Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (13 page)
I noticed in passing (twice, the second time fast enough to leave furrows) that the red Jaguar was still parked at the back of the next-door cottage, but there was no sign of the new occupant. He was probably exhausted by the whole moving-in process, poor old thing.
If I hadn’t been so tired myself, I’d have taken him some of the Welshcakes I’d made yesterday to welcome him to his new home and also warned him that next day might be surprisingly busy in the courtyard … or so I hoped!
His cottage, however, didn’t front directly onto the paved courtyard, as ours did, but was set back slightly behind a low wall and further concealed by rampant rose hedging, so perhaps he might not even notice. Or if he did, maybe he’d come in and introduce himself at some point.
I persuaded Flash that his bowl wouldn’t suddenly jump up and bite him if he dared to eat his food by standing next to it with one finger in his dinner (not something I really wanted to do twice a day), and then slumped in front of the TV in the parlour with my own supper.
After a few minutes, Flash timidly followed me in and lay heavily asleep on my feet, though every so often one eye would open to check I was still all present and correct.
I literally had to push him out into the garden at bedtime and he had what must have been the fastest pee ever before dashing back in again. Then I spoke to him sternly about asking to go out if he needed to go during the night, handed him a bone-shaped biscuit and went up to bed.
I had the Cinderella dream, only this time it was a disturbing variation. Ivo, my first love, was the prince and then Justin turned up just as he’d fitted the glass slipper to my foot, and tried to wrench it off again. I was still resisting when I suddenly awoke, kicking my legs like a rabbit.
I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that one: fear that success would be snatched away from me?
‘
You great daft lump! You get up and get on with it,
’ I heard Aunt Nan’s voice say in my head.
‘On my way,’ I replied out loud.
This time I entered the kitchen more cautiously, but Flash hadn’t made any kind of mess, which was a relief. For the first time he was keen to get outside and seemed to favour peeing on the nearest rose bush, which was better than the herbs in the little knot garden but might not do anything to cure the black spot. The sooner I could have a bit of fencing put up to divide the garden into food-producing and dog-piddling areas, the better. One or two of the potted plants outside the back door were looking a bit sickly already.
I wouldn’t need to fence much of the garden off, since I wouldn’t have a great deal of spare time for gardening. I’d just concentrate on nurturing the fruit bushes that were already there, the plum tree and the rhubarb patch, and then have a strawberry bed, and lots of tomato plants and a bit of salad …
I came out of my dreamy little trance realising that not only was time ticking on, but Flash was staring back dolefully at me through the glass door, love locked out.
Bella arrived early, since Tia had gone to spend the day with her other granny, who luckily lived in Formby, not so far away, and Hilda was happy to collect her and bring her back. She and Bella had always got on well and Tia was her only grandchild.
I was more than glad to see Bella, for a queue of early-bird customers looking for bargains had started to form well before nine, and once we’d braced ourselves and opened the door, it was mayhem.
After that, a constant stream of customers trooped up and down Salubrious Passage and the little shop was so crowded, we had to let customers in a few at a time.
Luckily Florrie Snowball had come expressly to buy a pair of Cuban-heeled court shoes in a size so small they would have fit a fairy, and she declared that she would stay for a while to marshal the customers into an orderly queue. ‘I can keep an eye on them shopfitters too,’ she added darkly.
‘Shoplifters?’ I suggested tentatively.
‘Them’s the ones. Always a bad apple or two in every barrel.’
‘We’re selling the stock so cheaply, it’s hardly worth anyone’s while to steal it,’ Bella said.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Florrie said. ‘I’ll stand here by the door, letting people in and out, where I can watch the purses and bags. They’ll make a beeline for those, you’ll see.’
And she did too, making sure that anything picked up was brought over to the till and paid for.
