12

  Humphrey observed – with an increasing fascination and a growing horror – as Anthea displayed her shopkeeping persona before him.

  It was certainly different.

  As a business partner at Sweeney Todd’s salon she might well have had a great future ahead of her.

  Short of that though, the question was going to have to be asked of her again: what on earth was she doing anywhere at all near people?

  The man wanted to buy some of her hideously overpriced tat. A porcelain elephant with a watering can and an umbrella, or some such weirdness. He asked her a few – not entirely unreasonable – questions relating to both its origins and her pricing of it.

  Humphrey felt an overwhelming desire to intervene at this point, but that was nothing whatsoever to do with her. No, it was purely to satisfy his own private curiosity as to why the chap wanted to take possession of such a monstrosity anyway.

  His wife’s birthday?

  Was she a fan of elephants and watering cans and umbrellas then?

  No?

  Interesting.

  Even worse, the fella was trying to haggle over the price of this thing his wife was sure to hate.

  She was a lucky woman.

  Anyway, Anthea had proved hopeless at trying to justify the price tag and had immediately gone on the defensive when challenged by the chap as to her lack of knowledge. In fairness to her, whether the effigy had been based on a pachyderm from Africa or the Indian sub-continent really was neither here nor there.

  But she should at least have said something.

  Whoever it was who’d suggested that the customer might always be right had clearly never had the courage to go in to that building and tell Anthea.

  The news that the man was leaving and was taking his money with him provoked, from her, an exceedingly angry:

  ‘Well sod off then and stop wasting my ruddy time!’.

  She really was something else all right! Most people might have backed down slightly before that point and perhaps offered a bit of a discount, purely to make the sale.

  But Anthea clearly had her principles.

  Good for her, too.

  Except that principles didn’t tend to be all that effective when it came to paying the bills.

  Humphrey re-evaluated the situation based on what he’d just witnessed.

  As far as could be ascertained, Anthea was attempting to sell things, in that shop, that she must have known people would not really want to buy.

  Even if only on a subconscious level, he was certain that she must have appreciated that.

  Therefore, she must have realised that the main part of her game plan should really have been to – somehow – charm her potential victims into her clutches – leaving her door unlocked might’ve been the best way to start there, by the way – and to then use all her powers of persuasion to convince them that the crap she was about to succeed in selling them was absolutely vital for their future well-being.

  It was a tried and tested retail formula that one. But it did rely – rather heavily – on the presence of a charming, ebullient extrovert somewhere on the scene.

  Which was possibly not the sort of person to have ever considered being a shopkeeper in the first place. And it was certainly not the sort of character profile that Anthea seemed built for.

  She locked her door again and there was silence.

  Ideas for ways in which he could help her came at him from all directions.

  Most of them seemed to have nothing to do with helping her in the running of that shop though.

  Helping her out of her clothes and then helping her to the peak of sexual excitement seemed to be the more popular brainstorming suggestions at that moment.

  She was gorgeous, she really was.

  He received a second opinion of emphatic agreement with that statement from a small stirring somewhere beneath the horizon of his rotund midriff.

  A very small stirring.

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  He would have looked like an extraordinarily good lover, down there with her in the dust and the grime.

  Indeed, he was a good lover, as several dozen different women could have confirmed. Most of them had never actually seen him naked… but they would have told very sincere tales of his remarkable dexterity.

  Not to mention his impressively smooth tongue.

  It was easy to be a great lover when you were the size he was. You either had to adapt your technique to suit the ladies or you risked squashing innocent people under your man boobs.

  It really wasn’t too difficult a choice.

  Somehow though, he didn’t think Anthea would necessarily appreciate that sort of romantic interlude at that moment.

  He hadn’t done anything like enough – yet – to earn her trust.

  And he definitely didn’t want to frighten her off.

  13

  Why say such a ridiculous thing?!

  Not just ridiculous, but utterly ridiculous.

  It was that stupid tie that had done it.

  It had got her thinking dangerous thoughts about her ex-husband which she’d then – quite inexplicably – heard herself putting into actual, audible, cringeworthy words.

  She felt so hopeless.

  What on earth must he think of her now?

  The only consolation was that he was at least still stood there.

  And he didn’t seem to be laughing at her.

  But how bloody embarrassing.

  14

  Humphrey sent a silent word of thanks in the general direction of Charles M. Schulz.

  ‘Break-up sex’ indeed.

  ‘Closure’, for pity’s sake!

  Not that he wouldn’t – cheerfully – have ravished the woman anywhere.

