Chapter 6
6
By the following Sunday morning, the thrill has been entirely subdued by the realisation that he’s going to expect me to throw things out. This was a horrible, terrible, ill-fated idea, and I should just give up now and carry on as I am, hoping that something will work out if I just wish for it hard enough. Maybe I’ll find a magic lamp and give it a rub and out will pop a genie to make things magically better? It worked for Aladdin, it could happen…
There’s a knock on the shop door, and the sight of dark hair through the glass is only enough to quell my doubts for a few seconds before they set in again. This is the worst idea I’ve ever had. I don’t know much about his life and thought processes, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the worst ideas he’s ever had too.
When I open the door, Ren’s standing there with a Wonderland Teapot-branded cake box in one hand and two steaming takeaway cups in a cardboard tray balanced in the other. ‘Good morning.’
‘Since when does The Wonderland Teapot open this early on a Sunday?’ I say instead of any eloquent or traditional greeting.
‘Since I used my charm and powers of persuasion?’
I raise an eyebrow, because although I think he can be quite charming, he keeps it well hidden. Very well hidden, sometimes.
‘All right, I saw the Alice-looking woman and the bloke with blue hair in there and knocked, and she recognised me from the other day and said I could only come in if I was buying something for you.’
‘It seems like all you do is buy me tea and cake.’ I try not to think about Cleo’s matchmaking ideas. She’s got totally the wrong end of the stick there, so much so that she’s chewing on the tree trunk itself.
‘Tea and cake with the occasional insult thrown in?’
‘And the occasional unexpected hug which balances it out,’ I add.
His cheeks redden at the mention of the other day, and I hold the door open for him to come through. He pushes aside the bust of Michelangelo’s David blowing a big pink bubble that’s on the counter and makes space for the cake box. ‘No red velvet today. The Alice-woman said they were testing out new flavours and I was only allowed to buy these lemon and hazelnut shortbread crumble cakes if you promised to give her your verdict next time you see her.’
‘I will, although my verdict when it comes to cake is usually, “yay, cake”. Thanks for this.’ I lock the door again, to make sure no customers mistakenly think we’re open and wander in, and go over to take one of the cakes and the cup of tea he nudges towards me. ‘And for this .’ I duck my head to indicate the shop around me. ‘You didn’t have to volunteer for this. You’re a brave man.’
‘Ava’s so jealous. When I told her where I was going today, I suddenly became “cool dad” and she made me promise not to be too hard on you and not to throw out anything “awesome”.’ He does the air quotes, and a thirteen-year-old’s protectiveness of me warms something in my soul, and also, makes me worry that she has more experience with her father than I do, and knows exactly how brutal he’s going to be with my carefully curated stock.
I can’t help looking at him as he picks pieces off his cake and pops them into his mouth. His hair is still tamed with hair product, but he hasn’t shaved today, turning his otherwise ordinary jawline into quite possibly the sexiest jawline on the planet, with a shadow of dark stubble that’s screaming to have fingers rubbed over it. He’s wearing a much more casual plain black T-shirt and navy jeans, and he looks preposterously gorgeous, all the way down to his mid-calf steel-toe-capped boots.
‘Good footwear choice.’
‘I figured this was the kind of place where many heavy objects are liable to crush me. Or I’ll annoy you so much that you’ll batter me to death with…’ He looks around and picks up a silver-plated swordfish on a wooden stand, and jabs it outwards a few times like he’s trying to fence with it. ‘…this rather strange fish ornament.’
‘Nah. I mean, I’ll consider it, but I like you too much to murder you.’
‘Aww, just when I thought my life was a lost cause, someone likes me enough not to commit homicide. I must be doing something right.’
I nudge my shoulder against his and he smiles down at me, and I realise I wasn’t exaggerating. I do like him, almost definitely enough to let him stay breathing. I like how self-deprecating he is. I like his sarcastic sense of humour, but it’s not just that. I don’t know how today is going to go, but he’s offered help for nothing in return. Just out of the goodness of his heart, trying to help a virtual stranger, and he must know that this is not going to be an easy task, and that suggests he’s a good guy under the spiky outer layer.
