Page 26 of Right Place, Right Time
‘Oh, don’t you be worrying about it,’ she says dismissively with a wave of her hand. ‘Now, tell me how you are getting on. Did you find much at Adam’s grandfather’s house?’
‘Almost too much, if I’m honest. But it’s been a productive day, hasn’t it, Adam?’
Adam reappears empty-handed from the shop. He waves up at Orla.
‘Oh, you’re here too, Adam?’ she says, looking with interest between the two of us. ‘That’s good …’
‘Yeah, I’m just helping Eve move some of the stuff,’ he says. ‘Not that she needs help, of course.’ He grins. ‘But I have to make it look good, don’t I?’ He takes the box I’m carrying from me and heads back into the shop.
‘Yes, indeed,’ Orla says, smiling. ‘That’s good to know it’s going well …’ She gives me a wide-eyed knowing look.
I hurriedly shake my head and check that Adam hasn’t seen. But he’s already in the back room of the shop with the box.
Orla just smiles. ‘Right, I’ll be leaving the two of you to it. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’ She winks at me before closing up her window.
‘This place really is too cute,’ Adam says, emerging from the shop again and looking around him. ‘It’s like something from a children’s fairy tale – all these old buildings in a little courtyard and people calling out of their lattice windows. It feels like we’ve gone back in time. Like it’s a world away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.’
‘I suppose it does a bit,’ I say, looking around me at the court. ‘But we’re not too set in the past – we have telephones and the internet, and sometimes you might even get a 5G signal if you’re lucky!’ I carry my last box into the back room of the shop and Adam follows me inside.
I pull the green velvet curtain back across the doorway of the little room as I emerge back into the main shop.
‘I’ll sort all this out on Monday when I’m in again,’ I tell Adam. ‘I’d better leave Barney a note for tomorrow, though. He knows not to touch anything until I’ve sorted through it, but if it’s quiet he likes to find himself something to do.’ I search for a notepad and pen behind the solid oak shop counter that my grandparents bought in an auction, along with the big old-fashioned till I still use.
Adam is looking in the tall glass display cabinet where I keep some of my smaller items for sale. ‘When you said you give everything a story, you really meant it.’
‘Of course. Each item has its own tag with its price and as much history as I can give it. It’s not always easy, but I do my best to give everything I have here at least some provenance.’
‘This really is a cool little place,’ Adam says, turning from his inspection of the cabinet to gaze around the shop. ‘I like it. It’s warm and welcoming, not dusty and gloomy like some antique shops are, and you’ve managed to pack a lot of stuff in here without it seeming crowded.’
I’m glad he’s noticed. ‘Thanks, I’m pretty proud of it.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘I’ve been working here about ten years. But it wasn’t until after the pandemic that I took over the running of the shop. My grandparents owned it originally,’ I say, knowing he’ll only ask. ‘When my grandfather passed away, I helped my grandmother out, then, eventually, when she went, the shop became mine.’
‘Family business, then,’ Adam says, picking up a Moorcroft vase and looking at the base. ‘Nice.’
‘Yes, it always has been – for as long as I can remember anyway.’
‘Your parents weren’t involved, then?’ Adam asks, moving on to examine a watercolour painting of two ladies being punted along the River Cam by a man in a straw boater and a striped jacket.
‘No. They had their own careers. My father was detective in the police force and my mother was a teacher. She was never that interested in the shop, she grew up here – I think she was happy to get away when she could, to be honest.’
‘So it was all down to you then to keep it going?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
Adam glances at me, but he moves on to look at the next painting hanging on the wall.
‘Did you want to – take on the shop, I mean?’ he asks casually while he continues to examine the wall ofpaintings. ‘You said you took a history degree. No offence to this place, but you don’t need a degree to run it.’
‘It’s harder than you think running a little shop like this,’ I say, at last finding the notebook Barney and I always kept under the desk so we could leave messages for each other.
‘I’m sure it is. I just wondered why you wanted to do it. Did you feel a sense of duty to keep it going because no one else was interested?’
‘Something like that.’
‘What do your family think now?’
