Chapter 1
The slightly erotic sound of popping corks from bottles of sparkling wine opened by inexperienced bar staff, was more or less ignored by the crowd, with one notable exception.
The disrespectful attack on the wine-makers' craft made Paddy Llewellyn wince.
He was aware that while New Zealand methode traditionnelle could not carry the exotic name of champagne because of legalities over naming protectionism, this wine from Marlborough did not deserve to have the tops of the bottles removed so dispassionately.
Nor should the pale golden fluid be slopped into flutes and then be voraciously dispatched by guests to wash down sausage rolls or salmon-topped triangles of wholemeal bread that had the crust removed, presumably out of respect for people with dentures or a mouthful of aged 'ivories'.
Bloody infidels, he mused.
They wouldn't have any idea that it took the juice of approximately 600 grapes to make a bottle of wine, although he modestly grinned at that thought. He'd only gained that little gem of knowledge when attending a Wine Society dinner some five years ago.
"What are you grinning at, standing here all by yourself?" cooed the Booksellers' Association president, Margie Mason, arriving in a swirl of French perfume and jutting breasts that dropped anchor, so to speak, less than two centimetres from Paddy's torso.
He liked Margie, real name Margaret Elizabeth Mason.
She was the lonely wife of Heston, who devoted himself to making money by running a sweat-shop, where mainly new immigrant workers filled, packed and dispatched bottles of oils taken from big casks he'd imported from Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Eventually bored with tennis, bridge and swimming pool maintenance men, Margie had inveigled Heston to finance her into a small business. He refused to have anything to do with her choice, lingerie.
Margie was unaware (and remains unaware) that wealthy men at his gentlemen's club, finance their mistresses into lingerie shops.
"Then I'll sell books," said Margie, not having an interest in plumbing supplies, toys, coffee, liquor or confectionary.
"Right, I'll find you a bookshop."
"No, don't do that. Just lease me premises anywhere in Transit Street where all the coffee shops are grouped. I wish to start from scratch."
Heston thought cynically that Transit Street was an appropriate location for a transient novice bookseller. Within six months Margie would be back to playing bridge and romping in the conservatory with the latest hired pool cleaner.
With natural frugality, he tried to secure premises on a six-month lease, but was laughed out of the offices of several landlords in a gale of garlic and cigarette-fouled breath.
Every evening Margie would ask, "Have you found me something yet?" And the 'No luck as yet' reply would mean another night of celibacy which defeated the purpose of Heston marrying the woman he adored.
Eventually Heston's luck changed.
Morose, he was stirring his cup of coffee on Transit Street when Sol Moses sat down beside him.
"You'll grind that spoon through the bottom of the cup if you keep that up; I've been watching you," said blue-jawed and tubby Sol, a member of the same gentlemen's club.
"What's up?"
That night was like a second honeymoon for Heston. He finally wound down in exhaustion.
Invigorated by much-needed sex, Maggie said dreamily, "My own shop in Transit Street, a two-year lease with right of renewal and vacancy at the end of the month."
Wearily turning to her wonderful man to offer yet another encore, she found him soundly asleep.
Margie was addicted to books.
As an only child, she'd gone through preadolescence years in a wonderful make-believe world where she talked to Cinderella and the Ice Princess and was the unseen sixth person of the Famous Five and tin her early teens she went to the stake as Joan of Arc and felt the coldness of unrequited love as the heroine in Wuthering Heights.
Margie called on a business consultant, now a respected father of three, a Rotarian and leading light in his profession. At university, Maggie and he used to hump with the abandonment of rabbits in the spring in the back of his VW van, wolfing down cold pizza between sessions of extreme passion.
Despite the tag of solid citizen, Ian Faulkner couldn't keep his limpid brown eyes off the twin swells still all these years later enhancing her chest and Margie's perfume intoxicated him, mixed as it was with her natural body scents.
He willingly helped the aspiring book store proprietor to create a business plan. In announcing that no fees would be payable, as he was simply helping out an old friend. Ian was rewarded with Margie locking the door of his office and giving him thirty-five minutes of exquisite sexual union that he'd only fantasized about in recent years.
"God, where have you been?" he gasped, as Margie took him over the top for the fourth time. "This is unbelievable."
"You wouldn't dream what hidden talents swimming pool maintenance men have," she purred, leaving Ian wondering what she was on about.
Eventually the shop opened, along the lines that she and Ian had envisaged in drafting the business plan. Just Books, as the shop was called, sold only books: no cards, party trivia, magazines or calendars were stocked.
Two-thirds of the shelves were stacked with reading that would particularly appeal to women, simply because Ian found a website that gave such a research finding, that two-thirds of books and general magazines were purchased by women.
Six months after the opening, Sol had leased to Heston the premises next door, and called contractors at his own expense to open up the dividing wall simply on the basis of his own wife declaring that Just Books was the best bookshop in the city.
Maggie installed her new friend, Irma Taylor, as manager and they employed female university students as sales staff, using a pool of them to allow staff to be rostered according to lecture schedules.
The business plan required the university recruits to have a literary bias but the real prerequisite was trim figures, long hair and perky or full breasts. As a result, the shop was frequented by men who'd buy books for the opportunity to chat up the attractive salesperson.
Margie kissed Paddy warmly, her breasts making electrifying contact with his chest, her perfumes drifting up into his nasal passages with breath-taking force. It was four seconds of contact that Paddy had come to cherish, although they had never gone beyond that intimacy.
They were just good friends.
For reasons unknown, there are people who come together socially quite often and despite being promiscuous to a degree, don't generate lust, or its lesser category of wild emotions, to encourage them to feel compelled to fornicate. Yet in this instance, Paddy and Margie both knew that one of them only had to make the slightest advance and they would readily succumb.
Margie stepped back, almost reluctantly, smiled and grasped her companion by the arm.
"Paddy, please meet my friend and business associate Irma Taylor.
"Irma, this is Paddy Llewellyn, literary editor of the 'Southern Star', who is neither married nor homosexual and so he may be of interest to you. He's also a fellow author."
That 'of interest to you' comment started Irma, and she glanced disapprovingly at Margie.
Irma was no stand-out. She was slim, with no obvious curves, her hair was mousy in colour and her face was peeling from over-exposure to the sun. Her make-up was minimal, she did not appear to be wear perfume and usually her clothing was of the mail-order kind.
Yet she was tall, matching Paddy's five-eleven and her blue eyes seem to dance.
