of ways I could try and help. A petition was my first thought. People always seemed to be launching petitions online. Sign this petition if you think our prime minister should be in prison! Sign this petition to make sugar illegal! Sign this petition to make the earthworm a protected species! I could set up a Facebook page for the shop and launch the petition on there, with a hard copy of it by the till for our less computer-friendly customers. I liked the idea of a cause, imagining myself as a modern-day Emmeline Pankhurst. Perhaps I could wear a sash? Or that might be taking it too far. But a petition, anyway. That was the first thing to organize.
The shop needed an Instagram account, too. Norris still refused to have a mobile phone and insisted that Frisbee could do without social media. I’d long protested, saying that it wasn’t the 1990s, but it had fallen on Norris’s deaf, hairy ears. So, a petition and an Instagram account. Plus, a new website. That was a start.
‘How was your day, Flo?’ asked Mia.
‘Fine. I’m making scrambled eggs. Anyone want some?’
‘No thanks. Wed-shred starts now.’
‘Eggs do terrible things to my stomach,’ added Hugo, but luckily none of us could dwell on this because Mia’s phone rang.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, picking it up.
I cracked two eggs into a mug and reached for a fork.
‘Yep, yep, no, I know, yep, we’re doing it now, yep, no, yep…’ she went on while I whisked.
‘Yep, she’s here, hang on,’ said Mia, holding her phone in the air without standing up so I had to cross the kitchen.
I put the mobile to my ear with a sense of dread. ‘Hi, Patricia.’
My stepmother went straight in. ‘I’ve spoken to this woman’s office and she can see you on Tuesday afternoon at five.’
‘Which woman?’
‘The love coach. She’s called Gwendolyn Glossop. Does five on Tuesday work for you?’
‘The shop doesn’t close until six, so—’
‘Florence, darling, you’re selling books, not giving blood transfusions. I’m sure they can spare you for an hour. I’ve told your father and—’
‘All right all right all right. I’ll be there.’
‘Right, have you got a pen? Here’s her address, it’s—’
‘Hang on,’ I said, hunting for a pen on the sideboard. No pens. Why were there never any pens?
‘Floor 4, 117 Harley Street,’ carried on Patricia.
‘OK, I’ll just remember it.’
‘I’m so glad, darling, I do hope she helps. Now can I have Mia back again, I need to talk to her about vicars.’
I handed Mia her phone just as the toast popped up. Black on both sides, a bit like my mood, I thought, sliding them both into the bin.
While Eugene dusted shelves the following morning, I told him about this appointment. He was more enthusiastic than me.
‘Darling, how thrilling,’ he said, his back to me as he swished the pink feathers back and forth like a windscreen wiper. ‘Do you think she’ll have a crystal ball? I saw a palm reader after Angus left and she told me that I’d soon meet the third great love of my life.’
‘And did you?’
‘No.’ He lowered the duster and held his palm close to his nose, inspecting it. ‘It’s this line that runs from your little finger.’ He looked up. ‘But perhaps I just haven’t met him yet? I expect he’ll be along any second, waiting for me on the 345 bus.’
I wasn’t sure about that. I’d never seen anyone who looked like a great love on the 345, so I merely nodded and Eugene returned to his dusting.
Angus was Eugene’s ex-boyfriend, the second great love of his life after Shakespeare, he always said. They’d met while studying drama at university and had been together for twenty years, but not long after I started working at Frisbee, Angus moved to New York to direct a performance of Evita and they’d separated. He’d remained there since and was now considered one of Broadway’s top musical directors while, back in London, Eugene constantly auditioned for roles he never got.
Barely a day went by when he didn’t mention Angus, as if a proud parent watching his offspring blossom from afar. He kept up with his shows, read his New York Times reviews out loud to me in the shop and occasionally emailed him to say congratulations. I was never sure if Angus replied to these, I didn’t like to ask. Still, Eugene was one of life’s sunbeams, a positive person who remained admirably upbeat in the face of these disappointments, so his enthusiasm towards Gwendolyn Glossop didn’t surprise me.
‘So you think I should definitely go and see this woman? It isn’t a bit… tragic? Or mad?’
Eugene tutted. ‘Absolutely not. What have you got to lose?’ He turned back to me and held the duster high in the air. ‘Boldness be my friend.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Cymbeline, act one. And I think you should look upon this as an exciting opportunity.’ He spun to face me again. ‘Because without meaning one jot of offence, angel, I think my mother gets more action than you.’
‘Doesn’t your mother live in a retirement home?’
‘In Bournemouth, exactly my point.’
I was about to object but heard Norris’s heavy footsteps on the stairs.
He glanced from Eugene to me, tufty eyebrows raised. ‘You two all right up here?’
‘We are indeed,’ said Eugene. ‘I’m just advising our young colleague on matters of the heart.’
Norris had been married decades ago to a lady called Shirley but now lived alone. On quiet days in the shop, Eugene and I sometimes speculated about his private life. Had Shirley run off with the postman, driven away by Norris’s gruffness? Had waking up beside that amount of ear hair become too much to bear? Had Shirley given up life in an untidy Wimbledon flat for a dashing younger man on the Costa Del Sol? Eugene’s dramatic nature meant he tended to get quite carried away with these speculations but we remained none the wiser. Norris wasn’t the sort to discuss anything emotional.
‘I don’t want to know,’ he said, waving his hands in the air as if protesting. ‘I just came up for the post.’
I handed it over to him and mouthed ‘Shhhh!’ at Eugene. The fewer people who knew about my appointment with Gwendolyn, the better.
The following Tuesday, I arrived at 117 Harley Street and was told by a receptionist to take the lift to the fourth floor.
‘Are there any stairs?’ I hated the jerkiness of lifts in old London buildings like this, clanking and creaking like a dodgy fairground ride.
‘Take the fire exit next to the lift,’ instructed the receptionist, not looking up from her magazine.
I played Consequences as I walked up. If the steps were even, it would be a helpful hour, which made me feel less freakish for never having had a boyfriend. But what would it be if the stairs were odd? What was the worst outcome of this session? If they were odd numbers, I’d never have a relationship and I’d become one of those little old ladies you see shopping by themselves in the supermarket, hunched over a wheelie trolley and buying tins of fish paste for their solo suppers.
The first flight had thirteen stairs and I felt a spasm of panic. The next two had eleven and the last nine. Disaster.
I