Chapter 2
The following morning, I wedge the door open with a seashell-shaped doorstop to encourage customers inside. It’s a lovely July day, sunny but with a breeze that prevents us moving into hot-and-sticky territory, as I tidy up the tables that I display things on outside for customers to rummage through in the hopes that it might pique people’s curiosity enough for them to step through the door. There are tables displaying baskets of smaller goods, and half barrels and wooden crates holding other things, and some artificial plants to spruce things up, pink trees and planters full of plastic lavender.
I swipe a hand across my forehead and lean on the blue mermaid’s tail statue for a minute. My shop has an old-fashioned Dickensian feel to it. There are window boxes under the two upstairs windows with yellow petunias tumbling down that I really must remember to water. I can’t help wondering what my dad would make of the shop now. He was more into antiques than I am. He used to laugh at me making up stories about every item in his shop and sometimes he’d know their real history and counter my fairytale fantasies with boring old reality.
That’s why I’m doing the Philip Teasdale Antiques Fair at the Ever After Street castle at the end of August. My dad loved nothing more than antiques fairs, and he put forward the idea of holding one in the grounds of the castle on the hill at the end of the street. He didn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition, but Witt, the owner of the castle, has been kind enough to name it after him, and give me a prime spot for my stall.
I just need to choose my most spectacular pieces to display there, and it could be the difference between days as bustling as they used to be and days as quiet as recent ones. There will be write-ups in trade publications and the whole thing is being filmed and broadcast on local news channels. It’s a huge deal, and my dad would’ve embraced the opportunity with open arms, but I’ve let my doubts creep in.
What do I know about antiques? I deal in ‘things people might like’ whereas my dad was more into bargain purchases that sold for high-value prices and gave the business much-needed financial boosts. Yesterday, my financial boosts amounted to a ￡30 footstool that a woman bought in the morning, and the winged skeleton I sold to Ava. No business can survive on that.
But if I can display stock that’s a talking point, that gets people interested, I could be featured on the TV spot that goes out to millions of households. The Mermaid’s Treasure Trove would be front-and-centre in front of many pairs of eyes that have never heard of it before, both casual shoppers and antiques trade insiders, and I could make my dad proud of what I’ve done with his shop. I just need to find a few special items with perfect stories to tell, and maybe business will be booming again.
As I go back in, my hand trails across the basket of fabric scraps and I think of Ren’s words yesterday. Are they pointless? When I put them out, I thought they were cute and quirky and would be a hit with crafters, but no one’s had a look in there in… I rack my brain but I can’t think of a time when anyone’s ever been interested in the basket of fabric scraps. There’s even a cobweb around the basket handle.
Impulsively, I take the basket and dump it in the bin behind the counter, and then quickly rescue the basket and just tip the fabric scraps into the bin instead. Something else can be displayed in the basket, minus the cobweb, but Ren might’ve had a point about the fabric scraps. He might’ve had a point about more than one thing yesterday.
Even with the door wedged open, the morning is quiet. Mrs Moreno pops in on her way home from the doctors to tell me about her latest consultation in the ongoing ‘is it gout or a bunion?’ saga, and a few people peek in, take a few steps and look for a pathway through. Others are braver and come in, look around like they’re scared to touch anything, and quickly leave. One woman accidentally bumps into a stand of vintage postcards and sends them flying across the shop, and as I scramble around on my hands and knees to clear them up, Ren’s words replay in my head. It is too cluttered in here, I know it is, and I’m relying on the antiques fair to turn things around by bringing me a flock of customers who like hunting for treasures in amongst clutter, but it’s starting to feel like that won’t be enough. Business is failing. Sales are down, and it’s starting to feel like it would take a miracle to improve things, not just an antiques fair.
Perhaps tellingly, a man comes in and buys the rose-edged dinner set. I’d priced it at ￡50, but he haggles to get it for a tenner below asking price, and seeing as it’s my only sale of the day, I agree. I tell him about my theory behind it as I carefully pack the displayed pieces into the box, but he pays no attention to my heartfelt tales.
By midday, I’m leaning on the counter, willing a load of customers to come loping in or accept that it’s time to shut the door for five minutes and run across the road to grab a sandwich for lunch from the Alice-themed Wonderland Teapot opposite.
‘Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’
I look up at the sound of a very enthusiastic greeting and grin as Ava bounces in the open door.
‘Hiiiiii!’ I squeak back, easily matching her enthusiasm. She made me feel good yesterday – it’s always nice to meet someone who understands where you’re coming from, especially when you’re not even sure if you do any more, and while I hoped I might see her again sometime, I didn’t expect it would be the very next day.
I shouldn’t, but I can’t help looking beyond her to where Ren is standing outside, and I suddenly feel all of a flutter at the sight of him.