Like he can tell I’m not quite ready to start on the decluttering portion of the day, instead of pushing me, he wanders around, picking up things and putting them back down again, probably unaware of the disapproving noises he’s making. ‘Is this a whale-shaped butter dish?’ He picks up an iridescent ceramic thing from a wooden bureau that’s piled up with knick-knacks. ‘Who would buy this?’
‘Someone who likes whales. And butter, obviously.’
He puts it down and picks up an angelfish-shaped china plate with hand-painted detailing so it looks like a real angelfish. ‘Don’t tell me, a perfect item for the discerning customer who loves fish so much they can’t bear to be parted from them long enough to eat from a normal plate?’
I sigh. ‘All right, maybe I’ve got a bit carried away and bought too many ocean-related things to fit the shop theme, but someone will love them, one day.’
‘You keep saying that,’ he says gently. ‘I’m privileged to have a better understanding of your collection now, but this is a retail establishment. Nothing flows, nothing makes sense. There are antiques here. There are probably valuable things here, but you don’t focus on them. Instead, you keep hoping that the right person for the right item is going to come along and…’ He turns the plate over and looks at the price sticker I’ve put on the underside. ‘…save your business by spending a whole three pounds. Something’s got to?—’
‘Change, I know.’ I finish the sentence for him. I was going to defend my choices, to say that if enough people came along and purchased trinkets for small amounts then it would make a big difference, but I know what he’s getting at. There are so many trinkets on that bureau that even if the ideal customer looking for a fish-shaped plate happened along, they’d struggle to find it. If things were displayed in a more sensible way, there would be a better chance of anyone buying them. ‘From the moment you walked in, you have had views on my shop. Why are you so invested in this?’
‘What, you mean apart from the new scar on my forehead and my desire to ensure your Victorian birdcages don’t cause bodily harm to anyone else?’ He thinks for a few moments before giving me a quietly serious answer. ‘Because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anywhere that makes Ava so happy. She’s struggling with confidence lately – with finding out who she is and being comfortable in her own skin, and there’s something about this place that lets her be herself with reckless abandon. I’m not a “reckless abandon” type of person, but you are, and it’s doing her good, and you’re obviously struggling to keep things afloat. I can see ways that might help to stop it sinking, and I understand that feeling of treading water all too well, and Ava adores you. Why wouldn’t I try to help?’
I nod, appreciating the boat metaphors and the honesty of his answer. He’s not wrong, I do feel like I’ve been treading water for a while now, and I’m kind of grateful that he’s the only person who’s looked hard enough to see that.
‘Oh, that’s awesome. I love that.’ He’s picked up a mug shaped like a welly boot with a handle on the back. I came across it at a car boot sale and knew someone would love it one day.
‘Wait, there’s something you like? Are there flying pigs and three blue moons in the sky?’ I joke, but I hear that ‘knew someone would love it one day’ line echoing in my head again. How many times have I said that? How much longer can I go on purchasing and hoping to resell things that I hope to find a buyer for one day? Judging by the business account balance – not long.
‘You can joke but I’m going to buy that.’
‘There’s a cowboy boot one knocking around somewhere too.’
‘This illustrates my point. Why are they not together? Organised. If someone comes in looking for a mug, point them to a shelf where all the mugs are.’
‘But if someone comes in and goes over there but doesn’t go over there, they might miss it.’ I point my hands in opposite directions.
‘If things were better organised, they wouldn’t miss it.’
I go to spout a clever and witty comeback, but no words come out. He is frustratingly good at making points.
‘Ava will love that one.’ He spots the cowboy boot mug and comes back to put them both on the counter. ‘There you go, two sales already today. Shall we make a start or are you leaving that tea until it’s stone cold or just unpleasantly lukewarm?’
He’s seen right through the diversion of nursing my cuppa then. I swallow the last of the offensively tepid drink and steel myself. I have to start somewhere, and the scene of the Clarice Cliff crash is the perfect place because I never did get around to tidying it up properly.
Ren follows me through to the second room of the shop and surveys the mess. ‘Well, look at that, the junk has started self-ejecting already.’
