Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (9 page)
‘And you’ll take over the shop now, so Bright’s will still be here long after I’m gone, even if it has been transformed into a wedding shoe shop?’
‘Of course. And I think it should be called Cinderella’s Slippers!’ I assured her, giving her a kiss. Even in so short an absence I could see that she’d faded – or perhaps she’d been steadily fading before and I had only just seen then, with fresh eyes? ‘I just want to settle down quietly here with you now, Aunt Nan.’
‘That reminds me: we’ve had a bit of excitement up here while you were away, so it’s not been that quiet,’ Aunt Nan said. ‘You know I told you about the cottage next door being sold about a year ago as a holiday home to an actress and her husband, though they’d not finished doing it up before she was killed in an accident?’
I nodded. ‘She’d just got a part in
Cotton Common
.’
‘So the papers said. Well, now her husband’s moving in.’
‘How do you know?’
‘There was a huge removal van blocking the lane most of yesterday and we could hear them – you know the dividing wall’s not that thick,’ Aunt Nan said.
‘I took the removal men some tea and biscuits round so I could try and find out what was happening,’ Bella confessed.
‘I sent her,’ Aunt Nancy explained. ‘I may be on the way out, but I’m still curious.’
‘They said
he’s
an actor too and he sold the house he shared with his wife down south after the accident, rented a flat and put most of their furniture into storage,’ Bella went on. ‘But now he’s moving up here.’
‘If he’s an actor, then perhaps he’s got a part in
Cotton Common
too?’ I suggested. ‘They do seem to have a large cast.’
‘The men said he’d told them he needed peace and quiet and that he’s an edgy, abrupt sort of man, so maybe he’s been ill and is just moving here temporarily till he’s better,’ Bella said.
‘What’s he like?’ I asked her.
‘I dunno, he hasn’t arrived yet. The removal men are still in there unpacking, but they’ve moved the van to the pub car park now. I suppose they got permission, because the people in the houses at the back were complaining that it was blocking the lane and they couldn’t get their cars in and out.’
‘I did see him briefly when he came to look at the cottage with his wife just before they bought it,’ Aunt Nan said, ‘but I can’t remember his name. I do recall he asked me how long I’d lived here and seemed surprised when I said there’d been Brights living on this plot since records began, but really she was the lively, talkative one, and very pretty. Tragic she died so young.’
‘If he’s only seen it out of season, then Sticklepond may not be the quiet backwater he expects,’ I said.
‘He
did
remark how quiet it was, now I come to think of it, and that you wouldn’t know there was a shop here if you missed the sign on the wall at the High Street end of Salubrious Passage, so I couldn’t have many customers.’
‘Of course you have lots of customers! Everyone knows you’re here,’ Bella said.
‘Yes, that’s what I told him.’
‘What does he look like?’ I asked.
‘I can’t really remember, lovey, except that he was a bit older than his wife and pleasant-spoken.’
I pictured some silver-haired, elderly and irascible thespian, retiring to live out his days in the quiet backwater that was Sticklepond … except, of course, that lately it was less and less of a quiet backwater. A couple of years earlier, when that alleged Shakespeare manuscript had been discovered up at Winter’s End, visitors had started flocking there in droves, and there were other attractions in the village as well, like the Museum of Witchcraft, the chocolate shop, a bookshop called Marked Pages, two pubs, and a whole raft of gift shops, craft galleries and cafés that had opened to cater to the tourist boom.
Sticklepond had once been a much larger and more important place, before the Black Death decided to cull so many of its inhabitants, but it was now firmly back on the map.
‘It’ll be odd having a neighbour after so long,’ Aunt Nan said. ‘The cottage has been empty since last year and just holiday lets for ages before that. But I’ll be happier for knowing there’s someone the width of a wall away when I’m gone and you’re here on your own at nights, Tansy.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying things like that, Aunt Nan! I’m not going to be here on my own for a long, long time,’ I told her firmly.
‘Well, when you are, I’ll still be watching over you – your guardian angel! That Chloe from the chocolate shop was telling me all about those yesterday afternoon. The vicar came to visit first, and then his wife came afterwards with the baby and brought me a chocolate angel. But we ate it.’
