Daughters of the Silk Road: A beautiful and epic novel of family, love and the secrets of a Ming Vase (2 page)

‘
G
eorgie
!’ Miranda yelled up the staircase to her daughter. It was eight minutes past eight and if they did not leave in the next twenty seconds, Georgie would miss her bus and Miranda would be forced to drive her to school, making herself late for work.

‘Georgie, I am leaving in ten seconds!’ She heard the loo flushing and finally her daughter appeared at the top of the stairs with a toothbrush ensconced firmly in her mouth.

‘I’m mumming,’ she mumbled, toothpaste escaping from the sides of her mouth and splashing onto her school jumper.

‘You are going to miss your bus and I really do
not
have time to take you today!’

Her daughter disappeared into the bathroom and Miranda heard her spitting violently into the basin.

The house rattled as Georgie slammed the bathroom door and descended the staircase in two giant leaps, landing heavily in the hall.

‘Georgie – please don’t do that. You’ll go through the floor one day. I’m sure that floorboard is cracking,’ her mother said exasperatedly.

‘Do you want me to hurry or not?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake. Where’s your bag?’

‘Here.’ Georgie grabbed the bag from the Shaker pegs so violently they teetered on the edge of their rawl plugs. The bag grazed the side of the vase.

‘Careful!’ Miranda steadied the vase on its table.

‘I hate that thing. Who cares if it gets broken?’ said Georgie.

‘I would. It was left to me by…’

‘I know, I know. Come on.’ Georgie yanked open the front door. ‘Let’s go.’

M
iranda arrived
at the bookshop on Barnes High Street just before nine o’clock. She took the shop keys out of her basket and unlocked the door. A pile of envelopes were stacked up on the other side, which made opening the door tricky, but she managed to reach round its base and move the pile of mail out of the way.

Most of it, she knew, would be rubbish, but once inside, she nevertheless dutifully sorted through it, laying it out on the owner’s desk in three piles: urgent, probably rubbish, definitely rubbish. The urgent ones were fairly obvious; they normally had a see-through window and the words ‘final demand’ in red. The rubbish were predominantly begging letters and the odd charity fishing expedition; the definite rubbish consisted of catalogues for office equipment that they simply didn’t need and couldn’t afford anyway.

Miranda worked at the shop on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It was a convenient arrangement that enabled her to earn enough money to cover bills, and allowed Jeremy – her boss – two days off per week. On her days away from the shop Miranda was working hard to establish a small knitting business. It was just a fledgling enterprise – something she had started as her marriage fell apart. She had built up quite a following amongst friends and acquaintances for her colourful Fair Isle scarves and hats, and had a long list of orders that kept her busy. She had even considered selling to a couple of local boutiques, but it was hard to build up sufficient stock and the profit margins were lean. It made more sense for the moment to continue selling direct. Like many artisans, she was at a crossroads. She had a product that customers wanted, but her profit margins made any kind of expansion impossible. She had an old pine chest in the sitting room crammed with balls of wool, arranged in colour co-ordinated groups. Boxes of finished garments were stacked neatly in the hall, next to the console table. She spent any spare time designing packaging, and had a simple website. But when she had explored the possibility of making it transactional, the costs had been prohibitive. And so she continued to work at the bookshop, and fitted in her knitting where she could. Both she and Jeremy worked on Saturdays to cope with the ‘rush’, although Miranda could not actually remember the last time either of them had been exactly busy on a Saturday. On Jeremy’s days away from the shop, he was supposed to be writing the
great novel
, but Miranda suspected that he actually spent the time mooching around in his flat above the shop, judging by the creaking floorboards she could hear as he wandered back and forth between kitchen and sitting room.

Sitting at Jeremy’s desk at the back of the shop, Miranda heard the loud jangle of the shop’s bell, alerting her to the arrival of her first customer.

‘Damn,’ she muttered under her breath. Checking her watch, she saw that it was just nine-fifteen, and the shop was not due to open until ten o’clock, a time that she and Jeremy had arrived at based on their mutual loathing of early morning starts and the necessity to plough through paperwork uninterrupted for an hour before opening time – something that had become increasingly superfluous, as the shop had fewer and fewer visitors and customer orders had shrunk over the years.

