Page 48 of Right Place, Right Time
‘You’re a similar age. Why don’t you ask her out?’ I say, about to try a different painting against the wall. ‘She might say yes.’
Barney looks at me like I’m crazy. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘Why not?’
‘As if someone like Orla is going to be interested in me.’ He looks down at his legs.
‘You underestimate Orla, if you think your disability is going to bother her. It made no difference to me when you came asking for a job here, did it?’
Barney grins. ‘I’d have had you for discrimination if it had!’
‘I know you would!’ I climb the ladder again with the new painting, an oil this time of two King Charles spaniels curled up in a basket. ‘But seriously, Barney, you’re kind and funny, and you’re honest – too honest sometimes! But people value honesty. I think Orla in particular would think you were quite the catch!’
‘Quite the catch!’ Barney grins. ‘What am I – a fish!’
‘You know what I mean.’ I hold the painting up to the wall to see what it looks like. Happy, I hang it on the hook already in the wall.
‘Giving someone like me a job and dating someone like me is very different,’ Barney says quietly.
‘True,’ I say, descending the ladder again. ‘But I think you should give Orla the chance to make that choice for herself.’
‘I’ll think about it. Now, that painting isn’t straight.’ He looks up at the wall. ‘I’d offer to do it myself, but me and ladders aren’t really a good match.’
‘Excuses, excuses,’ I say, pretending to grumble as I climb up the ladder again with one of the oil paintings from Past Times House.
‘So you and Adam, then?’ Barney says. ‘I’m sure that’s how this conversation began before you changed the subject.’
‘There isn’t a me and Adam,’ I say firmly. ‘There, is that straight now?’ I adjust the painting of the dogs a little.
‘Perfect. But you like him, right?’ Barney continues.
‘He’s pleasant enough.’
‘Pleasant! Is that what you old guys call it?’
‘Hey, enough of the old. We’re hardly ancient. I’m barely ten years older than you!’
‘Twelve, actually. Adam must be older, though – what is he, forty-five?’
‘Don’t tell him that,’ I say, hanging the next painting – a modern-looking oil, almost abstract in its composition. ‘Adam is forty. He was born on the same day as me.’
‘Another leap-year baby.’ Barney wheels himself back to look up at the new painting. He gives a thumbs-up. ‘What are the chances?’
‘I know. It’s quite the exclusive club.’ I descend the ladder again and take a quick look at the painting to check it is straight. I then choose another smaller picture to hang in the last small gap. ‘I was very impressed with your knowledge earlier today about the comic books.’
‘Thanks,’ Barney says, looking pleased. ‘It’s been a hobby of mine for a long time. That’s why I was so excited when you brought those bits from Past Times House. It’s a dream of mine to own my own shop selling all that kind of thing one day.’
‘Really?’ I say, climbing the ladder for the last time. ‘I thought you liked working at the university.’
‘I do. My background is in science, but my passion is comic books and their heroes.’
‘Well, you just never know. I didn’t set out to own an antiques shop and yet here I am, and Adam didn’t set out to own a bookshop and look what’s happened to him this year.’
‘True – and he’s taken on a lot more than that, it would seem, with all these mysteries hanging around everything.’
‘Yeah, I know. We’ll probably end up unlocking that door and find nothing behind it.’
‘But what if there is something? It might be something really exciting.’