He says it so totally deadpan that it makes me break out in a nervous giggle, and when he looks at me and grins, the nervous giggles turn into outright laughter, and he laughs too, making his bright eyes twinkle and crow’s feet at the corners crinkle up, and I realise this isn’t a bad thing.
He’s practical, logical, and sensible, and brave enough to help me. It’s worth putting in an effort too.
* * *
By lunchtime, my resolve about not killing him is weakening. Would a lifetime in prison and an orphaned thirteen-year-old on my conscience be worth it? This morning, I thought it wouldn’t, but now, I’m wavering towards… maybe.
Ren’s blocked off an area of the second room and is piling all the things to go to the tip into it, along with separate boxes for donations to charity shops, and another one for recycling.
‘Why would anyone…?’ It’s an unfinished question that he’s asked several hundred times so far today. The end of it is some variation of ‘…buy this… want this… be stupid enough to buy this and think other people would want it…’ but he stopped adding those parts several hours ago, after I gave him a look that made him think he needed full body armour, not just steel-toe-capped boots.
‘It’s a curiosity shop. It’s supposed to be full of weird things. Curiosities, some might say.’
‘Yes, but why are they all fruit related? Seriously. This is a raspberry planter in the shape of an actual raspberry.’
‘Yes, and imagine growing raspberries in it. Raspberry-inception. A never-ending circle of raspberries. An endless circle-of-raspberry-life.’
He looks like he’s trying to hold it back, but eventually he bursts out laughing. ‘Maybe you need a certain type of mindset to run a shop like this, and I clearly don’t have it.’
He’s trying to be kind, and I’m trying to embrace this, because I know he’s right, and the more stuff he picks up and questions, the more I think about how my dad would never have bought something like it, and how much I’ve strayed from what he wanted his shop to be, and as much as I hate having to downsize, I appreciate Ren being the first person to make me realise that.
Ren picks up a little glass bottle and examines it. ‘Why do you have a random inkwell from, at a guess, the 1860s?’
‘Because it’s adorable? Come on, can’t you just imagine some lovelorn man, a Mr Darcy type in his frilly shirt and breeches, sitting at a table in the window, looking out over his country estate and penning letters of love to his beloved with his quill and ink from that little bottle?’
‘Mickey, I hate to break it to you, but…’ He comes over with the bottle turned upside down, reaches for my hand, and when I hold it out, he takes hold of my wrist and positions my fingers on the bottom of the bottle, so they’re running over the embossed lettering that’s stamped in the glass. His fingers hold mine in place for longer than strictly necessary. I’d seen the branding before and assumed it was the name of the manufacturers of the inkwell, but he seems to know otherwise.
‘You know who these people were? They were the leading divorce solicitors of the late nineteenth century. In 1857, there was a landmark legislation that allowed people to obtain a divorce through the courts for the first time. It was expensive and a privilege given only to upper-class men. There were no equal rights for women. The only things likely to have been written by ink from this inkwell are the signing of divorce papers of a hoity-toity man who’d got fed up with his wife and wanted to get rid of her and leave her destitute. Love letters between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, it was not.’
I yank my hand back like the empty inkwell has burnt me. Why did I invent a story about it rather than doing any actual research? That’s a horrible history behind it, and I want to throw it out immediately. ‘I don’t even want to touch it. It’s like a cursed object masquerading as something good.’
‘Fear not.’ He tosses it from one hand to the other, trying to hold back laughter at my reaction. ‘I’m already cursed in that department, I’ll put it in the box for recycling.’
When he comes back empty-handed, he bows and tips an imaginary hat in my direction, like he’s expecting the welcome of a conquering hero, but I’ve got stuck on his joke about being cursed and I’m suddenly more desperate than ever to know more about his life.
‘Why are they always about love?’ he asks. ‘Why is every story you invent connected to love and sweeping romantic gestures and unrealistic expectations?’
‘Why shouldn’t they be? Objects become symbols of love. Gifts. Tokens of appreciation or little ways of showing someone they’re cared about. People love things . Sometimes things become a physical representation of feelings that don’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘These have been thrown out or sold on. They can’t mean much any more.’