‘I’m sorry,’ she called out to the invisible customer, ‘but we’re not actually open yet. It’s my fault; I must have forgotten to lock the door behind me when I came in. We open at ten o’clock if you’d like to come back?’

Her question hung unanswered in the air. Irritated at this apparent rudeness, she got to her feet and walked round the large desk and out into the shop. Standing at the rare and second-hand book section, one of her recent initiatives, was a tall fair-haired man wearing a dark grey suit. He turned slowly to look at her.

‘Oh I see. That’s a shame. I don’t have very long, I’m on my way to Hampshire and just spotted your shop and thought I’d come and see what little gems you might have here. But if I must go…’

‘No, no, that’s all right,’ she relented. ‘I’m sorry, do please have a browse, and let me know if there is anything I can help you with.’

S
he was
on the phone to the distributor, trying to order a book for a regular client, when the man appeared in front of her desk. She gestured that she would be a few minutes more. He stood patiently, gazing down at her and she found herself feeling rather self-conscious. Her impatience with Georgie that morning had caused her to skimp on her own appearance. She wore a rather inelegant combination of a loose-fitting cheesecloth shirt and blue jeans. She was vaguely aware that she had not actually brushed her dark blond hair at all that morning, and found herself smoothing it down awkwardly with one hand, the phone hooked under her chin as she wrote some numbers in her order book with the other.

‘Thanks Mavis,’ she said to the distributor at last. ‘Look I’ve got to go. I’ve got a customer; if you could email me a confirmation of the order that would be great. Bye.’

‘Now…’ she said at last, gazing up at the man. ‘What can I do for you?’

He was tall; his hair was…. What? Blond? No. Red? No. Strawberry blond.

‘You have lovely hair,’ she said suddenly, and then blushed scarlet. ‘Oh I’m sorry! How embarrassing… I just meant that it’s a rather unusual colour.’

‘That’s all right.’ He smiled at her; his grey eyes crinkled at the corners. He had a deep voice, reassuring, posh. He reminded her of the young men of her youth. The sort of men her mother would have liked her to marry.

‘Right, so what do we have here then?’ She attempted to sound business-like and stood up to look at his pile of books. ‘Oh, that’s a good choice,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘That’s a particularly lovely early edition. Are you a fan of Lewis Carroll?’

‘Not especially,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, I just wondered if you were buying it for your daughter perhaps?’

‘No, I have no children. It’s more a professional thing. I’m an auctioneer and I’ve got an early edition of
Wonderland
already; this one of
The Looking Glass
might make up a good lot.’

‘Oh, how interesting,’ said Miranda as she wrapped the book in brown paper.

‘It’s quite expensive, but I imagine you’re used to high prices in your business.’

‘Yes. Do you take cards?’

‘We do, yes. Now let’s just add it all up. The Lewis Carroll is fifty-seven pounds fifty. The other items add up to…’ Miranda totted them up on her calculator; ‘another forty-eight pounds and thirty pence. So that’s…’

‘One hundred and five pounds and eighty pence,’ he replied swiftly.

‘Gosh, yes. That’s quite right. Thank you.’

An awkward few minutes followed, while Miranda tried and failed to get any sort of signal on the credit card machine.

‘I’m really very sorry. It does this sometimes. We’re in a bit of a black hole here. I do keep asking Jeremy – he’s the owner – to sort it out, but technology is not really his thing. You don’t have a cheque I suppose?’

‘A cheque?’ the man asked with surprise. ‘Yes, I might have somewhere.’ He rooted around in his leather briefcase before finally bringing out a chequebook.

‘Here.’ He ripped one out with a flourish and handed it to her.

‘Perfect. If you could just put your card number and your address on the back? I’m sorry to ask, but the bank get a bit huffy if we take cheques over a hundred pounds with no other information.’

‘No problem,’ he said.

‘Well,’ he said finally, as she handed him his brown paper parcel, ‘this has been most enjoyable. I shall remember your shop, but I’ll try to come after ten o’clock in future.’ He smiled again; the pale grey eyes twinkled. Guy’s eyes had been brown; a very dark brown. She always felt that she could not quite work out what he was thinking, as if his eyes were too dark to read. But this man’s eyes were like cool pools of water.

‘Yes. Do come again; we’d like that.’ She glanced down at his cheque and noticed his name for the first time, ‘Mr Davenport.’

