For the first time, Issy went into the shop. And what she saw took her aback completely. At the front were pots and pans, mops and screwdrivers. But in the back of the shop was an exquisite Persian carpet, and laid out on it, a carved wooden Balinese double bed; a small bedside table piled high with books and a Tiffany lamp; a large mirrored armoire. Issy blinked twice.
‘Oh my,’ she said, then again, ‘You … you live here.’
Chester looked embarrassed. ‘Um, yes. Yes I do. Normally I have a little curtain to hang during the day … or I shut the shop whenever it looks like anyone is coming in to buy something. Coffee?’
Through the back Issy saw a small, immaculate galley kitchen. An expensive Gaggia coffee pot was bubbling away on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.
‘Um, yes,’ said Issy, although she had already had far too much caffeine that morning. But this little Aladdin’s cave felt completely unreal. The man directed her to a floral-upholstered armchair.
‘Please, sit down. You’ve made my life very difficult, you know.’
Issy shook her head. ‘But I’ve been passing by this alleyway for years, and this shop has always been here.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the man. ‘Oh yes. I’ve been here for twenty-nine years.’
‘You’ve lived here for twenty-nine years?’
‘Nobody’s ever bothered me before,’ said the man. ‘That’s the beauty of London.’
As he spoke, Issy noticed his accent again.
‘No one knows your business. I like it like that. Until you came of course. In and out, leaving me cakes, wanting to ask me things. And customers! You’re the first person ever to bring people into the alley.’
‘And now …’
‘Now we have to go, yes.’ The man looked at the notice to quit in his hand. ‘Ah, it would have happened eventually. How’s your gramps?’
‘Actually, I was going to go and ask him.’
‘Oh good, is he up to having a conversation?’
‘Not really,’ said Issy. ‘But it makes me feel better. I know that’s selfish.’
Chester shook his head. ‘It’s not, you know.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Issy. ‘I brought the developers here. I didn’t mean to, but I did.’
Chester shook his head.
‘No, you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Stoke Newington … you know, it used to be considered half a day’s ride from London. A lovely village, nice and far out of town. And even when I arrived, it was always a bit raffish and run down, but you could do what you wanted here. Have things your way. Be a bit different, a little off the beaten track.’
Chester served up the coffee with cream in two exquisitely tiny china cups and saucers.
‘But things get sanitized; gentrified. Especially places with character, like round here. There’s not much of old London left really.’
Issy cast her eyes down.
‘Don’t be sad, girl. There’s lots good about new London too. You’ll go places, look at you.’
‘I don’t know where though.’
‘Hmm, that makes two of us.’
‘Hang on, are you squatting?’ said Issy. ‘Can’t you just claim residency?’
‘No,’ said Chester. ‘I think I have a lease … somewhere.’
They sat there sipping their coffee.
‘There must be something I can do,’ said Issy.
‘Can’t stop progress,’ said Chester, setting down his coffee spoon with a light tinkle. ‘Believe me, I should know.’
Austin was early for once. And smartly dressed, or as smart as he could manage while not letting Darny get a glimpse of where he kept the iron. He ran his hands through his thick hair nervously. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He could risk everything. And for what? Some stupid business that would probably move anyway. Some girl who wouldn’t look at him.
Janet was there of course, bright and efficient as ever. She’d been at the birthday party too, and she knew what was on his schedule. She glanced at him.
‘It’s horrible,’ she said, with unusual ferocity. ‘It’s horrible what that man wants to do.’
Austin looked at her.
‘To that nice girl and that lovely shop and to turn it into more featureless rubbish for more stupid executives, it’s horrible. That’s all I want to say.’
Austin’s mouth twitched.
‘Thank you, Janet. That’s helpful.’
‘And you look nice.’
‘You’re not my mum, Janet.’
‘You should call that girl.’
‘I’m not going to call her,’ said Austin. Issy wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole now, and he supposed, with a sigh, that she had good reason.
‘You should.’
Austin reflected on it, drinking the coffee Janet had gone all the way down to the Cupcake Café to get for him. It was cold, but he fancied he could still smell the sweet essence of Issy clinging to it somewhere. Checking no one could see into his office, he inhaled it deeply, and very briefly closed his eyes.
Janet knocked.
‘He’s here,’ she said, then led Graeme in with an uncustomary frostiness of manner.
Graeme didn’t notice. He just wanted to get this over and done with. Stupid local micro-financing, he hated local banking and piddling mortgage snarl-ups more than any other part of his business.
Fine. Well, he needed to rubber-stamp this money, call Mr Boekhoorn and get the hell out of it. Maybe take a holiday. A lads’ holiday, that’s what he needed. His mates hadn’t been very sympathetic when he told them he was single again. In fact a lot of them seemed to be settling down and getting all boring and cosy with their girlfriends. Well, fuck that. He needed somewhere with cocktails and girls in bikinis who could respect a guy in business.
‘Hey,’ he said, scowling, as he shook Austin’s hand.
‘Hi,’ said Austin.
‘Shall we keep this short?’ said Graeme. ‘You hold the existing mortgages on the extant properties, and we need to combine them so you can give me a new rate on the amalgamated loan. Let’s see what you can do, shall we?’
He scanned through the documents quickly. Austin sat back and took a big sigh. Well, here went absolutely nothing. It would probably ruin his career if his bosses took a proper look at it. It shouldn’t really matter to him one way or another whether his corner of the world got more and more corporate and homogeneous and white-bread. But it did. It did. He liked Darny having lots of different friends, not just ones called Felix. He liked being able to buy cupcakes – or falafel, or hummus, or mithai or bagels – whenever he felt like it. He liked the mixture of hookah cafés, and African hair-product shops, and wooden toy emporiums and diesel fumes that made up his neck of the woods. He didn’t want to be taken over by the stuffed shirts, the quick bucks, the Graemes of this world.