Remember spelling tests at primary school? Stationary or stationery? I’m going back a bit, mind you. A good forty years. I think we were fussier back then. You don’t hear the word stationery much these days. Or stationary for that matter; it’s all go nowadays.

Saturday morning, it was. I remember because I’d just changed my library books and I thought I’d have a quick look at the stationer’s over the road. They’d changed hands and being a nosy so and so I wanted to have a peek. The door was a bit stiff and the proprietor noticed my entrance. I took a short breath and surveyed the new layout. I wanted to be systematic to ensure I saw everything. Opting for a zigzagging sweep I began in the far left hand aisle, front of shop and planned to finish my perusal in the far right hand aisle, back of shop.

Anyway, this chap watched me with such an air of suspicion that I almost thought I might steal something. I came over all silly and did all the things that they – shoplifters – do. I half smiled and then looked quickly away; I caught his eye and then sheepishly glanced back at him; I hummed under my breath (whistling seemed a bit of an exaggeration). Finally the thing that forced him to shift position and follow me: I started to actually handle the goods, especially small, inexpensive, but pocketable items, musthaves for magpies. Then he came out with it. I was expecting it, but it made me jump guiltily all the same. I could tell that he wasn’t really convinced that I was just looking, and that no thank you, I really didn’t need anything in particular. It’s just that I like stationery. Pencils, round or hexagonal sections, with rubber on end or without, the full gamut from 6B to 6H. Don’t get me going on propelling pencils. Biros too. Finding that ballpoint of perfect weight, thickness of line, easy flow action. Ink for fountain pens, or cartridges, a revolutionary invention. Of course now you can get all sorts of pens that glide across the page lending that classy fountain pen look, yet with all the convenience of a biro.

There was a little pad of post-it notes where people can test drive the latest nib or scrawl their names. It struck me as beautiful in a funny sort of way, like some of that modern art, all colourful scribbles with words mixed in. So I peeled one off and stuck it in my special pocket sized note- cum-scrapbook. The shop assistant – I’d already decided that he couldn’t be the owner, because he simply didn’t care enough about his merchandise, didn’t love stationery – watched me now with a snooty expression. So I choose a ballpoint, I confess randomly, because I was pretty rattled and made to write on the pad. And it’s then that I saw it. Very neat handwriting, which impressed me, written with an italic nibbed fountain pen. Thrilling. A phone number. Nothing else. The area code was local. And it got me all curious, you see. Without so much as a nod at the shop chappie I rushed out. Well, I was dying to get home, you see.

First thing I normally do, when I get back, is put the kettle on. But not that particular Saturday. I can be pretty adventurous, sometimes, me. I dialled that number. I really did. She sounded a bit put out at first, did Victoria, but I explained that it was her choice of nib that had pushed me into my intrusive folly. I was all for hanging up, embarrassed, when suddenly she went all friendly. She’d forgotten that she’d copied it out for a friend and left it in the shop by mistake. She’d thought I was some kind of pervert who’d phoned up to ask something rude! Well, I repeated that it was beautiful, her script, and she said she’d done an evening class in fancy italic writing and I said that it sounded fascinating and anyway, the upshot of it all is that we’re meeting at 11.30 tomorrow morning, for coffee. In fact, there’s a little café just opened in town, a bit hippyish, all wholemeal biscuits and herbal tea, but it’s not far from WHSmith. She suggested it, not me.