‘I think Mickey’s about to evict us,’ he says with the guilty look again.
‘You, maybe.’ I frown at him. ‘Ava can stay as long as she likes.’
She gives him a ‘so there’ look.
He edges towards the door, keeping a watchful eye as if other items of my stock are about to leap out and attack him. ‘Well, as the adult in charge of today’s activities, we’ve got about ten minutes of paid parking left before we get a fine, sonow, please.’
Ava huffs like a typical teenager, complete with an ‘it’s not fair’ eye roll, and picks up the box with her skeleton ornament in it. ‘Thanks for everything! We’re totally coming back soon!’
He holds the door open to ensure she goes through it without being distracted by anything else, and once she’s safely outside and taking a photo of the mermaid’s tail statue, he turns back to me. ‘And thanks for looking after her when she’d run off. At least when they’re toddlers you can put them in reins, but people frown on that when they’re teenagers and you’re just expected to be able to keep track of them… a glaringly impossible task.’
I appreciate the difference between what he said at first and now he’s calmed down. ‘No problem. And I’m sorry about the…’ I point to my own forehead and grimace. ‘Iwillmovethe birdcages. I didn’t mean for that to happen.’
‘It’s okay. Not much harm done. I’m sorry about the teenage drama and the oversharing and the…’ He waves a hand in the general direction of my stock, probably meaning being so forthright with his unfavourable opinions. ‘Maybe we’ll see you again. If you’re not crushed to death by an avalanche of dinner plates, that is.’
‘Hah hah!’ I call even though he’s already closed the door, just to let him know how utterly hilarious his quips are. It’s highly unlikely that an avalanche of plates would actually kill me. A serious maiming, perhaps, but death is unlikely.
Despite it only being 3p.m. when they leave, they’re the last customers of the day. I wanted a string of visitors to metaphorically prove Ren wrong, but it isn’t to be. I tidy the displays outside, hoping to encourage people in, but no one comes, despite there being plenty of activity on Ever After Street.
We’re a little shopping street in the foothills of a castle in the Wye Valley. Every shop is themed after a different fairytale, like me withThe Little Mermaid, the Neverland Sweet Shop next door, or Marnie, a few doors up the street, who runs the Tale As Old As Time bookshop. As it’s the school holidays, there are a lot of parents and children running around. The old music of the carousel turning fills my ears and I stand and watch children shouting joyfully with their arms flung out as their wooden horses glide up and down, filling the clearing at the bottom of the steps up to Lissa’s museum, full of fairytale artefacts and wishing wells and magical fountains, and I wonder again what I’m doing wrong. Every shop on the street seems to be busy, except mine.
After another couple of hours of staring at the door, willing it to open and hordes of treasure-hunting customers to pour in, I give up and flip the shell-shaped sign over to ‘closed’.
I leave the starfish hair clip and Ursula’s shell necklace on the counter, because they’re part of my costume for work, not really me, and I walk home with Ren’s words ringing in my ears. I tell myself it’s because it sticks in your mind when you meet someone so rude, but I can’t help dwelling on it. Dwelling on how anyone can have so much nerve, I try to tell myself, but the dwelling isn’t on that, not really.
I purchase more stock than I sell, and the money my dad left to keep the business going is dwindling. Fast. Customers are few and far between, even when the rest of the street is busy – a fact I’ve been trying to ignore, but Ren has hit a nerve. My shop does nothing to encourage people to come in. In fact, there’s a good chance that so much clutter actively encourages them to stay out. And I keep replaying the sound of my Victorian-style hanging birdcages clattering into his face today. Every time I’m in the shop, I’m constantly bumping into things and knocking things over. I’ve wondered if a customer could get hurt one day, and now that day has come, and it feels like Ihaveto do something about it. I just don’t know what. There’s so much stuff that it’s debilitating, and I haven’t got a clue how to make the shop like it was when my dad ran it again.
At home, the house is surprisingly empty. A few ornaments that I’ve fallen in love with over the years. Some of my dad’s most-loved things. There’s a tiny framed photograph of my mum, partially obscured by the double-exposure of an old film camera, and now it’s been joined by a photo of my dad, smiling before he got ill, and I talk to them like they’re really in the room.
I spend most of my time at work, because in the shop, I can pretend to be someone else. The items in my shop let me escape and live in someone else’s shoes for a while. I can imagine where every item has been, who it belonged to and how that person came to own it, the romance of the people in their lives and the stories behind who gave it to them and what it signified.
So much of our lives and our loves centre around objects. My fingers rub over the necklace that I wear all the time,undermy slogan top and Ursula shell necklace. A small, nine-carat gold mermaid’s tail on a delicate chain. The one thing of my mum’s that remains. That’s all I have to remember her by, apart from a few clothes in the wardrobe upstairs, things that Dad recognised but I was too young to remember. That’s why I run the shop the way I do – because we know what it’s like to be parted from sentimental items and if I can help someone else to find things that might matter to them, then that’s what I want to do.