‘You don’t know that. Maybe they’ve been sold accidentally, or in a fit of rage, or maybe the person has died and their family hasn’t known the significance, or the things have been lost or stolen. There are multiple possibilities as to why much-loved objects can end up straying far from home…’ I’m thinking of my dad and how he reacted after my mum’s death. I’ve always hoped that if anyone else was in a similar situation, desperately looking for something they’d lost, my shop would be the place they’d find it. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
It takes him a while to answer. ‘Because from what you said on the second day we came in, you’re single and it didn’t sound like you’d been particularly happy in that side of your life. How can you believe that all this trash is enchantment and magic and fairytales when you know that love doesn’t conquer all, and probably just makes us more miserable than we were to begin with?’
‘Because it gives me something to hope for. At our cores, we all go through life hoping to find life-changing, world-shaking love. We never really outgrow the idea of over-romanticised Disney movie happily-ever-afters. On some level, everybody wishes they had that. Just because I haven’t found it yet doesn’t mean it’s not out there waiting to be found. It doesn’t mean that other people haven’t found it. Finding these treasures and imagining the love stories behind them is an escape. Objects can transport us from the everyday mundane reality of life and give us something to believe in. Whether they’re true or not is less important than the hope they give.’
He’s still looking at me like I’m an alien species he hasn’t encountered until now, shaking his head in a despairing way. ‘I don’t know how you can go through everything you’ve been through and still come out with such hopefulness. I wish I was more like you. To quote a famous mermaid, I wish I could be “Part of Your World” and see things the way you do.’
‘Why can’t you?’
He makes a noncommittal noise and goes back to trying to reach behind a sideboard for something that’s fallen down behind it.
‘I told you about me the other day.’ I prod because I can’t help myself. ‘What’s your story, Ren? And if you don’t want to tell me, rest assured, I will question you mercilessly about it on some other day.’
He looks up and meets my eyes across the shop and laughs – a laugh that was probably supposed to be sarcastic, but comes out sounding genuine when he recognises the repeat of what he said to me in the café.
‘Don’t have one. I’m the most boring, embarrassing person on the planet. Ava can attest to that, and frequently does.’ He’s trying to joke, but there’s an underlying hurt in his voice, and like the other day when he stayed hunkered down in the café doorway to avoid embarrassing her, I have no doubt that he’s struggling with Ava growing up and going through the perfectly normal phase where everything your parents do is the most embarrassing thing ever.
And I cannot stop myself pushing. ‘You seem like a man who’s been hurt…’
‘Hurt?’ He scoffs and stands upright to look at me. ‘Oh, I haven’t been hurt . I’ve had my heart shredded and fed back to me on a pair of sharpened chopsticks, along with any belief I ever had in love, magic, the goodness of humanity, and my ability to trust anyone or believe in anything . Does that answer your query?’
I didn’t expect such honesty, and he probably expected his sharpness to deter me from questioning him, but such a jaded worldview has done nothing but make me want to go over and give him a hug. Now I’m even more determined to find out what he’s hiding under his prickly shell. ‘Seriously, Ren,’ I say gently. He seems like someone who needs a bit of gentleness in his life. ‘Messy divorce? Absent ex-wife?’
‘Ah, yes, why does anyone have kids if not so they can tell people private things you didn’t want them to know within moments of meeting them?’ He rolls his eyes at the memory of Ava opening up too much when they first came in here last Tuesday, and then glances at me and seems to relent. ‘And yes. Messy divorce. Absent ex-wife.’
‘You could elaborate, you know.’
‘I could.’
Despite that, he stays frustratingly silent. Just because he could doesn’t mean he’s going to.
‘She’s gone to Italy?’
‘Mickey…’ It’s said warningly, but it doesn’t sound like a warning – it sounds more like a plea. Please don’t make me talk . And if there’s one thing I know about men with a rod of tension that taut through their shoulders, it’s that they need to talk.
He’s gone back to trying to shift the upcycled wooden sideboard, and I decide to change tack. If he won’t talk about his relationship, maybe he’ll talk about his job instead. ‘What’s it like being a teacher?’
‘Great, in July. Bloody awful once term starts again.’ He’s not concentrating on his answer, and I’m surprised by the inadvertent admission.
