Chances by North Freya

Author:North, Freya [North, Freya]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2011-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

Beer and Jam

Really, Vita could have done with a full and busy day but Mondays were always slow. She’d decided to compare the frightfully British charleston with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s version on the other side of the Atlantic and was currently happily involved with The Great Gatsby. Candy, who wanted to pull her friend into the real world, had sent her a book entitled The Men I’ve Loved to Hate. Apparently it was fiction and fantastically funny, but it didn’t appeal to Vita at all and she had about as much desire to read it as to attend a blindfolded speed-dating session – another of Candy’s ideas. At least with Evelyn Waugh, the vile bodies were the antithesis to her, with their double-barrelled surnames and wealth and flapper dresses and shiny bobbed hair and everything. Escapism, that’s what she needed and she gladly drifted off into another world, another time, and didn’t look up when the customer came in at lunch-time.

‘Hullo.’

Oh good God, it’s Oliver Bourne.

In his work clothes. With that box again. No wedding ring today, Vita noted with some disdain.

‘Hullo,’ he said again, now that he had her attention.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hi.’ Back to the book.

But he remained standing in the middle of the shop, looking around – not at her wares, but as if scouting for a flat surface on which to put the box. He approached.

‘I—’ she started.

‘I look like a salesman trying to flog you wasp catchers,’ he said.

Vita wasn’t sure how to answer that because actually, it was an apposite image, an amusing one, and she fought a smile.

‘Look,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen them already,’ she said.

‘No – not look,’ he said, ‘but – listen.’

He bent down and placed the cardboard box at his feet. Just the console table behind which Vita sat was between them. He was in his work clothes. He was slightly grubby. He had sawdust or something in his hair. She could actually smell it. Warm, fresh. Vita wished she hadn’t noticed.

‘About the other day – about yesterday,’ he said.

‘I told you – yesterday – that I don’t want the wasp catchers and I didn’t want you coming over.’

‘Semantically speaking, yes, you told me not to come to your house. Ever again. But this is your workplace.’

‘But why are you here? What is it that you want?’ She’d intended to sound nonplussed but she could hear she sounded confused.

‘Oh,’ said Oliver lightly, ‘oh – nothing really.’ He wondered how he could sound so stupid. How could he feel just like an awkward teenager? If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny. Richard Curtis could make it very funny. Hugh Grant would do a marvellous job, acting out this scene.

Vita was starting to look cross, he thought. Then he thought of Jonty. He looked around the shop, thought of the many times his late wife would have been in here, sniffing candles and admiring all the pretty frippery.

‘Actually,’ Oliver said, ‘I didn’t make it clear to you. I didn’t buy you the wasp catchers – I should have said so and for that, I apologise.

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