The old brass doorbell on its spring was going like the clappers and so was the stock of years – possibly even
centuries
! It was amazing what people were prepared to buy if it was cheap enough: brown canvas sneakers (which Aunt Nan always called galoshes, for some strange reason), with thick, black rubber soles, clear plastic ankle boots made to go over Cuban-heeled shoes to protect them from the rain; black velvet mules with slightly moth-eaten red marabou trimming, tartan slipper booties with pompom ties; sturdy Wellington boots; soft, white leather button-strapped baby shoes, slightly yellowed with age …
With each purchase we popped into the bag a business card and flyer for Cinderella’s Slippers, with an invitation to the opening day, plus a voucher for ten per cent off a first purchase. It was all free publicity, but also slightly scary in that I would now actually have to make sure Cinderella’s Slippers was up and running in time!
I gave Florrie a free pair of the clear plastic rain shoes and a fat red purse as a bonus later when she had to go back to the Falling Star.
‘It’ll be hotting up for lunch now, and though that Molly can manage to microwave a Cornish pasty all right, neither she nor Clive has got the hang of the coffee machine yet,’ she explained.
The Falling Star had always been the less trendy of the two village pubs, catering for locals in search of a quiet pint and a game of darts. The newer (by a century or two) Green Man was much larger and upmarket.
Things quietened right down by one, and we were so whacked I put a notice on the door saying ‘Closed for Lunch – Open Again at Two’, and we went to slump in the kitchen over a sandwich and coffee and what was left of the Welshcakes.
‘I know your aunt Nan always closed for lunch – which she had to, really, working on her own, or she’d never have got any – but I think we should keep Cinderella’s Slippers open all day,’ Bella suggested. ‘A lot of people who work dash out to the shops in
their
lunch hour, so I think it would be worth it.’
‘You’re probably right, and we could try it. I’ll cover for you while you have a break,’ I agreed.
Once the shop was up and running, the plan was that Bella would manage it on her own till about three – though I would be within call, if it was busy – and then I could take over until four thirty, when we would shut. This would mean I could work on my illustrations during the quiet times, and Bella would be free to collect Tia from school.
On Saturdays her mother would usually look after Tia, or she could go to her other granny, as she had today.
‘Hilda offered to have Tia every Saturday, which was very kind, but it made Mum jealous, so they’ll have to take it in turns. Really, Tia would rather go to Granny Hilda, because she can do messy things like baking and painting, or go to the beach, while Mum generally just wants to visit a garden centre, look at plants and have lunch, which isn’t terribly exciting for a little girl.’
That reminded me how much time I would have to spend on the gardening too, because I didn’t suppose Seth or his henchmen would be popping down any more to keep the garden trim and tidy, as they had for Aunt Nan.
I ushered Flash outside while Bella washed up. There was no sign of any escaped hens to terrorise him, though they were sure to find another way out eventually. But to my surprise, this time he boldly shot off towards the far end of the garden and vanished through the holly arch in the direction of the henhouse.
I followed, afraid for the hens, but quickly realised it was a different quarry he’d scented, for there was a sudden crescendo of barking and a loud and unearthly yowl.
I arrived just in time to see a large, sleek black cat shoot out of the gooseberry bushes behind the henhouse, hotly pursued by Flash. Now I could see how he had got his name, and it wasn’t just for the white tip to his tail.
The cat scrambled with more haste than elegance through the broken bit of trellis that topped the dividing wall between my garden and that of the one next door, and Flash followed suit with one balletic, twisting leap, like a canine Nureyev.
After that, it sounded like a small war had broken out and the noise clearly attracted my new neighbour’s attention for, in a voice of fury that would have reverberated right to the back of the largest of theatres, he exclaimed, “Out, damned dog – and stay not upon the order of your going, but go at once!”’
‘I’m coming to get him!’ I called out, hastily unbolting the gate between the gardens and rushing to the rescue, though next door it was so overgrown I had to push my way through a jungle before I saw Flash. He’d managed to scare the cat up a tree and was leaping up and down vertically, as if someone was jerking him on elastic, while keeping up the high-pitched barking.
‘Down,
down
!’ shouted the man, even louder, if anything and as threatening as thunder. Poor Flash finally came to his senses and cowered, shivering with fear, tail between his legs and ears flat to his head.