‘Charles, please. Well, Charlie really.’

‘Charlie,’ she said lightly, ‘and I’m Miranda.’

‘Delighted, Miranda.’

M
iranda was never quite
sure what made her keep a note of Charlie’s address before she banked his cheque. But she was glad that she had. Two weeks after his first visit, a dealer came into the shop and offered them a rare and beautiful edition of both Lewis Carroll books bound in one volume dating back to 1898.

‘Can you leave it with me for a day or two?’ Miranda suggested. ‘I might have a buyer for this. I’ll keep it in the safe, I promise.’

The dealer agreed to return the following week and Miranda lost no time in tracking down Charles Davenport. She had made a note of his address on a post-it and stuck it onto her computer: The Manor, Chattleton, Hants. When she checked with enquiries, he appeared to be ex-directory. So she put his name and address and the words ‘antique dealer’ into a search engine and discovered the auction house he worked for. She rang them and asked to be put through.

‘I’m afraid Mr Davenport is not in today,’ said the girl at the other end.

‘Oh that’s a pity; I have a rather wonderful rare book that I think he’d appreciate. In fact I know he would; he asked me to keep my eye out for just such a thing the other day when he bought something from me.’

The receptionist sounded dubious, but was finally persuaded to part with Charles’s mobile phone number. She dialled.

‘Hello.’ The voice sounded familiar… Deep.

‘Hello, Charlie? It’s Miranda.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Miranda Sharp – the woman in the bookshop the other day?’

‘Oh yes, of course! Forgive me, Miranda, I had a momentary lapse. How lovely to hear from you.’

She felt a wave of relief that he had remembered her. ‘Look, I hope you don’t mind me calling you like this?’

‘Not at all.’

‘It’s just that I’ve been shown a first-rate early edition of
Alice
– the two novels in one edition dating back to 1898, and I wondered if you might be interested.’

‘How did you get hold of it?’

‘Well, a dealer we do a bit of work with brought it in this morning and I just wondered…’

‘Well yes, of course. It does sound interesting. How much does he want for it?’

‘I don’t know really – I think it’s a matter of negotiation. But he’s open to offers.’

‘Well, depending on the price, I’d be keen to come over and have look at it? I could come tomorrow; how does that work for you?’

Knowing that would be her day off, Miranda told a small lie. ‘Oh, I’m not sure we can do that, we’re closed you see? How about Saturday?’

‘No can do, I’m afraid; bit busy on Saturday.’

‘Yes, of course. What about next Tuesday?’

‘Yup, I can do that. You’ll be able to look after it till then?’

‘Oh don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. It’ll go in the safe right now.’

‘OK, well I’ll see you next Tuesday, sometime after ten. ’

‘Ha… Yes. Thank you for remembering our strange opening hours.’

M
iranda felt
a sense of rising excitement over the next few days. Jeremy, who was not particularly bothered about Miranda’s second-hand book venture, didn’t seem remotely interested in the valuable book stored in his safe.

‘It could be worth a fortune Jeremy,’ said Miranda enthusiastically. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of research and it could be worth as much as a thousand.’

‘Really?’ said Jeremy distractedly, as he totted up their profits for the previous month.

It did not make edifying reading.

‘And I’ve asked Malcolm, the dealer, for at least twenty percent of any profit, as a finder’s fee,’ she said with satisfaction.

‘Well done, well done.’

‘Jeremy! That could be as much as two hundred pounds if we’re lucky. That’s more than we take in most weeks isn’t it?’

Jeremy looked up from his hand-written list of figures. ‘Well, yes, if you put it like that.’

‘So?’ Miranda said with exasperation.

‘Well let’s hope that this chap wants to buy it then.’

On Tuesday morning, Miranda was more than usually interested in her appearance. Georgie watched her with suspicion as she modelled three outfits for her over breakfast.

‘Which one, G? I think the first one. The others are a bit ‘buttoned up’. What do you think?’

‘Mum – you’re only going to work. What the f… is going on?’

‘Language, Georgie,’ her mother said with mock ferocity.

‘I didn’t even say the word, Mum; anyway, why all the fuss about what you should wear? What’s going on, Ma?’

‘Oh, just an important client is coming to the shop and I want to look nice. That’s all. So which one do you think?’

