The Day of the Storm Read Free Page A

protection against the imminent drizzle.
    I looked up to see what the shop was called and read the name TRISTRAM NOLAN picked out in neat black Roman capitals over the door. This door was flanked by windows filled with delectable odds and ends and I paused to inspect their contents, standing on the pavement bathed in brightness from the many lights which burned within. Most of the furniture was Victorian, re-upholstered and restored and polished. A buttoned sofa with a wide lap and curly legs, a sewing box, a small picture of lap dogs on a velvet cushion.
    I looked beyond the windows and into the shop itself, and it was then that I saw the cherrywood chairs. They were a pair, balloon backed, with curved legs and seats embroidered with roses.
    I craved them. Just like that. I could picture them in my flat, and I wanted them desperately. For a moment I hesitated. This was no junk shop and the price might well be more than I could afford. But after all, no harm could be done by asking. Before I could lose my nerve, I opened the door and went in.
    The shop was empty, but the door opening and closing had rung a bell, and presently there was the sound of someone coming down the stairs, the woollen curtain that hung over the door at the back of the shop was drawn aside and a man came into view.
    I suppose I had expected someone elderly and formally attired, in keeping with the ambience of the shop and its contents, but this man’s appearance rocked all my vague, preconceived notions. For he was young, tall and long-legged, dressed in jeans—faded to a soft blue and clinging like a second skin—and a blue denim jacket, equally old and faded, with the sleeves turned back in a businesslike way to reveal the checked cuffs of the shirt he wore beneath it. A cotton handkerchief was knotted at his neck and on his feet he wore soft moccasins, much decorated and fringed.
    That winter the most unlikely people were drifting around London dressed as cowboys, but somehow this one looked real, and his worn clothes appeared as genuine as he was. We stood and looked at each other, and then he smiled and for some reason this took me unawares. I don’t like being taken unawares, and I said “Good morning” with a certain coolness.
    He dropped the curtain behind him and came forward, soft footed. “Can I help you?”
    He may have looked like a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool American, but the moment he opened his mouth it was clear that he was no such thing. For some reason this annoyed me. The life I had led with my mother had left me with a thick streak of cynicism about men in general, and phoneys in particular, and this young man, I decided then and there, was a phoney.
    â€œI … I was going to ask about these little chairs. The balloon-back ones.”
    â€œOh, yes.” He came forward to lay his hand on the back of one. The hand was long and shapely, with spade-tipped fingers, the skin very brown. “There’s just the pair of them.”
    I stared at the chairs, trying to ignore his presence.
    â€œI wondered how much they were.”
    He squatted beside me to search for a price ticket and I saw his hair fell thick and straight to his collar, very dark and lustrous.
    â€œYou’re in luck,” he told me. “They’re going very cheap because the leg of one has been broken and then not very professionally repaired.” He straightened up suddenly, surprising me by his height. His eyes were slightly tip-tilted, and a very dark brown, with an expression in them that I found disconcerting. He made me uncomfortable and my antipathy for him began to turn to dislike. “Fifteen pounds for the pair,” he said. “But if you’d like to wait and pay a little more, I can get the leg reinforced, and perhaps a small veneer put over the joint. That would make it stronger and it would look better too.”
    â€œIsn’t it all right now?”
    â€œIt would be all right for