And the space is huge. The ceilings go up for ever, and, as my eyes adjust to the one swinging lamp bulb, I can see that there is a gallery in the larger room. I wouldn’t trust the one rickety stepladder propped up in the corner, so I just have to assume you can stand up in the gallery.
‘Can you believe it?’ Lucy keeps whispering. ‘Can you believe it?’
There’s one large L-shaped room with a huge picture window at the back, another, smaller window in the gallery, and a slightly smaller room next door.
Lucy starts reading the details James has brought with him, and excitedly walks to the back of the shop, where she pushes open a door to reveal another room.
‘Look! Cath! The kitchen!’ And then she runs into the larger room and, sure enough, off the L-shape is another room.
‘Let me guess.’ I smile wryly. ‘Stock room?’
‘Isn’t it perfect, Cath?’ she says, whirling around. ‘Can’t you just imagine it? Close your eyes and can’t you hear those pages rustling? Smell the coffee? The home-made cakes and biscuits?’
I smile at her, swaying gently in the middle of the floor, eyes squeezed tight, able to see exactly what it will be like.
And of course it is perfect. It would make the perfect café/bookshop. I’m just not sure that I have the nerve to get involved with something entirely different at this stage of my life.
‘What was it before? It must have been a bookshop, but I don’t remember.’ My voice is clipped, businesslike, because I figure that at least one of us has to be if we’re going to be taken the slightest bit seriously.
‘Believe it or not it was empty,’ James says. ‘It’s been empty for about twenty years.’
‘Well, that explains the dust,’ Lucy says, stifling a sneeze.
‘It was owned by one of the local eccentrics,’ continues James. ‘Harry Roberts?’ He looks at us, but we both shake our heads and shrug. ‘Harry was always a bit of a local character. He died last year in his nineties, but up until the week he died he used to go to work every day, dressed in a three-piece suit, immaculately turned out.’
‘And?’ Lucy’s eager to hear what happens, loving nothing more than a good story.
‘We all thought Harry was a bit of a chancer.’ James smiles fondly at the memory. ‘He used to come into the office to talk about property, and we’d indulge him because we thought it made him feel good, but we didn’t think he had anything. He was just an old man.’
‘And?’ Now it’s my turn.
‘The thing is he never actually seemed to do anything. He just had this office round the corner and he used to go every day, without fail, and then pop round to the local agents for chats because he was bored.
‘And then he died, and you’d never believe it, but he turned out to be worth millions.’
‘No!’ Lucy breathes in awe. ‘Really?’
‘I’m not kidding,’ James said. ‘He lived in a hovel of a flat. Really disgusting. Threadbare carpets, chairs held together by string; most of the furniture hadn’t been changed since the thirties, but he owned about half of the commercial property in the area.’
‘But didn’t you know?’ I asked. ‘You must have known?’
‘That’s the ridiculous thing,’ James says. ‘He just leased them all out, and most of the tenants were paying next to nothing to stay there. When they were going through his estate they realized that he had been sitting on a fortune that had hardly been making a profit.
‘So they sold them off,’ he continues. ‘And this one had just been sitting here for years. We’d tried to find out who owned it. Everyone in the area had, but this was the one property he’d never leased out.’
‘Oooh. How fascinating. Why do you think?’ Lucy’s eyes are wide and bright, hardly able to contain her fascination.
James shrugs. ‘All sorts of rumours have flown about. Allegedly it was a bookshop, and the owner was a woman he’d had an affair with. She was supposed to be the one great love of his life, but she was already married and wouldn’t leave her husband. He never got over it, or so they say.’ He grins at us. ‘But you never know with rumours.’
‘That doesn’t sound right,’ I say. ‘In his day women didn’t really have careers, did they?’
‘Who cares,’ says Lucy, hugging herself with happiness. ‘How romantic. How wonderful. This is it, you know,’ and she looks at me, while I try to signal to say nothing further, because you should never let estate agents know what you’re thinking.
‘It’s crying out for some TLC,’ James says. ‘But, as I explained to Lucy the other day, all the basics are here. Stick in a new kitchen, a bar in the middle here, and a coat of paint.’ He scuffs the floorboards with his right foot. ‘Even these are immaculate. They just need sanding down’ – he looks up at us – ‘and I really can’t imagine a more perfect spot for your business.’
‘Have you had much interest?’ I ask casually.
‘We’ve only just got it,’ he says. ‘So we haven’t even started marketing it properly yet, but we’re putting adverts in all the trade press next week. It will go like a shot.’
Lucy looks dispirited. ‘That means we must act quickly, Cath,’ she advises sternly. ‘Come on now.’ She grabs my arm and turns to James, flashing him a dazzling smile. ‘James, you are an absolute angel for showing us at such short notice. We’ll ring you in the morning.’
James, still stunned by the radiance of Lucy’s smile, nods, and we leave him standing there, basking in the excitement and joy Lucy has left behind.
‘Low-halogen spots, lots of pale wood, very sunny. What do you think?’ Lucy’s pacing round the kitchen, words tumbling out of her mouth.
‘I think,’ Josh says slowly, looking at me, ‘you should (a) stop pacing round the floor, and (b) ask Cath what she thinks.’
Lucy stops in mid-step and looks at me, mortified. ‘Cath! Darling! I’m so sorry.’ She runs over and leans down, giving me a big hug. ‘I just haven’t stopped talking. God, I’m so selfish. Tell me. Tell me. What do you think?’
‘It’s all a bit much for me,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s my life’s dream, but I just don’t know if I could really leave my job and do this. What if it were a massive failure? What if we lost all our money? I’d have to put my life savings into this, and I could lose everything.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Josh says slowly.
‘Come on, Joshy,’ Lucy says. ‘You’re the clever banker. How could we minimize the risk?’
‘You could go with a backer,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘But then again, maybe it’s best to keep the investors to a minimum.’ He sits in silence for a while as Lucy makes faces at me. ‘You know,’ he says eventually, ‘it might actually be far less than you think.’
‘Do you think it’s worth it, then, Josh?’ I trust his opinion.
‘I do, as it happens,’ he says, coming back to the present. ‘Hang on,’ and he leaps up, grabs something from his jacket pocket in the hallway, and comes back into the room. He opens a small black computer-type thing and starts typing on a tiny keyboard.
‘What is he doing?’ I raise an eyebrow at Lucy.
‘Heaven forbid we should go anywhere without his beloved Palm Pilot,’ she laughs.
‘Just trying to work out some initial costs,’ Josh says, snapping it shut. ‘In fact one of the guys at work has parents who own a bookshop. It’s in Derbyshire or somewhere, but I’m sure he’d be able to help, or at least give us an idea of the sort of money we’re looking at, although at a guess I’d say around £100,000 once you’ve sorted out builders, alterations, stock cost, etc. Why don’t I speak to him?’