followed Tom and Nina through the shop so she could lock the door behind them.
She watched them hurry across the courtyard. It was raining. Nina shrieked as she skidded over the cobbles. Tom took her arm and they ran around the corner.
Upstairs, she heard a door slam and the sound of music suddenly blaring out, but down here all was still and calm.
‘Happy Ever After,’ she whispered under her breath as she straightened display tables, plumped cushions and did a very lacklustre job of mopping the floors, because they couldn’t afford a cleaner and it was usually Verity’s job as she said it was the only way to ensure that it was done properly. ‘Happy Ever After.’
No matter how many times she said those three words, they never lost their meaning. Their intent. Their promise.
‘Happy Ever After.’ She stood in the centre of the room, next to the main display table, her hand resting on the photo of Lavinia and Perry. ‘Do you like your new name?’
Maybe Posy had been waiting for a sign, some acknowledgment from a higher power that she was doing the right thing for herself, for Sam, and for Bookends. Giving the shop a happy ever after too.
The shop stayed silent but Posy felt the same comforting glow that always came over her when she was alone among the books and decided that that was all the answer she needed.
It was all very well having a new name for the shop and a unique selling point, but Posy still wasn’t sure how to get her plans from flip chart to reality.
Luckily, Verity and Nina were fired up and full of can-do spirit when they burst into the shop the next morning. Or rather, Verity sidled in, not being one for bursting, waved at Posy who was going through a box of new deliveries and said, ‘I’ve had a think about it overnight and I’m completely on board with Happy Ever After. In fact, I’m very excited about it.’ Verity shook her fists like they were cheerleader pompoms. ‘See? This is me being excited. Now I’ve got to do the VAT returns, but later in the week, I think we should come up with an action plan. Maybe a spreadsheet too. And definitely a schedule. What fun!’
It didn’t exactly sound like fun, but a moment later Nina burst – literally this time – through the door.
‘I have paint samples!’ she cried, holding up a fistful of colour charts. ‘And I spoke to Claude, my tattoo artist, and he said that he’d design a logo for us. For free. I’ve given him so much money over the years that I always used to joke he should give me frequent-flier miles.’
‘Paint samples?’ Posy queried. ‘Are we going to paint then?’
‘I think we should. It is rather dark and well, woody in here, isn’t it?’
It was, and in between dealing with the odd customer, two tourists who couldn’t find the British Museum even though it was a massive building heavily signposted and only five minutes away, and many browsers who were more interested in sheltering from the leaden February skies and the seeping drizzle than buying books, Posy and Nina spent a very enjoyable morning debating colour schemes.
They decided on a light but warm grey for the shelves and a smudgy pink for accents. ‘I did promise Tom I wouldn’t paint the shop pink, but it’s only a highlight colour,’ Posy said as she held up the swatch. ‘It’s not a girly pink.’
‘It’s a clover pink. I had my hair that colour during my gothic Lolita phase,’ Nina said. ‘Now, shall we have a bash at coming up with a shop layout?’
As they pondered the ‘flow’ of the shop and how many bookcases they’d have to cull to achieve it, Posy wondered if she should speak to Sebastian, give him a heads-up. Not that she needed his permission to make sweeping changes to what belonged to her legally. Maybe she’d be better off hiring a lawyer, a kindly, avuncular lawyer, who could write Sebastian a letter telling him that. A kindly, avuncular lawyer who charged very reasonably for his time, Posy thought.
They were in the main room now, Nina chattering happily away about how to make the shop more welcoming ‘Do you think there is anything in that Feng Shui? Have we got any books on it?’ as Posy imagined Sebastian’s lip-curling derision when he spotted the splashes of her clover pink accent colour dotted around the shop.
‘Sebastian!’ she muttered contemptuously.
‘Yeah, what is he doing out there?’ Nina asked. ‘And who’s that guy he’s with? Do you think he’s fit?’
‘What? Is who fit? Sebastian? Can hardly see him at the gym lifting weights. The only bit of his body that ever gets a workout is his tongue,’ Posy said as she crossed over to the window where Nina was watching Sebastian and another man on the opposite side of the yard.
‘You saucy mare!’ Nina nudged Posy and treated her to a theatrical wink. ‘How would you know what he gets up to with his tongue? Something you need to tell your Aunty Nina about?’
‘What?’ Posy looked at her friend in confusion then wished she hadn’t as Nina did something obscene with her own tongue so Posy could see the underside of her piercing, which always made her feel slightly vomitous. ‘I didn’t mean like that! His tongue has been nowhere about my person. As if! I meant his mouth! Not like that either. That he never stops talking and usually the content of his conversation consists mostly of unmitigated rudeness.’
‘Protesting a little too much there, aren’t you?’ Nina teased.
They’d been standing at the window while carrying on this conversation, so it was inevitable that Sebastian spotted them. He looked past the other man, who was gesticulating wildly, then raised his hand in greeting.
No, that would have been too polite. What Sebastian was in fact doing was beckoning Posy with an imperious finger.
‘I wonder what he wants,’ said Posy, making absolutely no effort to find out. A moment later the beckoning turned into a clicking of Sebastian’s fingers, as if he were summoning an underperforming lackey.
‘So rude, but I’d better go out and talk to him,’ Posy muttered without enthusiasm.
‘Keep away from his tongue!’ Nina cheerfully called after her as Posy squared her shoulders against the bitter February wind and opened the door.
‘Morland! Over here! Haven’t got all day,’ was Sebastian’s peremptory greeting.
Posy shuffled across the courtyard, thankful that unlike their last meeting, this time she was fully dressed in bra, jeans, jumper and cardigan, unadorned with anything that could be mistaken for piles of poo. ‘And hello to you too!’ she said as soon as she was near enough not to have to bellow. ‘What’s up?’
‘Brocklehurst, this is Morland, quasi-owner of the bookshop,’ Sebastian said to his companion even as Posy turned on him.
‘There’s nothing quasi about it. I am the actual owner,’ Posy said furiously.
‘I