‘Really? You don’t like teaching?’
‘I’m not sure I like anything lately,’ he mutters, and then glances up at me as he seems to catch up with what he’s said and backtracks. ‘I mean, yeah, I love it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, since my first history lesson on my second day at secondary school. We had a teacher who brought history to life. I connected with his lessons like I was really there, seeing past events happen in real time, and from that moment, I wanted to do that. I wanted to be standing up there at the front of the class, bringing times gone by to life for other disengaged kids like me. But these days, it’s a lot of pressure, and it’s increasingly hard to get the ultramodern smartphone generation interested in times long ago when most twenty-first century kids only care about social media stats and getting TikTok views. It’s a lot of lesson planning, overtime, taking work home to mark on my own time, and the feeling of helping kids has been buried under pointless admin and endless paperwork. If behaviour is poor in class, it’s framed as your lesson not being engaging enough. If pupils aren’t getting good marks, it’s because your lesson wasn’t written well enough. There’s so much stress and pressure, and I…’ He runs out of air and trails off, but I can hear the unsaid ending of that sentence. He, once again, seems like someone who is barely holding it together, and if the rest of that sentence wasn’t going to be ‘…can’t take any more’ then I’ll eat my hair flower. The urge to go over and give him a hug tingles in my fingertips again.
I can see the way his chest is heaving as he struggles to keep his emotions under control. His eyes are wide, a deer-in-headlights look like he doesn’t know how I got him to say all of that, and I’m not sure if I should give in to the hug urge or push him further. I don’t think Ren opens up easily, and this is a chance that can’t be ignored. ‘And you’re dealing with a lot at home too…’
He sinks down and sits against the sideboard he was trying to move with the heaviest-sounding sigh I’ve ever heard. ‘Ava hates me. She blames me. When we split up, her mother made no secret of the fact it was because she was bored of me. I wasn’t exciting enough. I didn’t make her feel alive. She wanted more. I was holding her back, clipping her wings, ruining her life, and she made sure Ava knew it was my fault for not being enough. Ava had a choice of whether she wanted to stay with me or go to live with her mum, and she chose her mum, and one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do is sit her down and explain that she couldn’t go with her mum because her mum didn’t want her, but not in those words because I didn’t want her to think badly of her mother or feel unwanted. My ex wanted to travel, see the world, and she didn’t want to be tied down by a daughter who needed her.
‘At first there were visits. Her mum would take her to do something fun and exciting that dull old Dad would never do – ice skating or a shopping spree – but she started coming up with more and more excuses about why she couldn’t be there, or if she did turn up, she’d be hours late. Then she started standing her up completely, arranging to meet and then just leaving her there, waiting. Gradually she faded out of our lives. Her parents told us she’d gone to Italy with a new boyfriend. She hasn’t been in contact for over a year. I suspect her parents know where she is, they’ve mentioned that she’s travelling and Ava says they have postcards from her, but nothing else. To my knowledge, she’s never even asked how Ava’s doing or made any effort to contact her, and I have no idea how to make that better for her.’
This explains so much. The prickliness and cynicism. Even the warnings about not wanting Ava to get her hopes up – I now understand how badly she’s been disappointed before. And he is broken by this, I can see it in every inch of him. Torn between blaming himself and being rightfully angry at his ex. He’s hurting, and trying desperately to keep all of that away from his daughter. No wonder he gives off a vibe of barely holding it together, and I feel such a swell of affection for him.
For a man who is juggling so many problems, he’s gone out of his way to help me, and to get involved in the diary solely because it was what Ava wanted, and that says so much about what a good guy he is, deep down, even if it seems like it’s been a long time since he felt that himself.
‘Ava still thinks she’s going to waltz back in and fill our lives with excitement again. She still thinks that I drove her away and then somehow prevented her from living with her mum, and it feels like she’ll never forgive me.’
My teeth have cut through my bottom lip where I’ve been chewing on it as he talks, trying to stop myself interrupting – either with words or by throwing my arms around him. ‘Can I say something?’
He looks up and blinks, and it’s almost like he’s forgotten I’m here and it takes a moment for him to nod.