‘I think the black dress looks professional,’ said Georgie reluctantly.

‘I don’t want to look professional,' said her mother, gazing at herself in the small mirror she had hung from the dresser’s hook.

‘I thought you were seeing a client!?’

‘I am. I just want to combine professional with elegant,’ her mother said quickly.

‘Oh, I don’t care. Wear what you like. I’m off to do my teeth.’

They left the house with Miranda wearing an old but nevertheless well-fitting wrap dress that her friend Sasha had given her during one of her annual ‘chucking out’ sessions. It was a shade of blue that brought out the colour of Miranda’s eyes and suited her rangy figure well.‘God, Miranda, it never looked that good on me! Take it. You look fab.’

She arrived at the shop just before nine o’clock and sorted the mail as usual. Then she tidied Jeremy’s desk and put out a tray with two cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits that she had bought on the way in. She stapled the receipt for the biscuits to the petty cash book and took out the one pound twenty-nine they had cost her. It was a ‘necessary’ expense, she reasoned to herself. And then she waited. Ten o’clock came and there was no sign of him. Customers wandered in and annoyed her with their irritating questions and requests.

At one o’clock she was just considering turning the shop’s sign to ‘closed’ and popping next door to the café for a sandwich when he sauntered through the door.

‘Hi Miranda,’ he called out as he came in. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit later than I had expected to be – traffic was murder on the M3 this morning.’

‘No problem,’ Miranda said, crossing the shop to greet him. She shook his hand rather awkwardly before darting behind him to turn the shop’s sign to ‘closed’.

‘I think it would be best if we weren’t disturbed,’ she said by way of explanation.

She went to the safe and removed the book, laying it carefully on the tidied desk for Charles to examine.

‘Tea? Coffee?’ she asked.

‘Coffee, thanks.’

‘Biscuit?’ she offered as she handed Charles his coffee.

‘No, thanks. The book is in excellent condition; very nice indeed. Could you find out how much your dealer wants for it?’

‘I’ve asked him already and he’s happy for me to negotiate on his behalf; but it would need to be in the region of a thousand.’

Charles looked at her with his cool grey stare. ‘That’s quite steep.’

‘Yes, but, as you say, it’s in excellent condition and as you probably are aware, it’s really rather a rare edition. We’ve done a bit of research and we think it’s a fair price.’

‘Well, I might need to think a bit about that; would you mind if I slept on it?’

Disappointed that she had not secured an instant sale, Miranda nevertheless said, ‘No, of course not, and feel free to come back to take another look.’

They drank their coffee and Charles finally relented and took a chocolate digestive. He was very slim, Miranda noted, and didn’t look like the kind of man who ate unnecessary calories. As he left, he turned round to her. ‘Look, I hope you won’t think me too forward, but I’d love to see you again, outside of work.’

She felt herself blushing. ‘That would be lovely.’ It had been so long since anyone had asked her out, she felt strangely elated.

‘Well, I don’t know what you’re up to over the next couple of days, but perhaps when I come back to view the book again, we could go out for a drink afterwards?’

‘That would be great.’

‘I’ll do a bit of research on the
Alice
book and call you… Tomorrow? And we can arrange something.’

‘Great.’ She struggled hard to keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘Until tomorrow then.’

T
heir ‘date’ was simple enough
. He arrived just before closing time and agreed to buy the book for a ‘bargain’ price of seven hundred and fifty pounds. She was annoyed with herself for not holding out for more, but he could be very persuasive. Wrapped in brown paper, it was laid carefully in the boot of his Audi car. They then walked to a wine bar a couple of shops down from the bookshop. They sat at a small table in the window and drank white wine, and ate olives and pistachio nuts out of little Moroccan bowls. The conversation flowed easily. He was amusing and attentive, but revealed little about himself. He somehow deflected all personal questions, insisting on learning as much as he could about Miranda. And so she told him about her divorce, and Georgie.

‘It must be hard, bringing up a child on your own,’ he said sympathetically.

‘Yes, and no. In many ways, I’m relieved that Guy doesn’t show much interest; it means I don’t have to pass every decision by him. He ran off with our nanny, did I mention that? I came home early one day from work – I worked at an art gallery in those days – and found Georgie alone in front of the telly; she was about two. I noticed Guy’s briefcase in the hall, and went upstairs to look for him. On the landing I thought I heard some weird noises. I pushed open the door and there they were…’

‘That must have been terrible!’

