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By Root 1533 0

my way back to the counter through the artfully arranged vignettes that made up the shop. A decoratively carved buffet table lined one wall, accessorized with a lamp, candlesticks, and a pile of antique books; a curvaceous console flanked another, between a pair of exotic blackamoors. Centre stage sat a beautiful, button-backed bergère, long, low and feather-stuffed, upon which, two hundred years ago, a grande dame would have settled, the seat wide enough to prevent her crinolines from creasing. That was what I loved about our pieces – I trailed my fingers along the bergère’s intricately carved frame – the past. The wondering who’d touched, sat on, glanced in the mirror of, swept by in their hoops, and yes, you could pick up something shinier and brighter in Heal’s, but did it have soul? Did it have a history? What secrets did that group of fauteuils hold, those small, upright gilt chairs, which would have lined the walls in some grand salon: what emotions had they been privy to, what glances seen traded, or tender moments heard whispered behind fans?

I realigned a row of silver apostle spoons on a table on my way back and sat down at the counter: an old apothecary’s desk we’d found in Fayence, the town, incidentally with the blue church clock where Hal was getting married. I gazed through my treasures to the street. I had, in idler moments over the years, wondered if perhaps Hal hadn’t married because he’d never forgotten me. Idle, silly, vain moments, as it turned out, because now I knew. As Letty had said, he’d been playing the field, until he landed the biggest catch of all: a beautiful French girl to sweep up that idyllic aisle. I smiled. Reached for my glasses and opened the client book. But of course.

A few minutes later, the door jangled open and Maggie burst in with the lattes.

‘Look who I found lurking in Luigi’s and trying to sneak away without coming to see us.’

Christian followed her in, lumbering over the threshold in a vast tweed coat, puffing and blowing. I crossed the shop to embrace him.

‘How dare you!’

‘Is not a question of not coming to see you,’ he wheezed, ‘is more to do weeth not wanting to be the bearer of bad news – again!’

Maggie and I exchanged guilty glances like a couple of fourth-formers. Christian, retired and arthritic now, did our books, Maggie and I both being numerically dyslexic, and he despaired of ever balancing us, let alone getting us to make a healthy profit.

‘It’s Hattie’s fault,’ said Maggie, striding to the counter and putting the coffees down. ‘Most of the stuff in here isn’t for sale because the prospective homes aren’t deemed deserving enough.’

‘And the things that are for sale,’ I countered, ‘Maggie puts exorbitant prices on, so they never sell anyway.’

‘Well, I’m not selling for peanuts like that Magpie shop on the corner. They’re practically giving it away.’

‘Girls, girls,’ wheezed Christian, coming to join us in a cosy circle behind the apothecary’s desk where we had a faded brocade sofa (not for sale) and a brace of Louis Quinze chairs (so highly priced they’d never sell) to sink into. He settled in one of them. ‘You got to be realistic. You running a shop here, not an orphanage, Hattie. Ees none of your business where your lovely Limoges plates end up. And, Maggie, you got to stop imagining you top end Mount Street or a museum curator!’

‘Some of the stuff here could grace Mount Street,’ muttered Maggie, but without much conviction because she knew he was right. We’d got too precious, lately. Weren’t commercial enough. And new shops had sprung up in the vicinity, undercutting us, selling similar pieces – not as good, Maggie would insist – for a fraction of the price, whilst we sat reading our horoscopes and sipping our lattes, letting the world slip by.

‘You’ve grown complacent,’ Christian told us, opening the books on the table. ‘Look. This two years ago, see?’

Maggie and I peered from the safety of our body language: crossed arms and legs.

‘A whopping twenty per cent profit, yes?’

We nodded, uncrossing a bit: this, the result of a wonderful coup with an