The Little Shop of Proverbs

The bay window has half a dozen panes with glass circles, like something out of Dickens. A bell jingle-jangles as I step inside. The walls are thick with tiny cards in a copperplate hand, while embroidered pennants hang from the bumpy-head beams of the ceiling, advising that:

Mist from the hill brings water to the mill

or

A smiling boy seldom proves a good servant.

At the wooden counter a stooped older man is bent over a ledger. He looks up and smiles.

‘Good afternoon, sir.’

‘Hi. I’ve never been down this alley before. Have you just opened?’

‘In a manner of speaking. But I believe people have found proverbs helpful since the Old Testament.’

‘Ha! Very appropriate. Wages of sin and all that.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’m looking for something for my wife.’

‘Certainly. Birthday? Anniversary?’

‘More like a rough patch.’

He doesn’t blink.

‘Something that speaks of balance and respect, sir? Perhaps along the lines of: Do as you would be done by?’

I can’t help but blush. Karina isn’t the only one to have behaved atrociously.

‘Something with more welly,’ I say. ‘With a slug of recrimination. And an ultimatum.’ I look around. The walls have the usual stuff about sleeping dogs and stitches in time.

‘I should explain,’ he says. ‘Those are for illustrative purposes only. I only offer bespoke solutions.’

I pull out my phone. ‘What about: For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge? Could you work up something like that? In your own words, of course.’

He gestures to a nest of armchairs, loose-covered in faded chintz. ‘Let me take some details.’

And so I explain that we’re six years in and have both been married before; how we met in Oslo, under the clock at the central railway station, both waiting for dates who hadn’t shown. ‘Time waits for no man,’ she’d quipped. ‘And neither does this woman.’ I tell him how her daughter Nettie had been so difficult until, one day, she’d asked if she could call me Pappa. I gabble on while, outside, the light begins to fade. I’ve been here half the afternoon, and there have been no other customers.

Eventually, the proprietor closes his notebook and puts down his fountain pen. ‘I can, of course, create something for you.’ He steeples his fingers under his chin. ‘Although, it seems to me that you also have two other choices. You may have noticed there’s a solicitor’s next door. Or, and I urge you to consider this most carefully, there’s a florist just along the High Street.’

‘A florist?’

‘Mr Ramero. He’s awfully good.’

Karina had made her own wedding bouquet, with red poppies and blue cornflowers, lavender and rosemary.

I fumble for my wallet. ‘Look, how much do I owe you?’

‘My bespoke proverbs start at three hundred guineas, but are you sure it’s what you really need?’

She’d even included some ears of wheat, into which Nettie had placed a cheeky felt dormouse.

‘Well …’ I say, thinking of how I’d left Karina crying in the bathroom this morning. ‘Probably not, after all. Thank you.’

‘Then there’s no charge.’

The bell jangles again as I open the door.

‘Go well, Michael,’ he says, taking my proffered hand in both of his. ‘May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face.’

I’m back down the alley and across the High Street before I realise I hadn’t told him my name. After Mr Ramero has made up my bouquet of velvety red roses, I pick up a basket of heathers as a thank-you gift for my gentle adviser.

I retrace my steps and walk up and down in the darkness, clutching my flowers. But try as I might, I can find neither the alley nor the bay-windowed Little Shop of Proverbs anywhere. When I stop to get my bearings, I notice a tiny card tucked into my bouquet with my name on it.

On the back is a message in beautiful copperplate handwriting:

The foolish man grumbles that roses have thorns, but the wise man gives thanks that thorns have roses.