the estate agent’s website all night that night—laptop plonked on the bed, Amanda submerged under the duvet, surrounded by sodden tissues and the contents of her household bills box. She had made herself a little island of desperation, her king-size bed floating along on a sea of desperation, isolation and sheer disbelief. She felt like her world had been spun on its very axis, and she couldn’t help but think of what her parents would say when they discovered the news. That night, Amanda had cried, wailed, and eventually, at 3 a.m., had emailed the estate agent to not only put her London flat on the market, but to also put in an offer on the shop and flat she had been ogling, far away from the hustle and bustle, in a Yorkshire town called Westfield. Only then, once the email had pinged ‘sent’, had the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach eased enough for her to drift off. She dreamed that her little divan island had floated away, and she awoke feeling determined and oddly detached from her previous self.

When she came to, with the light from her bedroom window shining on her laptop screen, she winced, wondering what awaited her now the juggernaut of her plan had started the low rumbling of action. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but the water cooler gossip at work would be in overdrive this morning when she didn’t turn in as normal. What would Marcus tell people? Would he back her up, tell people it was a mistake? Would he even care?

She still had no idea how it had happened herself, so how could she explain it to anyone else?

She remembered how she felt that day, but the reason the contract had gotten so messed up eluded her still. She was always so meticulous. After Marcus’s visit to her office, she had knuckled down, eager to get the work done and sent off to Marcus, as he had so rudely requested on his way out to an afternoon at the golf course. Time had escaped her once again, and by the time she had finished printing off the paperwork, a quick glance at her workstation clock told her it was well past office hours. After rubbing her stiff neck, she arranged the papers neatly in the case file, threw her coat on, grabbed her bag and headed to Marcus’s office. The office was empty, even the cleaners had gone home. A few side lights lit her path along the sleek corridors. She was just pondering on her pathetic life when she heard a noise coming from Marcus’s office. Looking around her, she became all too aware that she was alone and that no one would actually miss her for a while if she were to go missing. Brandishing the file like a weapon, she froze, listening intently. She heard it again—a low grunt, punctuated by the odd squeal. What the hell was it? Gripping her bag tight to her side with her elbow, she gently pushed open the door to her boyfriend’s office. She jumped as a bang sounded near her, and she realised that she had dropped the file she was holding. The papers exploded from the file, fluttering around her, but she took no notice. What she was looking at was far worse. Marcus was lying across his desk, trousers around his hairy ankles, while a woman was straddled across him, writhing. Both heads snapped towards her at the noise, and they froze. Amanda was trying to form a coherent thought in her head when Marcus jumped up, bouncing the naked woman off him. He jiggled around one-footed on the carpeted floor as he tried to pull his clothing back on. The woman just stared at Amanda, a smug look on her face, and it clicked into place then. Angela, his secretary. The biggest cliché of them all. Shagging her boss in his office after hours.

‘Working late again are we, Miss Perry? We needed that Kamimura file by five,’ she said, all the while pulling her silky panties back up over her stockings and under her short dress. Amanda nodded, looking at Marcus, who was now heading towards her, red-faced and green around the gills.

‘Amanda,’ he said, glaring back at Angela, who shrugged and sat down. ‘This isn’t what you think, I promise.’

Amanda felt as though she would pass out any moment. All those nights, working to make him look good, doing his work, waiting for him to pick her up for dates that never happened. The memories came like stab wounds, thick and fast, realisation dripping like blood from her new wounds. She shook her head slowly, trying to get her brain to connect to her mouth.

She swooped down, picked up what was left of the file and threw it to Marcus.

‘All done,’ she said and she fled.

Marcus chased her to the elevators, calling her name, but thankfully the steel doors closed on him just as he reached them. Amanda pressed a shaky finger to the lobby button and sank down to the floor, head in her hands. Her phone buzzed in her bag, and, on automatic pilot, she pulled it out.

‘Perry,’ she said, her words barely flopping for freedom from her numb lips.

‘Amanda,’ the prim voice said crisply. ‘Mummy here, any news for me?’

Amanda stared at the walls of the lift as they took her to the ground floor.

