Who's That Girl (31 page)

'He's got great-grandchildren, my sister's kids.'

'So, tell me, what do you sec in my grandson?' he's asking, looking at me. I feel myself colour. 'Um…'

'She's not my girlfriend,' jumps in Oliver, his cheeks doing exactly the same as mine are doing.

'We're not… you know,' he says awkwardly, gesturing with his thumb back and forth between us.

'Ah, I see,' nods his granddad, puffing on his pipe and surveying us both with interest, before demanding, 'Well, why the hell not?' and letting out a loud, rumbling laugh. 'Time you got yourself a girlfriend. You can't stay single for ever, my boy.'

Oliver looks as if he wants the ground to open up and swallow him and I smile in commiseration, while paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to the little voice in my head, which is gleefully whispering,
He doesn't have a girlfriend. He's single
.

'Charlotte and I just met,' Oliver explains. 'Well, actually, we met a long time ago, but we've just…'he searches around for the right word, and I wonder what he's going to say '…

reconnected,' he finishes.

'I see,' says his granddad, raising his eyebrows, which scuttle up his forehead like two large white caterpillars. 'How marvellous.' He smiles. 'Tea?'

He shuffles into the back to make tea, with Oliver joining him to help, leaving Welly and me exploring. It's like the old curiosity shop. Everything is piled high on top of everything else - an engraved silver pistol, a stuffed peacock, a mahogany table with two large carved claws for feet…

'Wow, you've got some amazing things,' I enthuse, as Oliver and his granddad reappear, carrying a tray on which are precariously balanced various mismatched cups and saucers and a teapot shaped like a man in a top hat.

'My Alice in Wonderland teapot,' he says, observing me looking curiously. 'A thirties original, hand-painted, with no chips or cracks on the glazing. It's in perfect condition. One of only fifty sets ever made.' He beams, flourishing it high in the air. A stream of hot tea pours forth from the Mad Hatter's prominent nose. 'A real collector's piece.' He passes me a teacup. 'Milk and sugar?'

'No, I'm fine.'

But it's too late - he's already adding both.

'What was that, dear?'

'Um, nothing… thank you.'

He smiles cheerfully and passes Oliver a cup, then rattles a biscuit tin. 'Shortbread finger?'

I hesitate, my eyes flicking over to Oliver, who's watching me with interest. 'Er, yes, thank you.'

Well, he's such a sweet old man, I can't say no, can I? Plus I think the fact that I'd eaten nearly half of Oliver's ice cream by the time he emerged from the toilets disproves the nutritionist's theory that I'm intolerant to wheat, refined sugar and dairy.

'So how are you, Granddad?'

'Oh, you know.' He waves his hand vaguely, a sad expression falling over his face. 'I'll survive.'

'Granddad's got to shut the shop,' explains Oliver, patting his granddad's arm supportively. 'He's been here over sixty years, so he's finding it a bit difficult.'

'Oh, no,' I cry. 'That's awful. Why do you have to leave?'

'Things move on, times change,' shrugs his granddad, taking a sip of tea, his hand trembling slightly.

'It's got nothing to do with time moving on,' gasps Oliver angrily. 'His lease has gone up to something crazy and he can't afford it any more. He's being squeezed out.'

'By who?' I exclaim.

'Probably another overpriced coffee chain,' tuts Oliver, not bothering to hide his disgust. 'Or one of the big designer stores. They're all moving in around here now, taking over the neighbourhood, trying to make it like bloody Knightsbridge.'

'Hey, now, there's no need for swearing,' reprimands his granddad, shooting him a disapproving look.

'Well, I can't help it - it's disgusting. They have no respect for someone who made the area what it is. It's all about money, profits.'

'This shop has certainly seen me through some times. I met my late wife, Betty, here,' remembers his granddad, turning to me. She came in to buy a china teapot. Yes, she did,' he adds as if I don't believe him. 'Ended up with a whole lot more than that,'

he quips, and laughs his rumbling laugh. 'After she passed away, I thought about selling up, but to do what?' He shrugs his shoulders. 'Antiques are in my blood, and look at me, I'm a bit of an antique myself now.'

'But what are you going to do with all your antiques?' I ask, then immediately regret it. I don't want to upset him.

'EBay,' he says simply.

'
EBay
?' Trust me, that was not the answer I was expecting.

'I've been having lessons from my great-grandchildren,' he continues, dipping his shortbread finger in his teacup. 'Apparently, it's all the rage. I even have a PayPal account.' He flashes me a smile and I smile back.

'It won't be the same, though,' mutters Oliver angrily.