I go over and sit beside him on the sideboard. ‘You’re the least dull person I’ve ever met. You’re clever, and brilliant, and funny, and kind, and the fact you still try to hide the true extent of your ex’s cruelness from Ava speaks volumes about you.’
‘Oh, Mickey.’ He laughs a thick laugh and bends forward like he’s gone light-headed, scrubbing a hand over his face and taking long, deep breaths.
My thigh is pressing against his, and I force myself not to rub his back and try to comfort him in some way. ‘You can’t blame yourself for any of that.’
‘It is my fault, though.’ His voice is muffled through his hands.
‘Your ex told you it was your fault. She strikes me as someone manipulative, narcissistic, and selfish. There is something fundamentally wrong with someone who’d leave a child and then blame someone else for their own failings. Do you honestly think anything you did would have changed that? You could have been an all-singing, all-dancing cowboy rockstar space-hopping billionaire, and she would still have wanted more.’
He sits upright and pulls back far enough to raise a sceptical eyebrow at me. ‘A cowboy rockstar space-hopping billionaire?’
I grin and hold my hands up. ‘I’m just saying, nothing would have been enough. It wasn’t you .’
He shakes his head like he’s unsure of what to do with that sentence, and I sit beside him for a while, because I get the feeling he’s a bit shaken by sharing all of that.
‘Ava still sees her grandparents though?’ I ask when the silence grows heavy.
‘Yeah. They still wanted a relationship, and they’re the only family she’s got. I would never discourage that. And honestly, I’m glad of the break sometimes, which is a terrible thing to say and probably disqualifies me from any Father of the Year awards.’
I laugh. ‘Maybe it makes you Normal Person of the Year instead. Being a single parent is a lot , I know – I grew up with one too. Ava’s lovely – you’re doing a great job even if it doesn’t feel like it.’
I know I’ve hit a nerve when his breathing hitches and he shakes his head in a disbelieving way. ‘I don’t know why I told you all that. I never share stuff like this with people I barely know. Actually, I never share stuff like this with people I know really well either. Are there mind-altering substances in this shop or what?’
He gets to his feet and looks around, like he’s searching for any mind-altering substances that might be hidden somewhere. ‘Suspicious incense! I bet you’re burning suspicious incense, right?’
I laugh out loud. ‘There’s no incense in the shop, Ren, suspicious or otherwise. And even if there was, I don’t think it’s known for having an instantaneous psychedelic drug kind of effect.’
‘I’ll feel better if you let me believe it’s suspicious incense.’
I laugh because I really didn’t have him down for being this adorable.
He paces a couple of times, and then holds a hand out to pull me up too, and when my fingers slip over his, his hand tightens and we hold each other’s gaze for a long few moments.
‘C’mere.’ It’s barely a whisper and I’m not entirely sure whether it was me or him who said it, but before he has a chance to rethink it, I pull him closer and reach up to slide my arms around him again, and just like the other day, he instantly sinks into it. His chin settles over my shoulder and his arms slip around me, his hands spreading out and covering as much of my back as possible, and after a few moments of my hands rubbing up and down, his rod-straight spine curves towards me, and he stumbles and has to replant his feet on the floor as his body loses some of its tension. He makes a noise of contentment that I’m entirely sure he doesn’t realise popped out, and it just makes me squeeze him tighter. This is a man utterly desperate for a hug, and time disappears as we stand there holding each other.
‘Why do we keep doing that?’ He sounds blissfully dazed as he pulls away.
‘Hugging? No idea, maybe it’s all the suspicious incense.’
He laughs out loud and his shoulders drop. ‘Okay, okay, I’m not very good at dealing with my feelings, but I am good at recycling and recognising rubbish. Now, about that dragon fruit table…’
I smack at his arm and defend my dragon fruit table again, and he laughs good-naturedly, and we go back to the easy companionship of him picking up things and commenting on them, me making the case for their right to stay, while also trying to tell myself I can’t keep everything and the whole point of decluttering is to throw things away . He’s somehow a little bit lighter, a bit warmer and more jokey, and now I have a better idea of what he’s dealing with, it means even more that he’s given up his free time to help me, and that’s someone worth listening to.