‘No, Mother, nothing to report. I’ll call you later.’

Clicking off the call before her mother could ask her another question, she threw the phone into her bag, and peeled herself off the floor, quickly rearranging her clothes and hair before the lift doors pinged. Making her way across the marbled floors of the reception area, she smiled goodnight at the security guards and pushed through the front doors, gulping greedily at the fresh night air before hailing a taxi.

Two days later, she had been called into Stokes’ office and fired. Gross negligence, they had stated. Amanda had barely taken it in, and before she even thought to ask what she had done, she was standing outside the same doors, a box full of trinkets heavy in her arms.

It was all a colossal mess, and now she was unemployed to boot. She should have been looking for another job, another firm to work for, before the gossip really spread, but she couldn’t bring herself to apply anywhere else. What was the point? Her reputation was tarnished—bungling a million pound account did that for your career. The years of hard work and sacrifice would mean nothing. She was the girl who cocked up the huge contract and, now, that’s all she would ever be.

She rubbed her gritty eyes, puffy, sore and still caked in last night’s mascara, and gingerly reached over. She rolled her fingers over the touch pad and the laptop sprang to life. Squinting at the screen, she refreshed her email inbox. Whilst she had been sleeping, her new life had been forming around her, and when she opened the reply from the estate agent, she smiled to herself. Time to disappear.

The little Eden she had sunk her life savings into was thankfully not a disappointment, despite the sale being unseen.

There was an exterior entrance on the street, and a staircase within the shop too, which made her feel very safe and self-contained, master of her own realm. She could pretty much spend her life at work and home, all within a few steps. After all the commuting and fast walks in teetering heels, barrelling down corridors and storming into court, it was an appealing thought to Amanda.

Opening the door, she flicked on the light and sighed. After long days of working to make the shop interior what she had envisioned, she had barely made a dent on her new home and it showed. Boxes surrounded the chintzy sofa she had bought from eBay, a buy she intended to upcycle with some new covers, and which at present looked like something from her gran’s house. Stepping over them, she passed a dilapidated end table and spied her smartphone. In the city, her phone had been permanently glued to her hand, never leaving her side for longer than a bath. The more time she did without it, the less she missed it, and the people who used it to contact her. Well, maybe her thoughts lingered on one, but she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on that now. Opening the wooden drawer in the front of the table, she scooped up the phone and shoved it in, dusting down her hands as she walked away. Last night’s DVD title filled the television screen with colour as it sprang to life. She pressed ‘play’ and Pride and Prejudice began playing again, the embroidered garments flowing across the screen as the title music sounded. She walked to the open-plan kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a microwave Thai meal and the remnants of the bottle of rosé from the night before. Spying the washed glass on the draining board, she filled it up and took a swift glug, smiling as the cold chill of the wine hit the back of her throat, warming her through. She sat down on the breakfast bar stool, running her fingers along the bandage on her foot. She pursed her lips as she thought of the disastrous encounter, and the feeling that she hadn’t been able to shake all afternoon. She had heard him next door, banging about most of the afternoon. He was obviously an arse. Obviously. She just felt sorry for the dogs he had been looking after. She could see him being a dog man though, all jeans, jumpers and ruddy cheeks, skipping over mountain and dale with man’s best friend. Her face drew into a frown as she sipped at her wine. Tracy was the polar opposite of him, all mean scowls, and out-there fashion sense. Not a couple you would put together immediately, if at all. She ran her free palm along the side of the cool glass. In fact, they were pretty much the last people she would put together in a relationship. Not that she cared, of course, and his unkind words had stung. What did he know about her business? Did he really think she hadn’t done a little bit of research before she started? Fair enough, she had sold her London life and skipped town in a heartbroken knee-jerk reaction, but he didn’t know that, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about doing it before.

She had the bookmark, the ideas, she had a plan. What she didn’t need was the sexy—Sexy? No!—annoying business owner next door causing problems and making her the village pariah. In her last job, she would have taken him on, told him exactly what she thought of him, dragged an apology out of him, but he had rattled her, and the feeling was not familiar or welcome. She resolved to ignore him and his girlfriend, let them get on with it. Plus, they had a regular supply of fresh dog poop at their disposal. Sometimes, a girl has to pick her battles.