'Ah, well, what can you do?' sighs his granddad with the calmness of a man who's lived through a lot. 'Everything has to come to an end.' There's a pause as he looks at us both. 'I've spent a lifetime dealing in expensive objects, but do you know what's the most valuable?'

'What?' we both ask with interest.

'Time,' he says simply. 'You can't buy back time, not for any price. There are no second chances. Every second is precious, so don't waste a single one. Time, quite literally, is priceless.'

I look at him, absorbing his words. Is that what I've been given? A second chance?

'More tea?'

I zone back to see his granddad looking at me. 'Um… yes, thanks.' And pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind, I hold out my cup. 'That would be lovely.'

Chapter Twenty-nine

Two cups of tea and three shortbread fingers later, Oliver gets roped into helping his granddad pack up some of the heavier items for the imminent move. I offer my assistance, but I'm quickly rebuffed by his granddad.

'Gracious, no, this is man's work,' he puffs from behind a life-sized stuffed grizzly bear. Standing on its hind legs, it has its front paws outstretched and its mouth frozen in a silent snaggle-toothed roar.

'Well, if you're sure.' Normally I'd feel obliged to argue with such a blatantly sexist comment, but in this case perhaps not.

'One, two, three,
hup
.' With a loud grunt the bear is suddenly hoisted into the air and flung over Oliver's shoulder in a fireman's lift. His legs buckle. 'Jesus, Granddad, this thing weighs a ton.'

'Stop complaining. When I was your age, I could carry one on each shoulder.'

'What? There used to be a
pair?'
He grimaces as a cloud of dust envelops him.

'Aye. I sold Fred to a Japanese man in 1952, but there's only Ginger left now.' He sighs wistfully and strokes the scary-looking bear fondly as if it's a pet.

'She's called Ginger?' I ask doubtfully.

'After the dancer.' He nods proudly. 'Both beauties, don't you think?'

'I think I'm going to collapse, that's what I think,' complains Oliver, still trying to lug the beast across the shop floor.

Quickly stepping out of his way, I take it as my cue to leave.

'OK, well, I better be going. It was nice to meet you.' I go to shake hands with Oliver's granddad, but he's having none of the formality. Grabbing hold of me, he plants a whiskery kiss full of shortbread crumbs on each cheek.

'Are you sure you wouldn't like a nice silver milk jug?' he suggests. 'Or a set of horse-brasses?'

'No, thank you.' I smile as I'm released from his grip. I turn to Oliver, but he's still weighed down by a grizzly balancing precariously on his shoulder. 'Well… um, bye.'

I sort of hover awkwardly in the middle of the shop floor, watched by the eagle eyes of his granddad and Wellington, who both seem to stop what they were doing, be it sniffing the leg of a dining-room table or dusting a horse-brass.

Oliver pauses from grappling with the bear and sticks his head out from underneath the wide roar. 'Oh, hey.' He's all red-faced and out of breath. 'You're leaving?'

If I'm not mistaken, he looks a bit dismayed. I feel a tweak of pleasure.

'Yeah, I'm going to walk back.' I nod vigorously, feeling flustered all of a sudden. 'Keep looking for my watch…' I trail off, and begin chewing my thumbnail, before realising and snatching my hand out of my mouth. What am I doing? I never chew my nails any more. Not now I have manicures. 'You know, I need to…'

'Retrace your steps.'

'… retrace my steps.'

We both speak at the same time, then laugh at the coincidence, but the words aren't lost on me. I don't think they're lost on him either, because he gives me a look. Or am I imagining it?

Probably, I decide, grabbing hold of myself. I mean, I'm not exactly at my most lucid right now, am I? I've barely had any sleep, I've just broken up with my boyfriend, I'm probably experiencing a sugar high from the ice cream and shortbread fingers,
and
I'm thinking all sorts about a barman I met ten years ago, and who's about to be suffocated by a giant stuffed bear. I don't remember this being one of the stages I read about in the glossary for the relationship book.

'Are you OK to walk back?'

'Yeah, fine, fine.' I nod, hastily batting away his concerns with my hand. 'I left my car at the pub.'

'Do you have far to drive?'

'No, I only live five minutes away, by the church, Spencer Avenue,' I gabble. I've come over all hot and jittery, and feel the urgent need to go outside and get some fresh air.

'Well, if you're around, maybe pop in the pub later.'

'Yeah, maybe.'

There's a pause.

'Well, thanks again for the tea.' I turn to his granddad, who immediately colours and pretends to be engrossed in his horse-brasses.

'Oh, you're welcome, my dear,' he says, feigning surprise, as if he's just heard me and not just spent the last five minutes eavesdropping.