‘Yes, but I should have seen it coming. He had obviously fancied her for ages. She was tall and blonde with legs up to her armpits. She cooked like a dream and was very, very organised. Eastern European, you know – very together. I left him there and then. The sight of them at it was the last straw. I just picked up Georgie and drove off to my mother’s. Anya – that was the nanny’s name – actually said “do it to me, big boy,” can you believe that? I mean, does anyone actually say that outside of porn films? To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been in a porn film. Anyway, they’re married now and he and Anya have twins – typical of her to be so efficient about having an instant family! He does see G occasionally and sends her birthday cards and so on, but he’s
so
moved on – this year for her fifteenth birthday he gave her a cheque for twenty-five quid. Can you believe that?’

‘That does sound a bit mean.’ Charlie’s grey eyes flickered momentarily to his watch.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m boring you.’

‘Not at all, it’s fascinating. And I was just thinking, I’d love to buy you dinner, but I really ought to get back to Hampshire tonight; I’ve got a sale down there first thing and there’s still lots to do…’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wittering on, haven’t I? I’m sorry. Jeremy’s always telling me off for it. He’s the owner of the shop and a dear friend – a platonic friend.’ She blushed slightly. ‘He saved my life really, after the divorce, giving me a job here. And he’s great with G too.’

‘He sounds wonderful,’ said Charlie. ‘Perfect husband material I’d have thought.’

‘Oh, he is great, yes. But not husband material – no. He’s gay – and adorable. He’s a very old friend. I’ve known him since we were kids. We were virtually brought up together. Then we rather lost touch for a while – he went to university, and I got married. But we met again, by chance, just outside the shop here. I was house-hunting after I’d split up with Guy. Dear Jeremy... He’s hopeless with the shop though. He really wants to be a writer, but can’t seem to get it together. He bought the shop after his parents were killed in an accident. It was all a bit of a tragedy. You’d love him. Oh God, here I go again – chattering too much and you’ve got to go.’

‘It’s fine. I just wish I had more time. And if you want my opinion, I don’t know what that husband of yours was thinking of, leaving you for a leggy blonde called Anya. She sounds very hard work.’ He smiled and their fingers just touched across the table.

‘Yes, she is rather. Still, she keeps him out my hair. Thank you, for the drink. And don’t worry at all about dinner. I need to get home and make sure G is OK anyway. She’s not used to me being out in the evenings.’

Miranda had a sudden frisson of anxiety that she had yet again revealed far too much about herself. She didn’t want to give the impression that she had no social life.

‘I mean, I do go out, obviously – to yoga and a book club. It’s just that I didn’t tell G I’d be late.’

‘It’s fine. Let me drop you off anyway.’

‘You don’t have to. I have my car.’

‘Oh.’ He sounded genuinely disappointed. ‘Well perhaps we could have dinner another night, maybe next week?’

‘That would be lovely. I’d like that. Thank you.’

They stood up and an awkwardness descended, as each tried to decide if it was ‘too soon’ to kiss the other goodbye. Finally, he leant down and kissed her fleetingly on the cheek.

‘Look,’ she said as she turned to walk back to her car. ‘Why don’t you come to me next week for supper? It won’t be anything special and Georgie will be around, but…’

‘Thanks… I’d love to.’

‘Great. Well, shall we say Wednesday? I don’t work in the shop that day, so you might actually get something worth eating. I’ll text you my address, shall I?’

He smiled in acknowledgement.

‘Seven-thirty? ‘

‘Perfect.’

A
s soon as
Charles’s cheque for the book had cleared safely through Jeremy’s account, he generously gave Miranda seventy-five percent of their finder’s fee.

‘Oh Jeremy, that’s so kind of you. You’re such a pal. That will be over £100!’

‘I know. Well you deserve it Manda. It was all your idea – the second hand area; and it’s turning out to be rather a good one. Enjoy it; fill the fridge for that starving daughter of yours.’

The following Wednesday, Miranda drove Georgie to her bus stop.

‘G, darling, I’ve got a friend coming to dinner tonight, just thought I’d mention it.’