‘Just stop shouting like that, will you?’ I snapped, running across to comfort Flash.
‘Poor thing! Was that scary?’ I crooned, giving him a hug. He pressed against my leg and I could feel him shaking like a leaf.
‘I think it was my poor Toby who was scared,’ my new neighbour said, slightly more quietly. ‘He isn’t used to being assaulted in his own garden.’
‘He was in
my
garden first, Flash’s territory,’ I told him, slipping the red patent leather belt off my dress and looping it through Flash’s collar.
‘Well, now you’re both in mine!’
‘Not for much longer,’ I snapped, giving Flash a last stroke before I stood up. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t even know there was a cat – how should I? And he’s not hurt.’
‘Well, no – and I only meant to scare your dog off, not scare him to death,’ he conceded more reasonably. ‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘He was cruelly treated by his past owner,’ I said, and now that all my attention wasn’t on Flash, I suddenly realised there was something horribly familiar about my new neighbour’s voice.
Slowly I rose, turned to face him – then stood, transfixed.
He was most certainly not the aged actor of my imagining, only a little older than I, and about six foot tall, slender in build and with darkest chestnut hair that clung to his well-shaped head like silk. His pale face was hollow-cheeked, the luminous, haunted light grey eyes deep-set and the skin beneath stained with dark circles. He didn’t look as if he’d eaten a decent meal or slept any time recently and there were signs of strain around his wide, sensitive mouth … a mouth I had once kissed.
Well, to be quite truthful, an awful lot
more
than once.
My heart did a leap to challenge Flash’s Nureyev performance, then landed with a soggy thud and died.
Unflatteringly, recognition was not instantly mutual.
‘“Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,”’ he quoted sardonically, then narrowed those smoked-glass eyes at me, cold as a merman, before adding, frowning, ‘But don’t I know you?’
Now that he’d stopped shouting, his voice was mesmerisingly mellow and beautiful – had I been in the mood to be mesmerised, that is.
‘Or maybe it’s just the whole Helena Bonham Carter thing with the crazy clothes,’ he mused, taking in today’s outfit of a full-skirted green tartan dress over a longer red net petticoat, worn with red Birkenstock clogs (old shoe habits die hard, especially if you’re going to be standing around in a shop for hours on end). I’d put temporary green and red streaks in my hair too, piled it high and stuck in a favourite selection of brightly-coloured butterflies on long picks.
‘I do
not
look like Helena Bonham flaming Carter in the least!’ I snarled furiously. ‘And, what’s more, I was dressing like this
years
before I’d even heard of her!’
‘No, come to think of it, apart from the clothes you look more like a Renoir painting,’ he agreed, ‘dark, plump and healthily rosy. But I’m sure –’ He broke off, then said uncertainly, ‘
Tansy
?’
‘Yes,’ I replied between my teeth, because even with a gap of more than fifteen years I’d recognised Ivo Hawksley, the first man to break my heart, while he’d obviously forgotten all about me. And I might have put on a couple of stone since he last saw me, but that ‘plump’ bit rankled.
I turned my back on him and led the by-now meek and cowed Flash towards home without another word. I’d have liked to have stalked off in a dignified way, but since I was half-dragging the dog, it made that slightly difficult. Then Flash made a sudden sprint for the safety of his own garden and towed me through the open gate at speed, which was even less of a good exit.
I released my belt from his collar on the other side and bolted the gate in the wall, feeling really, really unsettled and upset: hadn’t I had enough to cope with already, without old ghosts rattling their chains at me?
Though come to think of it, he had more the appearance of the skeleton at the feast.
My sister Violet wasn’t just clever, she was so sharp I was surprised she didn’t cut herself. She was determined to better herself and she said she wasn’t going to get tied up with any of the local boys, though they were all after her, because she was so pretty. She did take up with the son of the local garage owner for a short time, but looking back I think that that was just because it was the only way she could learn to drive! My father never did and I’ve never bothered, either – the bus and train were good enough for me.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.