But Ren’s got to me. I keep thinking about him. I hope I never have to see him again, and also, kind of hope… they might come back one day. He might have been harsh, opinionated, and unfair, but there was obviously a lot going on beneath the surface, so much tension between them, and they both seemed so unhappy. My instinct has always been to dig into people’s stories, and I can’t help thinking about his soft eyes and acerbic grin, and Ava’s hopeful optimism, like most kids at that transitional age – wanting to both grow up and also cling onto the belief in Disney castles, princes, and fairytale endings, and even though Iknowfairytale endings don’t happen in real life, I want there to be people in the world who still believe they do, and I’ve always wanted my shop to be part of that.
2
The following morning, I wedge the door open with a seashell-shaped doorstop to encourage customers inside. It’s a lovely July day, sunny but with a breeze that prevents us moving into hot-and-sticky territory, as I tidy up the tables that I display things on outside for customers to rummage through in the hopes that it might pique people’s curiosity enough for them to step through the door. There are tables displaying baskets of smaller goods, and half barrels and wooden crates holding other things, and some artificial plants to spruce things up, pink trees and planters full of plastic lavender.
I swipe a hand across my forehead and lean on the blue mermaid’s tail statue for a minute. My shop has an old-fashioned Dickensian feel to it. There are window boxes under the two upstairs windows with yellow petunias tumbling down that I really must remember to water. I can’t help wondering what my dad would make of the shop now. He was more into antiques than I am. He used to laugh at me making up stories about every item in his shop and sometimes he’d know their real history and counter my fairytale fantasies with boring old reality.
That’s why I’m doing the Philip Teasdale Antiques Fair at the Ever After Street castle at the end of August. My dad loved nothing more than antiques fairs, and he put forward the idea of holding one in the grounds of the castle on the hill at the end of the street. He didn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition, but Witt, the owner of the castle, has been kind enough to name it after him, and give me a prime spot for my stall.
I just need to choose my most spectacular pieces to display there, and it could be the difference between days as bustling as they used to be and days as quiet as recent ones. There will be write-ups in trade publications and the whole thing is being filmed and broadcast on local news channels. It’s ahugedeal, and my dad would’ve embraced the opportunity with open arms, but I’ve let my doubts creep in.
What do I know about antiques? I deal in ‘things people might like’ whereas my dad was more into bargain purchases that sold for high-value prices and gave the business much-needed financial boosts. Yesterday,myfinancial boosts amounted to a £30 footstool that a woman bought in the morning, and the winged skeleton I sold to Ava. No business can survive on that.
But if I can display stock that’s a talking point, that gets people interested, I could be featured on the TV spot that goes out to millions of households. The Mermaid’s Treasure Trove would be front-and-centre in front of many pairs of eyes that have never heard of it before, both casual shoppers and antiques trade insiders, and I could make my dad proud of what I’ve done with his shop. I just need to find a few special items withperfectstories to tell, and maybe business will be booming again.
As I go back in, my hand trails across the basket of fabric scraps and I think of Ren’s words yesterday.Arethey pointless? When I put them out, I thought they were cute and quirky and would be a hit with crafters, but no one’s had a look in there in… I rack my brain but I can’t think of a time when anyone’severbeen interested in the basket of fabric scraps. There’s even a cobweb around the basket handle.
Impulsively, I take the basket and dump it in the bin behind the counter, and then quickly rescue the basket and just tip the fabric scraps into the bin instead. Something else can be displayed in the basket, minus the cobweb, but Ren might’ve had a point about the fabric scraps. He might’ve had a point about more than one thing yesterday.
Even with the door wedged open, the morning is quiet. Mrs Moreno pops in on her way home from the doctors to tell me about her latest consultation in the ongoing ‘is it gout or a bunion?’ saga, and a few people peek in, take a few steps and look for a pathway through. Others are braver and come in, look around like they’re scared to touch anything, and quickly leave. One woman accidentally bumps into a stand of vintage postcards and sends them flying across the shop, and as I scramble around on my hands and knees to clear them up, Ren’s words replay in my head. Itistoo cluttered in here, I know it is, and I’m relying on the antiques fair to turn things around by bringing me a flock of customers wholikehunting for treasures in amongst clutter, but it’s starting to feel like that won’t be enough. Business is failing. Sales are down, and it’s starting to feel like it would take a miracle to improve things, not just an antiques fair.
Perhaps tellingly, a man comes in and buys the rose-edged dinner set. I’d priced it at £50, but he haggles to get it for a tenner below asking price, and seeing as it’s my only sale of the day, I agree. I tell him about my theory behind it as I carefully pack the displayed pieces into the box, but he pays no attention to my heartfelt tales.
By midday, I’m leaning on the counter, willing a load of customers to come loping in or accept that it’s time to shut the door for five minutes and run across the road to grab a sandwich for lunch from the Alice-themed Wonderland Teapot opposite.