‘Didn’t you save me a bit? Her chocolate is supposed to be wonderful!’
‘I’m afraid we ate every last morsel – and it
was
wonderful,’ Bella said guiltily.
‘There was a message inside it,’ Aunt Nan told me.
‘A Wish, I suppose,’ I said, because Chloe specialised in making hollow chocolate shells in various shapes, with messages or ‘Wishes’ inside, like a sort of yummy fortune cookie. ‘What did it say?’
‘That imminent meetings with loved ones would give me much joy.’
‘It probably meant Tansy coming back,’ Bella said.
‘No, I think it meant heavenly meetings with Mother, Father and little Rosina, not to mention Jacob,’ Nan said thoughtfully, ‘though perhaps it meant Tansy as well.’
‘It meant just
me
,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m back and I’m here to stay – and if we’re to transform Bright’s Shoes, I’m going to need your help!’
‘Well, I can’t say I’m not glad to have you home, but I’m sorry it’s turned out like this, lovey, because I’d have liked to have seen you married and with little ones. But at least you found out he was the wrong man for you before it was too late, that’s the main thing.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Bella agreed. ‘It would have been much worse to have found out about Charlie
after
you were married!’
‘You two should get to work on the plans for the new shop right away,’ Aunt Nan said. ‘Because if you’re going to do it, then there’s no time like the present, and it’ll keep you both out of mischief.’
Working out the plans for the shop kept Aunt Nan amused too.
Florrie’s daughter, Jenny, the retired nurse, continued to help Nan to wash and dress in the mornings, before she went downstairs to sit in her big shabby, comfortable chair in the kitchen, by the stove in its inglenook fireplace.
Here she received a steady stream of visitors, including the vicar, Florrie, her friends from the Women’s Institute and even Felix Hemming from Marked Pages, who brought her a gift of one of the sweet, old-fashioned romances of the type she had often bought from him in the past.
Hebe Winter took to dropping in on her way to her Elizabethan re-enactment meetings, too, an alarming sight in full Virgin Queen rig-out, right down to the wig and huge ruff. Aunt Nan said she kept coming only because she liked playing the Lady Bountiful, and was also trying to wheedle the recipe for the Meddyg out of her, but I think they both enjoyed the visits really.
I left most of the shopkeeping to Bella, so I could be with Aunt Nan, because even though I tried to convince myself differently, I could see that my time with her was limited. I baked lots of cakes and biscuits for the stream of visitors, and ate a fair amount of them myself …
One afternoon, while Florrie was with her, Bella and I began a complete stocktake in the storeroom that had been partitioned off from the shop. It was cramped and cluttered, lit by one dim bulb, which I quickly replaced with something a bit brighter.
‘I’ll pull things out and you write them down,’ suggested Bella. ‘Looking at the dust, I don’t think some of the stuff at the back has been moved for about half a century!’
Bella had to answer the shop bell once or twice, leaving me to rummage alone, and I turned up ancient treasures like plastic overshoes and old-fashioned court shoes made for fairy-sized feet.
Aunt Nan herself had tiny feet which, like people, seemed to have got bigger over the years. I might take after the small, dark Bright side of the family, but I was still several inches taller than Aunt Nan and my feet were size five.
‘She really let the stocktaking slide for a few years,’ I told Bella when she came back.
‘She’s seemed interested in the wedding shoes lately, but I think the shop was getting a bit much for her before I started working here and she just kept it open out of a sense of duty. She’s so much happier about it now that she can see that it has a future.’
‘I hoped involving her in the plans would give her a new lease of life, but … well, even I can see she’s fading day by day,’ I said sadly.
‘I know it’s upsetting, but she’s in her own home, which is what she wants,’ Bella said. ‘She’s happy enough.’
‘I just can’t bear the thought of being without her,’ I sighed. ‘I’m so glad you’re living in Sticklepond too, Bella.’
‘My course starts again tomorrow night. There’s only another couple of weeks to go and then I’ll get my certificate, though much good it will do me in the current job market! Just as well I’ve already found work.’