‘Hello.’ I give him a much more solemn nod and sensible-adult type greeting as he hovers in the doorway, holding a Wonderland Teapot-branded box and cup.
He nods in response, but he’s obviously not moving fast enough for Ava’s liking because she marches back over to the door, takes the box and cup out of his hands, and plonks them on the counter in front of me. ‘We got you these! Dad wanted to apologise for being the rudest man on the planet.’
I stand upright in surprise. I wasn’t expecting that. I open the box and find a red velvet cupcake inside. ‘Oh, my favourite! How did you know?’
‘When Dad went up to pay, we were talking about what you might like, and the lady in there overheard your name and said red velvet was your favourite, and tea with vanilla milk.’ She nudges the cup towards me too.
I’m so touched, it’s a struggle not to well up. What a kind and thoughtful thing to do. ‘That’s Cleo, she opened last spring and it’s been my favourite place on the street since.’
‘It’s awesome in there! The Mad Hatter did a trick with a rose! He threw it in the air and made it vanish, and then heart-shaped confetti rained down all over us, and then he clicked his fingers and it reappeared again!’ She shoves a hand into her pocket and pulls out a handful of heart-shaped confetti made from playing cards and scatters it all over the counter.
I can’t help smiling at her excitement. ‘That’s Bram. Did you love his blue hair?’
‘Coolest man ever!’
‘Well, you read my mind, I was just thinking of running over there to grab some lunch.’ I let my eyes flick to Ren again. ‘Thank you both.’
‘Thought you might not let me back in without some sort of peace offering,’ he says, despite the fact he’s still hovering in the doorway and he hasn’t come in.
‘I would have.’ I don’t have enough customers to be turning any away, even the disparaging ones, but I’m not about to tell him that. ‘But it was a nice touch. Thank you.’
I smile at him as he finally takes a step inside, looking around warily for the hanging birdcage candle holder, which I’ve moved to one side of the window, safely tucked away where it can’t cause any further harm. ‘Thought there might be glaciers in hell before you came back here.’
‘I’m weak in the face of being badgered relentlessly all night. I had to accept that we were coming back today or give up a night’s sleep because she kept on and on. Apparently I was rude to you yesterday and owe you an apology.’
‘You were rude, but you’re entitled to your opinions, and as far as an apology goes, tea and cake more than covers it.’ I hold my cup up like I’m making a toast before taking another sip.
‘No. I went too far, and I am sorry. It wasn’t just Ava’s badgering. I felt bad too.’
That apologeticness again. I didn’t expect him to give me another thought after yesterday, other than every time he looked in the mirror and saw the cut on his forehead, which is covered up with a couple of butterfly stitch plasters today. I certainly didn’t expect him to show up with tea and a cupcake, but it’s nice that he did, even if it was mainly Ava’s idea.
He doesn’t seem like a man of many words, and I’m surprised when he continues. ‘I keep doing this thing where I know I shouldn’t say something but it comes out anyway. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but you didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of it.’
It’s a curious confession, an odd thing to admit to a stranger, and yet he sounds humble and serious, so I decide to challenge him a little. ‘So what you really think is that my shop is charming and quirky and full of treasures untold?’
‘No, of course not, I think it’s an indoor junkyard, but it would be rude of me to say that.’
I burst into laughter, and he clamps a hand over his mouth and his blue eyes widen as he realises he did just say that.
He looks at me in horror for a moment, but slowly, slowly, the lines at the edges of his eyes crinkle up like he’s trying not to smile, and he starts laughing too. ‘See? I’m a lost cause.’
Again, I should probably be annoyed, but his laughter fills the shop and I realise it’s the most I’ve laughed in ages, and we’re both standing there giggling for no real reason.
Ava looks between us like we’ve both lost the plot. ‘Dad thinks you’re pretty.’
‘I don’t think you’re pretty. I mean, no, wait, you are, of course you are, in an ethereal “creature of the deep” sort of way, with the Ariel hair and the sea-flower.’ He touches the side of his head, indicating my hair clip of choice for today – a billowing flower made of blue net and glitter-edged petals. ‘Sorry, this has got horribly convoluted. What I was trying to say is Ava was talking about you on the way home yesterday, and I started singing that “Hey Mickey” song, and she didn’t get it because she’s too young to know it. It wasn’t me talking, it was the lyrics.’ He hums a few lines of ‘Hey Mickey’ by Toni Basil, and abruptly stops. ‘From the look on your face, I’m guessing you’ve had creeps quoting that song at you all your life?’
‘I have had creeps quoting that song at me all my life.’
‘At least I had the self-awareness to stop?’
‘True.’ I can’t help giggling again because I’ve gone all flittery inside. Despite the insults, he just called me ethereal. That’s such a lovely word and a really, really nice way to describe someone. No one’s ever called me anything that complimentary before. Although, by ‘creature of the deep’ he could have meant mermaidy, or he could have meant that I bear a striking resemblance to a giant squid or a humpback whale. ‘Creature of the deep’ is open to interpretation.
