Here Come the Boys

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I drop them off at the homeless shelter,’ replied Leni. ‘But soon there won’t be any left to take. I have every confidence this little place will be booming. Anyway, selling tea is just my folly. The shop is the real business of course.’

  And that’s just as heaving, Shaun muttered to himself.

  ‘Most of my orders come from the internet,’ Leni expanded, as if hearing his thoughts. ‘I’m very busy ordering and packing up what I’ve sold during the day when the teashop is empty. So you don’t need to worry about your rent, Mr McCarthy.’

  And she laughed and he thought that the sound it made was like that of a tinkly bell.

  ‘There, it’s done,’ he said, throwing the wrench back into his bag. He drained the cup of the last dregs of chocolate. It tasted like melted-down biscuits and would keep him going for another hour or so before he stopped for a sandwich. He could have done with another, if the truth be told. He had no doubt that if he asked for a fill-up, she would have obliged – with another smile – but that would mean more small talk and Shaun McCarthy wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Leni Merryman. ‘Do I owe you anything?’

  ‘No,’ he said, waving the suggestion away. ‘All in with the rent.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you want to give me some custom,’ Leni tilted her head as she spoke.

  ‘I’m not a visiting-coffee-shops sort of person,’ said Shaun. ‘Too busy. I only build them.’

  She chuckled as if his gruffness amused her. ‘Well, thank you anyway.’

  Shaun lifted up his bag and walked back through the teashop. It was a shame it was always empty of customers because she’d done it up really well. He dragged his eyes along the glass cabinets as he passed them. They were filled with gifts – quality gifts – cufflinks made from old typewriter keys, tiny silver charms in the shape of books, gift tags made from book pages: romantic books, he presumed, seeing as the word ‘Darcy’ was ringed in red. All quirky, fancy things that literary types would go gaga over – himself excepted, of course. He might enjoy reading books, but he had no use for a tie-pin silhouette of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Between the last cabinet and the door was a long pinboard studded with postcards sent from all over. He spotted one from Madrid, one from Kos and one from Lisbon.

  ‘What’s your online shop called?’ he asked.

  ‘Book Things. Nice and simple. You have a lovely accent, Mr McCarthy. Is it Northern or Southern Irish?’

  ‘Northern,’ said Shaun.

  ‘My daughter Anne was born in Cork,’ said Leni. ‘She wasn’t due for another two—’

  Shaun’s small-talk alarm went off. Time to go.

  ‘Thanks for the chocolate,’ he said, taking hold of the door handle. ‘Must get on and earn a living.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Leni with an understanding nod. ‘Busy lives.’

  Busy lives indeed, thought Shaun. He liked his busy life. He liked filling his head with his work and his business and his books at the end of the day that stopped him thinking about his years in Belfast and his earlier days in Londonderry which still haunted him, thirty-four years on.

  Leni bent down at the side of the ginger cat curled up his basket.

  ‘Oh Mr Bingley,’ she said, giving him a rub behind his ear which set him off purring. ‘I wish Anne were here to see this. She’d love it here, wouldn’t she? She will love it, won’t she?’