'Good luck with Ginger,' I add cheerfully to Oliver, trying to sound all casual. Then, giving Wellington a quick pat on the head, I stride purposefully out of the shop.
Correction
: bang into an eighteenth-century cabinet, bruise my knee, wrestle with the door, which appears to have stuck, finally manage to push it open, forget to mind the step and sort of trip outside on to the street. I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. It's like I've suddenly regressed to my clumsy twenty-one-year-old self, I think, as I quickly make my way down the street, my cheeks stinging with embarrassment. No, twenty-two-year-old self, I reflect, thinking of last night's birthday party.

After the dusty darkness inside the antique shop, it's blindingly bright outside. In the rush this morning I didn't bring my sunglasses. Squinting in the sunshine, I spot a nearby stall selling cheap sunnies. I know, I'll buy a pair to walk home with, I decide, hurrying over. There's quite a crowd. Clustered around the racks of glasses, people are jostling to try on all the different styles. For a moment I nearly abandon the mission. This is why I buy my sunglasses at Harvey Nics. That and the fact that they're genuine designer glasses and have proper UV lenses, I think disparagingly, managing to grasp a pair that are copies of the latest style from Chanel. Then again, these have UV lenses too, I notice with surprise as I pop them on. The stallholder thrusts a mirror at me and I glance at my reflection. Of course when you put them on, they're going to look cheap and plasticky and—

Wow, these look fabulous.

I turn my head from side to side, feeling an old stirring of excitement. It's a feeling I haven't had for years, but I recognise it immediately: the thrill of finding a bargain.

'Do you have any more of those she's wearing?' A woman gestures at me.

'No, that's the last pair.' The stallholder shakes his head.

It's like a shot of adrenalin. I have the last pair! Which of course makes them even
more
of a bargain.

Digging out a tenner, I quickly pay for the sun glasses and start walking back towards the park. Gosh, what an absolute
steal
, I muse, checking out my reflection in every shop window I pass and feeling the bargain-hunter's buzz. I wonder if there's anything else I can buy? Maybe I should have a quick look.

Automatically I go to check the time, but of course my wrist is bare and so I reach for my BlackBerry. I can see what time it is on there, I realise, feeling for it in my pocket. Then I remember. It's in the car. I left it in the little centre well.

As it registers, I feel a knee jerk of annoyance, but it's quickly replaced by something else: a flicker of freedom, release, liberation. As if a window of opportunity is opening before me, and like a schoolgirl, I feel as if I've escaped the confines of time, which are as real to me as any classroom walls, and I have a chance to play truant from my life.

Normally right now I'd be taking the short cut and hurrying home, but all at once I don't feel like hurrying, which is unusual for me, as I hurry everywhere. Even to the loo. But without my watch it's like time becomes this free-flowing thing, not divided into seconds and minutes and hours, to be ticked off, watched, kept to.

And so, taking the long way home through the market, I slow my pace down. It doesn't come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just
being
, rather than rushing from somewhere to somewhere. Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths, I take a moment to just stop and look around me. I smile to myself. For the first time in a long time I can, quite literally, smell the coffee. I have no idea how long I spend meandering down Portobello, but I do know I keep stopping to lust over gold-hammered rings filled with a kaleidoscope of semi-precious stones from Nepal and to marvel at ingenious photograph frames made from the keys of old typewriters. God, I'd forgotten how much fun flea markets can be, I muse, as I'm distracted by a yellow Indian blouse hanging from a nearby rail. Fluttering in the warm breeze, the tiny sequins sewn round the neck catch the sunlight and twinkle, like a dozen tiny stars, and before I know it I'm haggling with the dreadlocked stallholder and getting it for six pounds. Six pounds! It's incredible. No wonder I always used to buy my clothes from markets when I was younger. Delighted with my shopping, I'm ready for the next amazing find and I don't have to look far. Next door is a small Chinese lady with dozens of racks filled with vintage clothes, and still on a high from my recent purchases, I rise to the challenge and try nearly everything on in the tiny makeshift changing room. A lot of it's horrible, some of it's worse than horrible, and then just as the buzz is fading and my arms begin aching, I find it: an incredible blue silk dress with a plunging neckline that looks like something you'd see in
Vogue
for a month's salary. It's totally unique. I'll never see anyone wearing another one. I buy it without a second thought. Now I'm on a roll. Further along is a stall selling second-hand shoes. Almost breathless with excitement, I grab a pair of gold stilettos. Ooh, these look fab, and such a bargain, I tell myself, sticking my feet in. Ouch. The front pinches my toes. I try to wiggle them, only now my foot's slipping forwards. In fact these are actually really uncomfortable. Plus the plastic heel is ugly, I realise, looking at them in the mirror.