‘And he thinks you’re fine .’ Ava’s eyebrows are waggling.
‘Ava! It was a song lyric! I don’t think she’s fine.’ He looks at me with both hands held up in surrender and a grimace on his astoundingly red face. He looks so embarrassed that I almost feel sorry for him.
‘Do you have children?’ he asks me.
I shake my head.
‘Don’t. Ever. They will twist everything they hear to humiliate you as much as possible in every way they can conceivably think of. Way more trouble than they’re worth.’ He gives Ava a pointed but joking look and she grins back at him, clearly loving every moment of winding him up.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ she questions me.
‘No.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Ava!’ Ren chastises her.
‘I’m just asking. Mickey doesn’t mind, she’s cool.’
Cool. I don’t think I’ve ever been cool before. ‘I don’t mind. I have nothing to hide. All right, so I’m thirty-eight and single again after many disappointing years with my ex-fiancé. I’m not interested in getting into another relationship, ever. I spend way more time with my shop than I ever would with any man and we’re very happy together. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’
‘Nope, that’s it, thanks!’ She’s already started wandering around the shop, picking up things and putting them down again like she doesn’t know what to look at first. ‘Dad says I can get one thing today, but it has to be something sensible and practical.’
‘That sounds like a very “dad” thing to say. Mine would’ve said the same.’
She glances over like she wants to question me further, but she gets distracted by going to look at a bejewelled ornament of a melting ice lolly.
‘Sorry about that.’ Ren takes another tentative step into the shop, looking around for any stock with a thirst for blood. ‘I’m trying to teach her that you can’t just say the first thing that pops into your head to complete strangers but…’
‘But you say the first thing that pops into your head to complete strangers, so how is she ever going to learn from that?’
‘Touché.’ He gives me a sarcastic smirk that quickly turns soft. ‘And that was really nice of you yesterday to knock money off the skeleton. It made her day. Thanks for doing that.’
‘My pleasure. There’s nothing better than watching someone find something that feels like it’s always belonged to them. It’s not about the money.’
‘That’s a terrible way to—’ He cuts himself off before finishing the sentence, and I appreciate him not making it into something derogatory. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.
Until he ruins it by saying, ‘I’m sure you appreciate me not adding “to run a business” onto the end of that.’
I laugh. ‘Yes, very considerate of you.’
We can hear Ava wandering around in the other half of the shop, and he still hovers awkwardly, looking around without actually moving. He looks at the empty spot where the fabric scraps basket was earlier. He must notice it’s gone, and this time, I appreciate him not saying anything about it.
‘How’s the head today?’ I touch my fingers to my own forehead, trying not to think about how dark the bruising looks around the edges of the butterfly strip plasters.
‘Bruised. It’s fine as long as I don’t touch it, turn my head too fast, or move my face even a millimetre.’
‘I really am sorry about that. I kept thinking about you all night. I didn’t mean for that to happen, and if there’s anything I can do to make it up?—’
He holds up a hand to stop my rambling. ‘It’s fine. I was so worried about Ava that looking where I was going wasn’t on my mind. Don’t worry about it.’
I appreciate the reassurance because he struck me as the type of person who’d sue the living daylights out of me, given half a chance. ‘You can come in, you know. I moved any stock likely to attack unsuspecting customers. You might even find something you like.’
‘I don’t like anything.’
‘What, in my shop or in general?’
He laughs, a completely fake, indulgent little chuckle, and I feel goosebumps prickle my shoulders. He doesn’t specifically say anything in general, but I have no doubt that’s what he means. He’d lowered his voice so Ava doesn’t overhear, and I get the sense that this is a rare glimpse underneath his sarcasm and bluntness, and I feel my breath catch as a desire to help, to do something , overwhelms me.
For someone so outspoken, he seems incredibly shy and unsure of himself, and there’s something magnetic about him. I should despise him, and yet, I was hoping to see him again, and now, I’m desperate to know what that means. He’s obviously gone through something with the divorce he mentioned yesterday, and the absent ex-wife that Ava blames him for, and now he doesn’t seem like he’s having the easiest time with single parenting. There’s a hard set to his mouth and the way he holds his shoulders at a pointed angle that gives me a sense of someone barely holding it together.
Like he knows I’m trying to stop myself asking questions, he starts wandering around and examining some of the things on display. ‘Why is there a…’ He picks up a diving helmet that’s been repurposed so the faceplate now holds a clock and then puts it back down again and shakes his head. ‘I’m actually not going to ask. I’d rather not know.’
‘Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean someone else won’t think it’s fabulous.’
He ignores me as he continues to look around. ‘It’s like a fever dream in here, like that time they brought out mint chocolate flavour Pringles or Jeremy Clarkson was voted Britain’s sexiest man.’
