Page 18

I idled around the little shop for a minute, not really knowing what to do. London really had turned me into a snob. I hadn’t bought from a charity shop in…well, I didn’t know. It had certainly been a very long time. It couldn’t be that hard, surely.

I looked through the racks, trying to find something, anything to keep me warm. But there was very little of interest to me, let alone anything that would fit. I happened to turn and catch Sara’s eye just as she pulled out a gorgeous thick black coat from one of the donation bags.

“How much?” I blurted.

She looked at me a little quizzically. “A fiver, I guess? I hadn’t got round to pricing it yet.

” She passed it over the counter for me to try on.

It was perfect, lined with a satiny material.

And it didn’t smell old and musty like I expected charity shop buys to.

I buttoned it up at the front, and passed five pounds over to Sara.

I might not have had much money, but on this cold December it felt like a need.

And I hadn’t realised how much I enjoyed buying things.

The power of a new purchase was enough to put a smile on my face and face the day.

Samara, who ran the florist, and Jon who ran the butchers, had both been nice enough when I explained my plans to sell on. It’s just downsizing my portfolio, I’d said to both of them, my perfectly practised patter . But I’d like to give you chance to purchase the building for a much lower price.

And I’d been more than fair. I’d taken the value of the buildings, subtracted the rent they’d each paid me over the last year and then taken another ten thousand or so off the total.

They were getting a very good deal. And both had accepted this and said they’d make preparations to apply for a mortgage on each property.

I left both feeling a little more buoyant with the knowledge I could call my financial advisors in the next couple of days.

My visit to The Nerd Emporium did not go quite as happily.

“Hello?” I called as I walked in and there was no one in sight.

The place inside was like nothing I’d ever seen in the little village of Hiraeth before.

Memorabilia crowded out every wall. There was an entire wall dedicated to Thrones of Blood , Hiraeth’s latest great export.

There were also Pokémon figures, Star Trek and Star Wars spaceships competing for space and in one corner a full sized Dalek from Doctor Who , a little fez perched over one light on its pepper-pot head.

“Hello?” I called again. The shop was a little bit dark and eerie in its silence, and a door behind the counter was obscured by hanging beads.

I heard a crash from behind the counter and a head poked through the beads.

The owner of the head was a short, skinny man of about twenty-five, and he smiled warily at me as he emerged.

He was wearing a t-shirt that said The Angels Have the Phone Box , and skinny jeans that had seen better days.

He was pale, with big round glasses and bright pink hair.

He was handsome, but not at all my type.

I seemed to prefer rough-looking mechanics these days.

“Hello,” he said nervously. “Sorry, I was packing up out back and I must not have heard you come in.”

“Packing up? Are you leaving?” I asked. I didn’t remember my financial advisors saying that we were about to lose rental income from the property.

“Oh, no, I mean…” the young man reached back into the doorway to flick a switch, which lit up the room behind him.

It was floor to ceiling in merchandise. “I don’t make a lot of money from the shopfront, except for last week when we had the big convention in town.

I do most of my orders online, hence…packing. ”

“Ah. I’m Hywel, by the way. Your landlord.”

“Great. I’m Nathan.” The young man didn’t reach his hand out to shake mine, but instead fiddled with a couple of boxes behind the counter. His smile still hadn’t reached his eyes, and I guessed he wasn’t exactly the most natural of speakers.

“I just came to talk to you about the shop,” I started when he didn’t seem to want to say anything else.

“I’m…divesting my properties in the area and wanted to give you the chance to buy it from me.

Otherwise, I can talk to you about what happens when I sell up, what clauses might be best to put in place to make sure your new landlord charges a fair rent and keeps you around for a pre-set amount of time. ”

“Ah.” What little smile Nathan had fell off his face at my words. “Well, I really can’t afford to buy from you, much as I’d like to.”

“OK, that’s fine. If I line up some potential buyers, I’ll make sure that the contract of sale stipulates…” I stopped mid-sentence when I realised there was a tear dripping down Nathan’s cheek. He was looking down at the till, but it was unmistakable. I had made a young man cry. “You OK?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah.” Nathan grabbed some cards that were fanned out on the desk and furiously sorted them into neater piles. I could recognise a fellow emotional cleaner when I saw one.

“What’s up? I’m happy to talk things through with you, if the transition makes you nervous.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Shit happens.” Nathan looked up at me, eyes shining. “OK, well, not fine. But I’ve been through worse. No biggie.”

“Want to talk me through it?” I asked as quietly and sensitively as I could.

Nathan had turned to another wall in the store, straightening up Thrones of Blood backpacks and lunchboxes on the shelf.

“Thing is, I like stability. Everything in order. I had stuff, back in Cardiff. My life together. A man who…who loved me, I thought. And then he turned out not to be such a nice man after all. It took a while for me to realise. I think everyone else realised way before I did, but by the time I noticed it was too late. They’d all gone.

” Nathan’s voice was wavering as he spoke.

“I’ll spare you the details, but I ended up here with very little.

And this little shop was available for a pittance, and I knew exactly how to run it.

So even though that man was doing his level best to make my life hell from so many miles away, I did my best to make things work.

Even as he kept taking from me. But I’ve got so little left to give. ”

I wanted to hug the man, but that was ridiculous. I hardly knew him.

“I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me,” said Nathan.

He had organised one half of the wall to within an inch of its sorry life.

“But I do want you to know that you doing this? It’s one hell of a setback for me.

The corporate landlord you sell on to might be lovely, or they might turf me out as soon as that little clause you put in is up.

But it’s one big setback in whatever stability I’ve started to build here. ”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I will work something out. Something that works for you. I promise.”

“I’d like you to go now,” said Nathan. He didn’t look malicious, or cruel, just sad.

“Are you going to be OK?” I asked, even as I stepped slowly toward the door.

“I’m always OK,” said Nathan. His mouth quirked up on one side to a smile that didn’t quite convince me.

Outside was colder than ever, and the sun was low over the horizon. I checked my phone to see that it was 4pm already. I’d spent all afternoon chatting in the shops, mostly happily, but that last conversation had given me shivers that were little to do with the nip in the air.

I knew I should be heading back — the country lanes were dangerous at night and it would be stupid to walk home too late — but after the conversation I’d just had, the warmth of the pub and the call of a good pint was beckoning me.

The pub was on the outskirts of the village a few minutes from the shops, so it gave me time to think.

Could it really hurt to retain the one shop, at least for now?

I chuckled to myself through the chatter of my teeth, though the new-to-me coat was keeping me warmer than I would have been otherwise.

Was I going soft? Not that I’d ever been an awful and heartless businessman, but it had always taken more than a couple of tears to put me off a business negotiation.

And it hurt, to know someone was here under similar circumstances to me. Worse, even. I could sympathise with someone who had an arsehole ex who took something from them.

The pub was warm and dark, lit only by low lighting that did its very best to permeate every dark corner, as well as an open fireplace to one side.

It was packed inside with punters, loud and active, laughs between neighbours and friends.

In Hiraeth, almost everyone knew one another.

I looked around the room, but there seemed to be nowhere to sit.

I could slum it at the bar, I thought. I recognised the woman to be the one I’d caught drinking and smoking with Macsen in the flat.

The night we’d first done anything. I could tell she recognised me too, as her eyes widened before asking for my order.

A couple of minutes later, I was walking with two pints into the middle of the room and desperately hoping that there would be somewhere to sit.

“Hey, Hywel!” a low voice I vaguely recognised shouted from one corner near the fire. The squeeze of customers and darkness of the room meant I didn’t recognise the face as Llywelyn’s until I was much closer.