Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (30 page)

I reminded myself firmly that falling for a grieving widower who had already broken my heart once was
not
a good idea.

‘I’ve been here once before, I remembered late last night,’ I told him as I directed him off the Ormskirk road and up a single-track lane that had a tall strip of grass up the middle, like an eco-friendly Mohican haircut. ‘There was a Sunday school picnic in the woodland.’

‘So it’s true that some of it’s open to the public?’

‘Yes, of course, there’s a footpath across it. Oh, I do hope we can find a way of fighting off this retail park, even if I can see you think we’re a lot of not-in-my-back-yarders.’

‘I’m just trying to see both sides and I don’t think the new place would necessarily hit local businesses, just give some competition and bring in even more visitors.’

‘You’re quite wrong, and anyway, it would be completely out of place in such a lovely spot,’ I told him firmly. ‘But we’ve already successfully fought off the threat of a huge housing development in the village, so I’m sure we can knock this one on the head too.’

‘Oh yes, Raffy told me about all that – how you nearly lost the tennis courts and the Lido field.’

‘I’d have hated to lose the Lido field. Aunt Nan taught me to swim in the river pool there, just as her father taught her … and probably his father, too. And we used to picnic there sometimes on a Sunday. But luckily someone discovered that the Lido field had been a plague pit.’

‘
Luckily
?’

‘Well, not lucky for the plague victims buried there, of course,’ I conceded, ‘but it certainly wasn’t a good selling point for new houses.’

There were a lot of cars parked up the side of the lane leading to the mill, but one of the universally useful Friends of Winter’s End, wearing a fluorescent orange tabard, waved us on through the open big wire-mesh gates. Evidently the guard had given in to force majeure and opened them, for he stood by, looking gloomy and talking into a mobile phone. The planning officer and the consortium’s representative, who had been at the meeting, were huddled deep in conspiratorial-looking conversation just behind him.

Inside, where the mill itself used to stand, many more vehicles were parked, including Hebe’s distinctive white Mini. Ivo pulled carefully into the last parking space.

We joined everyone outside the old mill manager’s house, which was the only building still standing. It was a fine four-square Victorian structure, even if it did look a bit sad with the doors and windows boarded up and a rampant weed growing out of the gutter next to the chimney stack.

There were a couple of unmistakable journalists with photographers in tow, and I also spotted George Turnbull, a reporter on our local paper. They were clustered around Hebe, who must have been bringing them up to speed on the situation. Then she was assisted onto a stone mounting block to address the troops.

‘Thank you for such a great turn-out, everyone!’ she called loudly in her clear, patrician voice. ‘Now,
I’ve
been here since early this morning but Caz Naylor –’ she indicated a slightly furtive, foxy-looking young man standing nearby, who was wearing combat trousers, a khaki vest and big, lace-up boots – ‘who you may know is the gamekeeper at Pharamond Hall in Middlemoss, has been here since before dawn and already made several important discoveries.’

She listed them. Caz had identified otter prints by the river, the pellets of barn owls, and evidence of a thriving newt community. There were also at least two species of bats roosting in the attic of the manager’s house and, in the woodland at the top end of the proposed site, a colony of red squirrels.

Caz Naylor looked even shiftier as Hebe mentioned this final rare inhabitant (though I thought it was probably just his natural expression) but of course everyone cheered, because we all like to hear good news about our native Squirrel Nutkin. I was surprised it was managing to resist the greys in this isolated patch of woodland, even though I knew the grounds of Pharamond Hall, only a few miles the other side of Sticklepond, was a haven for them.

Hebe sent everyone to see the site and with all of us trooping about we didn’t exactly spot a lot of wildlife, endangered or otherwise. It was all very overgrown but pretty, especially down by the river Ches, which formed one boundary to the plot. A botanist among us identified several quite uncommon plants too, so it was looking promising for
us
, and less so for the retail park.

By the time we had all reconvened and given our findings, the planning officer and the consortium’s representative were looking very worried, and even more so when Mr Glover, our Sticklepond Shakespeare, suggested timidly, ‘The whole area would make a wonderful nature reserve with a visitor centre, wouldn’t it?’

‘Of course – the very thing!’ Hebe exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘Good man!’

‘It would be another local visitor attraction, drawing tourists to the area – an asset rather than the opposite,’ Chloe agreed. There was no sign of Raffy, who must have had other business, but the toddler, Grace, was in a baby carrier on her mother’s back.

‘I don’t think my clients would consider developing it as a nature reserve, rather than a retail park. That’s quite ridiculous!’ the consortium’s representative said. ‘There could be no profit in it.’

‘But if planning permission for a retail park is turned down because of all the endangered species, then the land won’t be worth much anyway, will it?’ Laurence Yatton pointed out.

‘But part of it is a brownfield site, and there’s already one building here,’ he retaliated.

‘It can only be brownfield where the actual mill stood, which is quite a small area that could be used to erect a visitor centre on, perhaps incorporating the manager’s house,’ Hebe suggested. ‘Or the house could be restored with Victorian furnishings as another visitor attraction, though Caz tells me that a bat occupation of any premises must be notified and arrangements put into place to protect them, before any renovation or rebuilding of a property can take place.’

‘That’s right,’ Caz Naylor drawled laconically.

Anya, Mike the policeman’s wife, really put the boot in (red leather, painted with purple daisies – I was very envious!) by saying that she knew lots of travellers who would immediately come and camp at Hemlock Mill if there was any threat to the trees and wildlife.