The course aimed to update office skills, though, as Bella pointed out, she didn’t really have any to start with, except she liked playing with computers. ‘I’ve just put a card up in the Spar window, offering to do anything at home like typing or spreadsheets or inputting data, so maybe I’ll be able to earn a little extra money.’
‘I’m sorry we can’t give you more – or not yet, anyway,’ I said guiltily, because she wasn’t getting much above than the minimum wage.
‘It’s all right. The shop’s barely been ticking over and the short opening hours suit me, so I can spend lots of time with Tia. I’m not going to have any more children so I’d like to enjoy her childhood with her.’
‘At least you got to have
one
child, which is more than I managed,’ I said sadly.
‘You’re not that old yet – you could still find someone else.’
‘What, and then have one of the wicked sisters come and snatch him away before I could get him to the altar? I don’t think so!’
‘I don’t suppose Rae would ever dare to show her nose up here, would she?’
‘Probably not, but Marcia’s in Middlemoss, don’t forget. Still, I don’t expect our paths will cross, and if Lars tries to persuade me into one of his happy family gatherings next time he’s over here, I’ll be sure and have a good excuse ready!’
‘What’s happening with Justin? Is he still trying to ring you?’
Justin had spent the first few days trying my mobile and Aunt Nan’s phone, but I’d either ignored him or put the phone down on him each time.
‘No, he’s given that up, but he’s still texting and emailing me, and I wish he’d stop. It only just seems to have dawned on him that I’ve left him for good and he’s finding it hard to accept that I won’t eventually forgive him and go back. I don’t think Mummy Dearest is having that problem, though, because when Timmy collected my desk and portfolios, he said she was in residence and the whole flat looked so sterile you could eat your dinner off the floor. She watched him the whole time, too, as if he might load the Conran sofa into the van, when she wasn’t looking.’
‘Justin must still miss you, if he’s constantly trying to persuade you to take him back,’ Bella said. ‘But you couldn’t forgive him for something like that, could you?’
‘No, of course not! I don’t know why he thinks he can talk his way out of it, but all his attempts to contact me just upset me even more. That’s it – I’ve given up on love.’
‘Me too,’ Bella agreed. ‘Robert might have betrayed me in a different way by running up huge gambling debts, but I’ve had enough. He seemed so solid and dependable that I trusted him totally, but I’ve learned my lesson. No, I’ll concentrate on being a mum and you can be Tia’s favourite auntie – which you already are – and we’ll turn Cinderella’s Slippers into an astounding success!’
‘I only hope you’re right,’ I said fervently.
Another Welsh delicacy is laver bread, which isn’t bread at all, but a sort of stewed seaweed. Mother used to say how wonderful it was fried up in a bit of bacon fat for breakfast, but when she brought some back from a trip to see her relatives – well, it was such a disappointment! Father said it looked like seagull droppings, and to be honest it tasted the way it looked. Not that I’ve ever tasted seagull droppings, of course, dear,that goes without saying …
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
Justin’s emails and texts had started out all apologetic, persuasive and loving, upsetting me and making me miss him … or the man I’d once thought he was.
But then his missives slowly turned sulky and indignant, which was easier to deal with and just strengthened my resolve. He was so used to getting his own way that it must have been quite a shock to his system to find I wasn’t going to go running back to him. I shouldn’t think any woman had ever turned him down before!
Unfortunately, both he and my first love were still regularly featuring in my recurring Cinderella dream, which was definitely a nightmare now that one prince had dumped me and the next dumped
on
me by making out with my stepsister!
I supposed the whole Cinderella thing was going through my head all the time because I was working on ideas for the new shop, but it’s a pity you can’t turn your subconscious off at night.
Timmy and Joe came up to spend the weekend with Timmy’s parents in Ormskirk, and brought my desk and portfolios over early on the Saturday evening.
Aunt Nan had quickly become fond of Timmy’s partner, Joe, so their visit perked her up no end, especially discussing the design, layout and colour scheme of Cinderella’s Slippers. Timmy had a really good eye for colour and ambience and Joe was good on practical matters, especially lighting, since theatrical lighting was what he did for a living.