She sipped at her drink and rose when the microwave pinged. After setting her food out on a plate, she took both to the couch and wrapped herself up with a blanket left on the arm from last night. As Lizzie Bennet navigated singledom on the screen, Amanda pondered her own fresh start. If her city friends could see her now, huddled under a blanket in a box fort, watching Austen and getting into a tizzy over the first man under seventy she had met this month. Pathetic. And anyway, not only was she over men forever, but Ben wasn’t single, he was an opinionated git and his girlfriend owned next door. And one thing was for sure, for the sake of her sanity and her bank balance, Amanda’s new life had to work. No, she would stick to Mr Darcy. She would get through this week, spend her nights under this blanket of denial, and then, come the weekend, she would sort her new home, and her new life, out for good. And she wouldn’t think about Ben again. She drank a toast to Darcy, smiling through a mouthful of pad thai.

‘Just me and thee, Darcy!’ she said, in a voice that held more conviction than she felt. Sighing, she took another glug and wondered yet again how life could change so quickly, and how she was ever going to adjust.

Ben Evans was arm deep in work. Mr Jenkins’ prize cow, Gwendolen, to be exact. The poor animal was having a breech delivery. Ben could see the calf’s feet pointing up, and Gwendolen was in distress. Not as much distress as Alf was in though. Alf Jenkins, one of the local steadfast farmers in Westfield, was leaning against the head gate, feet shuffling from one to the other. His ever-present roll-up was hanging from his tight lips, and his knuckles were as white as the white plastic apron encasing Ben’s body. Ben looked out from the cow’s behind, giving Alf a quick flash of his pearly whites.

‘Alf, she is in breech, but I can get her out. I need you to get me a bucket of water, and a shot of brandy.’

Alf’s impressively bushy eyebrows shot up into his hairline, which was half hidden in his tweed flat cap.

‘Brandy?’ he asked, incredulous.

‘Yes, Alf, a decent shot please, and some water. As fresh as you can, in a bucket. Go now, I have Gwen, don’t worry.’

Alf frowned and, looking confused, wandered off towards the farmhouse he shared with his wife of thirty years.

‘Annie! Annie, Gwen is nearly there. I need the brandy!’

Ben chuckled softly, his distraction technique working well. Alf loved his cows almost as much as he did his wife, in fact at times it was a close call which he adored the most.

‘Come on now, Gwendolen, let’s get your baby born.’

Gwen responded with a low, rumbling moo. Ben inserted his hand further into the cavity, pushing the calf back into the uterus as gently as he could. He wondered whether the woman he had met today would be appalled by his job, as Tanya always had been. Did Amanda even like animals? Probably not, she was obviously a ball-breaker, not the type to go all goo-goo-eyed over a puppy.

Tanya sure didn’t, unless they came in the form of designer coats and handbags. She had once toyed with the idea of getting a small dog, after seeing celebrities in her coveted fashion magazines being photographed with the latest living handbag accessory. She had even begged Ben to track down a breeder, until he had pointed out that the little pup might, in fact, have to be fed whilst out and about, and might even take a dump in her Louis Vuitton. He still remembered how his wife’s lip had curled up in disgust, and half an hour later she was back to her usual online shopping frenzy, the possibility of a pet all but forgotten.

Gwendolen bellowed as he turned the calf around to a birthing position. She banged against the metal gates with her hooves and let out a rumbling low noise. Ben checked the position and, satisfied, he wiped the sweat from his brow onto his shoulder. Just as he was waiting for the next contraction to start, to begin pulling out the calf, Alf appeared, his cheeks red, carrying a large black bucket of ice-cold water and a bottle of brandy, a plastic tumbler perched upside down on top.

‘Is she …?’ Alf’s voice broke with concern.

Ben smiled. ‘All turned around, Alf, don’t worry. She will be out in a jiffy.’

Alf’s shoulders dropped as he visibly relaxed. He set the bucket down and lifted up the brandy. ‘And this?’