Bound by Ivy by S. Quinn

sip.
    ‘Thank you .’ I take a sip of mine and it’s delicious. Dry and crisp and incredibly warming on a winter’s day. It rolls down my throat so smoothly that I’d hardly know it was alcoholic, but the heat that follows tells me otherwise.
    ‘Well. How can I help you today?’ Peter asks, taking another swig of sherry. ‘Something for the nephew again? Or are we furnishing a nursery?’ He gives me a sideways glance and a wink.
    I sneak a look at Marc , and am relieved to see he’s smiling.
    ‘Not just yet,’ he says. ‘We’re after a toy for a one year old.’
    ‘I think I already know what he’d like,’ I say, casting my eye around the shop. The intricacy of some of the toys is just stunning. It kind of makes me wish I was a little girl again, so I could play with the doll’s house and the beautiful hand-carved furniture suite inside.
    ‘T hat logging truck in the window,’ I say. ‘It’s just perfect. He’ll love pushing it along, then taking the wood off the back and chewing on it.’
    ‘He can chew away ,’ says Peter proudly, hooking his thumbs into his trouser pockets and rocking back and forth. ‘All natural dyes. Non toxic.’
    ‘You make such beautiful things,’ I say, looking around the shop again. ‘It must h ave taken you a lifetime to carve all these toys.’
    ‘Years ,’ says Peter, putting his sherry glass on a shelf and walking to the window. He plucks the logging truck from the window display, holding it with two hands. ‘This is one of my favourites. I’ll be pleased to send it to a good home.’
    He carries it carefully to the wrapping area, and lovingly folds sheet after sheet of brown tissue paper around it. Then he pulls free a sheet of gold wrapping paper decorated with holly leaves, and expertly gift wraps the truck, sticking a real sprig of holly to the paper.
    ‘It’s young holly,’ he explains, passing Marc the parcel. ‘So the little one won’t prick himself on the leaves.’
    Marc takes the parcel in one hand and places his sherry by the cash register. Then he takes out his wallet.
    ‘No, no, put your money away,’ says Peter. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. ’
    ‘Peter, giving to your charity is entirely different from buying things from your shop.’
    ‘Not when you donate thousands of pounds it isn’t.’ Peter turns to me. ‘Marc has been very generous to Woodlands. Very generous indeed.’
    ‘Woodlands?’ I ask Marc, raising a curious eyebrow.
    ‘Peter’s charity,’ says Marc, in a voice that tells me he wants to end this conversation as soon as possible.
    ‘It supports the tree farmers who supply my wood,’ says Peter. ‘Makes sure they get a fair rate of pay, good housing, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Sounds like a good cause,’ I say.
    ‘It is a good cause,’ says Marc. ‘Which is why Peter and I always have this argument when I come in here.’
    ‘Marc wins every time,’ says Peter, with a little wink. ‘But what he doesn’t k now is that whatever he pays me I put straight into the charity bucket.’
    ‘In that case, I’m going to have to pay you double ,’ says Marc, with a smile.
    Peter slaps his forehead. ‘Fine, fine. You win as usual.’ He takes the handf ul of notes that Marc passes him, then hands him back his sherry. ‘How’s Denise?’
    ‘Good . Enjoying life at the college.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But nothing.’ Marc takes another sip of sherry. ‘A woman of her years and experience is allowed to choose the lifestyle that suits her.’
    ‘And you think it suits her? Living alone?’
    ‘That’s what she tells me.’
    ‘And you believe her?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. Denise’s choices are hers and hers alone to make.’
    ‘Well I think Denise is a wonderful woman and it’s criminal that she never remarried.’
    ‘ She’s never expressed any interest in finding someone new.’
    ‘Not to you, but you’re like the son she never had,’ says Peter, wiggling his white eyebrows. ‘Parents don’t