It makes me laugh again, even though being compared to mint chocolate flavour crisps or Jeremy Clarkson is definitely not a compliment.
‘Some of this furniture could actually be quite decent. This is oak, and it looks reasonably old.’ He crouches down at a wooden dresser and pulls the decorative cloth covering it aside and rubs at the wood with his thumb. ‘Shame about these marks.’
‘They give it character.’
He runs that cynical raised eyebrow over it. ‘Someone’s cat used it as a scratching post, more like.’
‘No! There’s something deliberate in those marks. Maybe it was in a young boy’s bedroom. Maybe he had a crush on the girl next door and he would watch her from the window and he put a mark on it every time she waved to him…’
‘So stalkerish and fictional, good to know. Where do you get these ideas from? This is a once-expensive cabinet that someone’s let their cat go to town on. Nothing more. Seriously detrimental to the value for you though. Antique?’
I shrug. ‘No idea.’
‘Well, you should have an idea! You should know the exact value of the things you’re selling. You’re running a business here!’
‘I’m glad you know so much about my business, Mr History Teacher. I didn’t realise my homework assignment on antiques was due in today, Mr…?’
He rolls his eyes at my sarcasm. ‘Montague. But I go by Ren to anyone over the age of sixteen.’
‘Montague? That’s your surname?’
He nods, and I put a hand on my chest and recite Shakespeare. ‘Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?’
‘Oh, that’s clever, I’ve never heard that one before.’ His laugh is both sarcastic and good-natured.
‘That’s pretty cool to share a surname with the greatest romantic hero of our time.’
‘Greatest romantic idiot of our time! Note to men everywhere: check your beloved is actually dead before drinking poison to quell your heartbreak. It rarely ends well.’
Ren Montague. I repeat the name in my head, feeling like a kid of Ava’s age, scribbling the name of my school crush all over my maths exercise book rather than doing any work. Maybe a clue as to why I’m so bad at business now.
It’s impossible not to watch him as he continues looking around. Thick black hair, parted at one side and pulled over in a way that would be soft and touchable if it wasn’t held stiff with hair product. Smart black trousers and a plain T-shirt with a jacket over it that looks too warm for this time of year. Someone sensible who likes to be prepared for all eventualities, perhaps? Probably the type who never leaves home without an umbrella, even in the middle of summer.
‘Why is there half a dragon fruit?’
For a moment, I think he’s found some abandoned food a customer has left behind, and then I realise what he’s looking at. ‘Oh! It’s a side table. Isn’t it amazing?’
‘Amazing?’ He echoes like I’m using the word in the wrong context.
‘Oh, come on. You’ve never seen anything like that before in your life.’
It’s an entire table, designed so the base is the scaly, almost pineapple-like pink skin, and the tabletop is the white pulp specked with black seeds. It’s made of resin and hand-painted to perfection. It looks exactly like someone has cut a huge plastic dragon fruit in half and kept it as furniture. ‘One day, someone is going to come in and say, “Ah, this is it! Exactly the thing that I’ve needed all my life without ever knowing I needed it,” and instantly realise they can’t live without it.’
He picks up the price tag and draws in a breath. ‘For fifty quid, I think we might just get by without it.’
‘If anything, I’ve underpriced it. It’s made lovingly by hand. Maybe a devoted husband made it for his wife who really loves dragon fruit. What a romantic, one-of-a-kind gift!’
‘I don’t think anyone likes dragon fruit enough to desire a table made in its likeness. No wonder she threw it out, and if your story is anywhere near true, then it probably took place not long before divorcing her husband for his terrible gift-giving choices. Probably the first case of its kind where “side table” is cited on the divorce papers.’
I giggle, and he stares at me for a moment, and then he starts laughing too. ‘I want to say that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, but I know there are weirder things lurking in here, and this shop is an endless parade of weird things that will continue surprising me.’
‘I like weird things. Plenty of other people like weird things too, otherwise I wouldn’t still be in business.’
‘Some people are weird things.’ His blue eyes meet mine and he stops laughing and looks away quickly. I don’t think he meant it as an insult, but it didn’t come across as a compliment either.
Before things have a chance to get awkward, Ava squeals, ‘Ooh, this is it! This is what I want!’
She comes back, carrying a wooden chest that’s clearly very old and looks like it was made by hand from sea-battered driftwood. It’s always even smelled of the ocean, and it’s decorated with a selection of shells, pearls, and painted ropes, and has got a padlock on it in the shape of a hand-carved anchor. You can imagine Ariel herself keeping treasures from the human world inside it.
Ava looks like she’s staggering under the weight, and plonks it down on the counter, panting for breath. ‘It’s soooo beautiful!’
Ren comes over to examine it and eventually gives a nod of approval. ‘That’s not bad actually.’