‘Is it? That will do nicely, thank you.’
Walking back from Sainsbury’s, he made a sudden about-turn when he realised he’d forgotten the sodding wine. Rather than head back to the high street, he turned off down a side road. While driving back the previous week, he’d spotted a newly-opened wine shop in the small parade. He approached the red-and-black-fronted establishment and clocked the name on the fascia: Willoughby’s Fine Wines. An electronic chime sounded as he opened the door. No one was about.
He went to the centre of the parquet shop floor and began browsing the New World section. The heavy bag for life hung from his wrist as he reached up for a Chilean Malbec.
‘Good afternoon. Sorry to keep you.’
Bottle in hand, he turned to face a chap in his mid-thirties bounding out from the back room, floppy fringe bouncing off his shiny forehead.
‘Sorry about that. I’ve just been tidying up out back,’ said the man. Willoughby, presumably: red trousers, a mustard-yellow shirt, and Harry Potter spectacles. He quickly sized up the shopkeeper: posh, public school educated, and eager to please.
‘I thought it seemed eerily quiet in here,’ he said, rolling the bottle between his hands.
The man smiled sheepishly. ‘I had to answer a call of nature, I’m afraid. I should’ve put the closed sign up, really, and locked the door… but it’s been rather quiet this afternoon so I thought I’d get away with it. Anyway, how can I help?’
‘I was hoping you might make a recommendation.’
‘Certainly, yes. What… err… what are you in the market for?’
Holding open his bag for life he said, ‘A suitable companion for this evening’s Thai banquet. Prawn toast and spring rolls, followed by green curry – chicken, green beans, lemongrass.’
Willoughby rubbed his tiny chin and nodded. ‘Okay then, first of all I think we need to move you away from these reds. Far too much heavy tannin for Asian cuisine.’ Willoughby moved to the opposite wall that housed white wines and selected two bottles.
‘Now this is more like it. Something nicely aromatic. Alsace region, I think. Yes, here we are – an off-dry Riesling would make an ideal partner, or even this lovely Chenin Blanc.’
Returning the Malbec to the shelf, he ambled over to join Willoughby, nodding politely as the self-appointed expert listed attributes for each variety and droned on about different grapes and soil acidity. Meanwhile he silently amused himself by guessing the vintner’s backstory. He was the underachieving youngest son of a respectable home counties family, inadequate A level grades for Oxbridge, but fluked a solid upper second at some provincial redbrick, followed by the compulsory period pretending to be a solicitor or banker before jacking it all in to flail around in various failed business start-ups. And now here he was, trying his luck in the wine trade. He could spot this type a mile off: someone just a few degrees removed from himself, if only the cards had been dealt more favourably.
While the prat was distracted by reaching up to a higher shelf, he snuck a look towards the back room, but all he could make out was a stack of empty crates and the corner of a table.
‘I’ve never noticed this establishment before. Have you been here long?’
‘Just the last month. We opened on the eighth. I’d been looking for the right spot for quite a while, actually. Are you… do you live in the area?’
‘Not too far away. I usually take a different route home, though. That’s probably why I missed your grand opening.’
‘Yes, we are a bit out of the way here. There’s not quite as much footfall as I’d hoped. But a few regulars are coming in now. Word is gradually spreading.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do very well here.’ He grinned encouragingly. ‘I believe it’s our duty to support the independent vendor. You’re a dying breed.’
That seemed to please Willoughby, who reached across the shelf, pulled down another bottle and handed it over. ‘Ah, here we go: Gewürztraminer. Now we’re talking. This was a Gold Label winner a couple of years back. Have you tried one before?’
‘Yes, of course.’ He’d never even heard of this variety. ‘But I must confess I hadn’t thought of serving it with curry.’
‘You can’t go wrong with Gewürztraminer. And this one is particularly fine – a perfect balance of acidity and sugar. Mouth-watering tropical fruit flavours. The proprietor pushed back his round spectacles. ‘I keep a bottle or two in my personal collection.’
The label had some pertinent details which he quickly tried to memorise. Willoughby waited for a response until finally he placed the bottle down on the counter with a satisfying thud and reached for his wallet. ‘Sold.’
10
The silly cow was still droning on. And on. Sinead had zoned out of the conversation five minutes ago, just nodding sympathetically and concentrating on not looking directly at the woman’s huge nose as she delivered her venomous diatribe. Together with the continuous rejection, rudeness and harassment, a regular occurrence in this job was getting stuck with self- important people who relished the opportunity of telling you everything that was inherently wrong with the charity sector and how they collected and distributed donations from the public. The Oxfam sex worker scandal was the latest bone of contention and the woman had swiftly raised it, despite Sinead’s gentle protestations that she was actually collecting for the British Heart Foundation.
Sinead knew from experience that this rant was never going to result in a sign-up. It was just how some sad people got their kicks; condemning and complaining, convinced that the whole charity system was corrupt. Sinead had some sympathy for this particular point of view, and couldn’t give the woman any guarantee that her donation would actually end up being spent on the people who needed it rather than lining the pockets of greedy charity bosses. But ultimately Sinead was here to do a job and was actually employed by an agency, not the charity itself, and if this woman wasn’t going to hand over her bank account details in the next five minutes, she’d really rather move on to someone who would.
Eventually the complaining woman left without making a donation, saying she had to get back to work. Sinead asked her to give it some thought, that the British Heart Foundation was not associated with Oxfam and so didn’t deserve to lose money because of their scandal. The big-nosed cow was about to relaunch her tirade, but aborted when Sinead turned to speak to another pedestrian on Regent’s Street.
The man she said hello to ignored her, and Sinead waited until the woman with the nose had walked off before ducking down a side street for a quick time out. She was wearing a red and white BHF tabard that kept flapping about in the wind. Checking her clipboard, she counted the day’s sign-ups so far. Her team’s target for the day was forty. She had ten, Dylan had got eight but the new girls, Dina and Maisie, only had five between them. It was 2.45 now and they had three-and-a-quarter hours left to make up the rest.
Dylan’s place was about thirty yards down the south end of Regent’s Street, towards Piccadilly Circus. His performance had improved in the past week, and Sinead felt some pride that her coaching had clearly given him a boost. She could see him talking to a young mother with a pushchair. Dylan had really developed a knack with the yummy mummies. He would pull a funny face and make the kid laugh, and the mother would be putty in his hands.
Turning the other way, she spotted Dina and Maisie standing together, outside Accessorize, chatting away with dozens of potential punters passing them by. Sinead’s line manager, Andy, had asked her to do him a favour by taking on two newbies. He relied on Sinead to train them up fast, so they would meet their sales targets. They had been given a day’s training in the office, but this never prepared anyone for the first few days on the job. Staff turnover was so high that fundraisers often didn’t last a week; some walked off at lunchtime never to be seen again. New employees were either a welcome breath of fresh air – like Dylan – or right pains in the arse. From what she’d experienced with Dina and Maisie in just a few short hours, these two were firmly in the second category.