‘No, no, it’s none of them.’ The woman with the plastic rain hat protecting her hair — why? It wasn’t raining today — rejected the array of books Lola had shown her.
‘OK, well, that’s everything we have in stock about insects. If you like, I can look on the computer and—’
‘It’s nothing like any of these,’ the woman retorted. ‘There’s no pictures in the one I’m after.’
A book about insects containing no illustrations of insects. Hmm, that would probably explain why they didn’t stock it. ‘Would you recognise the cover if you saw it?’
‘No.’
Lola tried for the third time. ‘And you really can’t remember who wrote it?’
The woman frowned. ‘No. I thought you’d know that.’
She was clearly disappointed, feeling badly let down by the incompetence of Kingsley’s staff.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lola, ‘I can’t think how else to do this. I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to—’
‘Oink, oink!’
Okaaaay. ‘Excuse me?’
The woman said triumphantly, ‘There’s a pig in it!’
A pig. Right. A pig in a book about insects. Zrrrrr, went Lola’s brain, assimilating this new and possibly deal- clinching clue. Zzzzrrrrrrrr .. .
‘Is it Lord of the Flies?’
‘Yes! That’s the one!’
Lola exchanged a glance with an older male customer currently leafing through a book on the subject of kayaking down the Nile. For a split second she saw the twinkle of suppressed laughter in his eyes and almost lost it herself.
But no. She was a professional. To the woman in the rain hat Lola said cheerfully, ‘It’s a novel by William Golding. Let me show you where to find it,’ and led her off to the fiction section.
When she returned, Kayak Man was waiting to speak to her. ‘Hi. Well done with your last customer, by the way.’
‘All in a day’s work. You nearly made me laugh.’
‘Sorry.’ He put down the kayak book. ‘Anyway, I’m hoping you can help me now.’
Lola smiled; he had a lean, intelligent face. ‘Fire away. I like a challenge.’
‘Jane Austen. My wife’s read all her books. I was wondering, has she written any new ones this year?’
Lola waited for his eyes to twinkle. They didn’t. Her heart sank.
‘I’m sorry, Jane Austen’s dead.’
‘She is? Oh, that’s a shame, my wife will be sorry to hear that. We must have missed her obituary in the Telegraph. What did she die of, do you know?’
‘Um ...’ What had Jane Austen died of? Multiple injuries following a parachuting accident, perhaps? Had she crashed her jet ski? Or how about
‘Lola, there’s someone here wanting to speak to you.’ It was Cheryl, sounding apologetic. ‘A crew from a TV station are interviewing store managers about Christmas shopping and they wondered if you could spare them five minutes. If you’re too busy, Tim says he’d be happy to do it.’
‘I bet he would.’ Tim was besotted with the idea of being on TV; it was the reason he went along to all the film premieres in Leicester Square, why he’d dressed up as a chicken to audition for the X Factor (the judges had told him to cluck off) and what had propelled him to stand up while he’d been in the audience on Trisha to announce that as a baby he’d been found abandoned in a cardboard box at Victoria station and he was desperate to find his mother. His mum, who’d been ironing a pile of his shirts when the TV programme aired, had given Tim a good clump round the ear when he’d arrived home that afternoon.
‘It’s OK, I’ll do it myself.’ When you were having a good hair day it was a shame to waste it.
‘Cheryl, can you help this gentleman? His wife’s read everything by Jane Austen so I’m wondering if she might enjoy one of the sequels by another author.’
Having excused herself, Lola made her way over to the young male reporter waiting at the tills with a cameraman and his assistant. ‘Hi, I’m Lola Malone. Where would you like to do this?’
The reporter said, ‘Oh. We’re meant to be doing the interview with the manager.’
‘I’m the manager.’
‘God, are you really?’ The male reporter — who looked exactly like a male reporter — eyed Lola’s sleek black top, fuchsia pink skirt and long legs in opaque black tights. ‘You don’t look like the manager of a bookshop.’
‘Sorry. Were you expecting someone more frumpy?’ He looked abashed. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I was.’
It was a preconception that drove Lola mad and made her want to rattle people’s teeth. ‘I could run out and buy a grey cardigan if you like.’
‘You’re joking, no, you look fantastic.’ He spread his hands in admiration. ‘Crikey, I just didn’t think ..’
‘You should get out more.’ Lola winked, because it was also a preconception she enjoyed shattering. ‘Try visiting a few more bookshops. You might be surprised — nowadays, some of us don’t even wear tweed.’
The piece aired on the local evening news two days later. It lasted less than ninety seconds and the reporter had asked some pretty inane questions but Lola, watching herself on TV as she set about her hair with curling tongs, felt she’d acquitted herself well enough. It wasn’t easy to be witty and scintillating whilst responding to, ‘And here we are, in Kingsley’s on Regent Street, with less than a fortnight to go before Christmas! So, just how busy has it been here in this store?’
