Page 13 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

‘Bloody hell, Dennis!’

‘Money literally going up in smoke. I’m sure the ones you light and sell are lovely but… I think we can definitely make a difference here.’

‘I’ve always wanted to make candles but never got round to it. The ones I buy are very expensive but they are eco-friendly with no synthetic fragrances and they use soy wax. That’s why they cost so much I suppose. I wonder how long they would take me to make.’

‘At the moment, you are using three a week which at twenty pounds is costing you £60 a week. Times that by the twenty weeks you’ve been open and that’s your twelve hundred pounds. How about one of the first things you do is source some cheaper ones? That would cut costs initially and then you could research making your own. What do you think?’

I smiled. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

‘You’d obviously have to look at where you would make them, what the legalities are, the costs of the ingredients, bottles, etc.’

Oh, maybe this idea didn’t sound so appealing after all. I was sure he could see my interest waning and he quickly continued before I could speak.

‘How about if you did make your own, you asked people to bring back the glass candle jars and you would give them an amount off their next purchase? That way, you are encouraging them to spend more with you, but you are giving them a discount at the same time and it fits in with your ethos of recycling.’

That sounded like a great idea but I didn’t want to let him know he’d won me over that easily.

I shrugged.

‘It could work I suppose,’ I said as nonchalantly as I could, secretly thinking what a fabulous idea it was and why I’d never thought of it myself. It resonated with me on every score. Maybe he was the bloody genius that Vi kept telling me about after all.

He looked away but not before I saw his lips twitch, not quite a full-on smirk, but a smidgeon of one.

‘Maybe I need a nice new notebook to write these things down in. I’ve got some gorgeous ones over there.’

‘Those really expensive ones that you sell, you mean?’

‘Yes, that shelf over there.’ I pointed to the side of the counter.

‘Great idea.Oryou could just use this A4 lined pad that I’ve brought you and let the customers spend their money buying the posh stuff?’

He tilted his head, not waiting for an answer as he passed over the very dull-looking hardback book. While I was thinking that I couldn’t possibly write in such a plain notebook and would have to source some pretty stickers to add all over the cover, he mumbled, ‘I did take the liberty of buying you one of these though.’

He handed me a pack in which there was a four-coloured ballpoint pen. At first, I thought this was one of those we used to have at school, but while this one was similar, the ink was in pastel colours: pink, green, blue and purple. I raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Well, I saw that you were writing in different colours yesterday so thought I’d get you one of those. You might have a crappy old book, but at least you can jazz it up a bit with funky-coloured writing.’

I couldn’t have been more surprised.

‘Right, let’s get on. Are you going to write about the candles? Don’t forget to list all the jobs you need to do so you don’t forget anything.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘God, yes!’ He licked his lips, while locking his eyes onto mine and that funny fluttering feeling came back in my belly.

Maybe I was too.

As I locked the door at the end of the day, shattered, I reflected on what I’d learned about Dennis so far. He talked about colleagues but not about friends, so I wondered whether he had many. When I asked him what he loved doing in his spare time, he looked at me like I’d got two heads. He told me he didn’t get much spare time but when he did, he liked to analyse the stock market and read self-development and business books. When I offered to give him a discount, in exchange for all the help he was giving me, he shook his head and told me that every time I offered a discount to a customer, it meant less money in my till. When I tried to explain that customer loyalty and repeat business could come from it, he tried to tell me that my first loyalty was to myself and keeping my shop trading.

He had opened my eyes up to how much I had my head in the clouds, loving the feeling of running my own bookshop and trusting that everything would work out OK when I could take more control over my destiny and make this a viable long-term business.

‘I think I’m finally learning. What an idiot I was to open a shop without knowing all this stuff.’

‘Not at all. You only know what you know. We’ve only just touched the surface,’ he stated as he packed up his belongings, ‘but it’s great to see that there’s loads we can do to turn this around into a profitable proposition. This is what I’m brilliant at.This is why I’m paid an absolute fortune to teach people like you. See you tomorrow.’

Just as I was starting to warm to him again, he came up with this cocky sentence.

An idea popped into my brain and I only faltered slightly, before speaking up.

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