place. In a bar, apparently. He’s the one who set up this meeting. And here he isn’t.
But family loyalty keeps me from saying any of this aloud. Family loyalty is a big thing in my life. Maybe the biggest thing. Some people hear the Lord Jesus guiding them; I hear my dad, before he died, saying in his East End accent: Family is it, Fixie. Family is what drives us. Family is everything.
Family loyalty is basically our religion.
“He’s always landing you in it, Jake is,” Greg mutters. “You never know when he’s going to turn up. Can’t rely on him. We’re short-staffed today too, what with your mum taking the day off.”
All of this might be true, but I can hear Dad’s voice in my head again: Family first, Fixie. Protect the family in public. Have it out with them later, in private.
“Jake does his own hours,” I remind Greg. “It’s all agreed.”
All of us Farrs work in the shop—Mum, me, Jake, and Nicole—but only Mum and I are full-time. Jake calls himself our “consultant.” He has another business of his own and he’s doing an MBA online, and he pops in when he can. And Nicole is doing a yoga-instructor course Monday to Friday, so she can only come in at weekends. Which she does sometimes.
“I expect he’s on his way,” I add briskly. “Anyway, we’ve just got to deal with it. Come on! Ladder!”
As Greg drags a stepladder across the shop floor, I hurry to our back room and run some hot water into a bucket. I just need to dash up the ladder, wipe the stain away, grab the can, jump down, and clear everything before the visitors arrive. Easy.
The leisure section is a bit incongruous, surrounded as it is by tea towels and jam-making kits. But it was Dad who set it up that way, so we’ve never changed it. Dad loved a good board game. He always said board games are as essential to a household as spoons. Customers would come in for a kettle and leave with Monopoly too.
And ever since he died, nine years ago now, we’ve tried to keep the shop just as he created it. We still sell licorice allsorts. We still have a tiny hardware section. And we still stock the leisure section with games, balls, and water guns.
The thing about Dad was, he could sell anything to anyone. He was a charmer. But not a flashy, dishonest charmer; a genuine charmer. He believed in every product he sold. He wanted to make people happy. He did make people happy. He created a community in this little corner of West London (he called himself an “immigrant,” being East End born), and it’s still going. Even if the customers who really knew Dad are fewer every year.
“OK,” I say, hurrying out to the shop floor with the bucket. “This won’t take a sec.”
I dash up the steps of the ladder and start scrubbing at the brown stain. I can see Morag below me, demonstrating a paring knife to a customer, and I resist the urge to join in the conversation. I know about knives; I’ve done chef training. But you can’t be everywhere at once, and—
“They’re here,” announces Greg. “There’s a car pulling into the parking space.”
It was Jake who insisted we reserve our only parking spot for these olive-oil people. They’ll have asked, “Do you have parking?” and he won’t have wanted to say, “Only one space,” because he’s pretentious that way, so he’ll have said airily, “Of course!” as though we’ve got an underground vault.
“No problem,” I say breathlessly. “I’m done. All good.”
I dump the cloth into the bucket and swiftly start descending, the Coke can in one hand. There. That took no time, and now it won’t bug me and—
“Careful on that ladder.”
I hear Greg’s voice below, but he’s always regaling us with stupid health-and-safety rules he’s read online, so I don’t alter my step or my pace until he shouts, “Stop!” sounding genuinely alarmed.
“Fixie!” Stacey yells from the till. She’s another of our sales assistants and you can’t miss her piercing nasal voice. “Look out!”
As my head whips round, it takes me a moment to comprehend what I’ve done. I’ve snagged my sleeve on a netball hoop, which has caught on the handle of a massive tub of bouncy balls. And now it’s tipping off the shelf … there’s nothing I can do to stop it, shit …