  Well, anywhere within reason, at least.

  And preferably having shaken off the blindfold.

  The issue wasn’t whether or not he found her attractive, it was whether or not she could actually believe him. They hadn’t been divorced that long and he’d seen no evidence thus far to suggest that she’d changed at all from the insecure woman he’d married.

  Still, he was rather enjoying the effect his mere presence seemed to be having on her.

  15

  ‘You mean to say you would really want to sleep with me? Me?! Really?!!’

  With every word he uttered he was decimating the value of his own stock, yet he didn’t even seem to care.

  Why had he lost all that weight?

  That was when things had gone wrong.

  That was when he had ceased to be ‘the lucky one’ in their relationship.

  Because that dubious honour had then been hers.

  ‘You deserve so much better than me. Anthea… ’

  He was trying to look her in the eye but she wouldn’t accommodate him.

  ‘… you really do. I wish you could believe it. Because I’m telling you, the moment you realise you deserve much better than me will be the moment I will instantly want to make such love to you… ’

  16

  He stopped in mid sentence.

  Why – oh, why – had he just voluntarily introduced the word ‘instantly’ into a discussion about their sex life?

  Talk about making a rod for your own back.

  He’d have to try and convey his feelings to her in a different way. How could he get the word ‘stamina’ in there though?

  Oh, what the hell.

  ‘… Anthea, I will make such passionate love to you that I will – quite literally – take your breath away.’

  17

  Was he serious?

  ‘Take her breath away’?

  There would’ve been nothing unusual about that!

  He already had form for that sort of thing during their brief moments of romance: most often caused by the inertia of being on top of her and doing almost nothing of any real value.

  And as for his use of the word ‘passionate’, that was surely just a fancy word for ‘quick’.

  And he already had plenty of form for that too.

  ‘Er, that is to say – of course – that I would want to make passionate love to you. But you wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t need me. Because you’ll have realised you can do so much better, you see? It’s all about self-confidence, Anthea. And you still haven’t got any.’

  He’d managed to attract a rather prestigious collection of VIPs to Anthea’s official relaunch, fourteen years ago.

  That had not been without its difficulties, although they’d all been of the completely predictable variety.

  Armed with his diary, the telephone book and virtually no hope whatsoever, he’d embarked on the first – half-hearted – attempt at snaring a few celebrities. His pitch had been clever, in that it had made absolutely no mention of Anthea – or her personality – at all.

  No, this was a new charity shop which was just opening up in the area and which they– perhaps – might like to show their support for.

  The list of excuses they’d come up with was as long as the list of poor excuses for decent human beings that had offered them. Folk were having their hair done; hips done; teeth out; legs off; the vicar round… there really was no end. At least they were all vaguely original.

  Yet to a man, woman and celebrity performing canine, each had told Humphrey where he could kindly stick his invitation.

  Well, not that dog.

  But he’d distinctly heard it, barking its disdain – aggressively – in the background.

  Fine.

  If that was the way they wanted to play it, that was just fine.

  None of them had waited to hear his name nor the address of the emporium to which they’d been invited. None of them had wished the venture well or promised to pop down there later with a bag of old Barbara Taylor Bradfords. They’d simply washed their hands of the entire affair.

  There was nothing in it for them.

  That had been the implication.

  Humphrey had been left with a distinctly bitter taste in his mouth: a sensation that even a family bag of wine gums had done very little to alleviate.

  He’d made it easy for them with that first phone call. They could’ve done something charitable because it was a good thing to do. Maybe there was nothing in it for them but was that really the point?

  No!

  Instead they’d done precisely what he’d been expecting them to do.

  Diddly-squat.

  So, he’d waited half an hour and had then dialled each and every number again. Except that this time, he remembered to mention the presence of the photographer who was also going to be in attendance.

  Yes, he really couldn’t imagine how that piece of vital information had managed to slip his mind.

  Yes, it really would be a wonderful opportunity to be seen showing their support for such a worthy cause, wouldn’t it?

  Oh, they could – suddenly – make it after all?

  Oh, how simply marvellous.

  To a man and a woman, the entire shallow lot had cleared their diaries and promised to show their attention-seeking little faces.

  Apart from the dog.

  Humphrey wasn’t going to beg the dog to come along.

  Not again.

  He did have some pride.

  He was fairly sure he would end up having the last laugh over each and every one of them anyway.

  Anthea had taken most of his advice on board and had allowed him to adapt her entire working environment, in order to play – very much – to her strengths, not theirs.

  They were never going to know what had hit them.