‘Yes, you know lots of tree huggers, don’t you, dear?’ Hebe said graciously.

‘I’ve heard on the grapevine that the local animal rights group’s become part of Force for Nature now,’ Anya added. ‘They’re less about guerrilla tactics and more about applying political pressure and lobbying, so we can get
them
involved, too.’

‘Excellent thinking: I am sure they would take it amiss if any animal habitats were destroyed in order to build shops,’ Hebe said. ‘As would we all.’ She swept her autocratic and withering gaze over the representatives of the council and consortium representatives and added, ‘
Almost
all.’

At this point, Mr Lamb gave in to
force majeure
and defected to our side.

‘I have a feeling there isn’t going to be a retail park,’ Ivo remarked, as he drove me home again. ‘I’m totally stunned at the number of rare or endangered species in one small area.’

‘Yes, so am I.’ I was also slightly suspicious, especially about the red squirrels, but I decided not share that with him …

‘Hebe Winter is a force to be reckoned with.’

‘You certainly don’t want to mess with her,’ I agreed.

Then he surprised me by suggesting we go somewhere for a pub lunch before he dropped me back.

‘To pay you back for all those food parcels,’ he said, with one of those rare but charming smiles. ‘I can’t resist them, so I’ll feel less guilty if you let me buy you lunch.’

‘I’m always baking anyway; I like it,’ I said. ‘But they’re really payment for giving Flash some exercise.’

Bella would lock up the shop if I wasn’t back in time, so there was no reason why I shouldn’t have lunch with Ivo … Anyway, I thought, it would probably do him good to get out.

I knew a good place in Rainford, not too far away, and over lunch he opened up a bit about his acting career and all the Shakespearian roles he’d played.

‘You must miss it and be dying to get back,’ I said sympathetically.

‘Strangely enough, the longer I’m away, the less I feel like returning,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘I mean, it’s a whole separate world and it’s pretty well been my life for most of my working career, but there
are
other things …’

Like your Nicholas Marlowe novels, I thought, but fortunately didn’t say out loud.

‘I expect you’ll feel differently when you’ve recovered from your breakdown.’

He gave me a sharp look from his lovely clear grey eyes. ‘Tansy, I haven’t
had
a breakdown!’

‘Right,’ I agreed, though if he hadn’t had a breakdown, I thought he had come pretty close to it. ‘You just needed the space to grieve and instead went back to work too soon.’

He ran his hands through his dark chestnut hair. Mine would have stood up on end like Medusa’s curls if I did that, but his just settled softly back around his head, silky smooth. ‘Well, that’s what they said when I kept drying on stage. It had never happened to me before and it was such a vicious circle. The more I worried about it, the more it happened.’

‘That must have been really difficult,’ I said sympathetically.

‘Anyway, I thought if I spent six months somewhere quiet I could come to terms with everything …’

‘And then you didn’t get the peace you expected.’ I felt a bit guilty.

‘No, quite the opposite. My nerves
have
been a bit on edge,’ he conceded, which was the understatement of the century, ‘so I expect you thought you’d got the neighbour from hell!’

‘You were a bit ratty,’ I said frankly, ‘but you’re looking more unwound with each passing day, so I hope your sabbatical is working anyway and you’re starting to feel better.’

‘I
was
, until I started reading Kate’s diaries …’ The haunted expression came back to his eyes and he went all monosyllabic again until we got back to Sticklepond, so I wondered exactly what she had been writing in them. I was
dying
to ask.

Still, at least Ivo had opened up a bit and didn’t seem to regret it, because later, when he brought Flash back from his walk, he came into the kitchen without even being asked, and stayed for a glass of Meddyg and a fairy cake, though he didn’t say much, except about the progress Seth was making with his knot garden.

Later he was back playing the mournful music, but I’m becoming accustomed to it, just as I hoped he was becoming accustomed to the merry peal of wedding bells!

Cheryl was being increasingly firm about dragging Aunt Nan back to her life story when she made one of her sideways digressions, so I suspected she was almost dying from curiosity by that point, and that she’d drawn the same conclusions I had …

I told Bella all about it in a rare quiet moment in the shop. It had been so busy that earlier she’d had to buzz for me to help her. ‘So I strongly suspect that my mother was really Aunt Nan’s daughter, though I don’t think Immy can have any idea, or I’m sure she’d have said something, or been different with Aunt Nan,’ I finished.

Bella thought my suspicions had to be right, because it all fitted. ‘But if so, it’s a tragedy that Immy and Aunt Nan were never close, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, my mother’s never seemed especially fond of anyone except herself,’ I said sadly, ‘and Aunt Nan was such a warm, loving person. It’s all terribly sad!’

‘Still, at least Nan did have that relationship with you; she
adored
you,’ Bella consoled me.

‘And I adored her right back. She was more than a mother – or even grandmother – she was
everything
.’

‘And she’d be so proud at how successful the shop’s becoming,’ Bella said.

Business was certainly increasing rapidly and I’d had to order a lot more shoes, especially brightly coloured ones. I was still ploughing most of the profit back into new stock, but it was building up nicely.

During another brief lull I unpacked some vintage shoes that Timmy had found for me in London, including a fun pair of sixties pale pink silk booties by Pucci, unworn and in their original box. I had to decline the online offer of a pair of lovely strappy sandal Manolos, though. They simply weren’t built to stay pristine for more than one wedding, unless you have fairy feet, and you don’t want worn-out soles on your big day, do you? Or re-soled shoes, because the sole is part of the whole wonderful Manolo package, so replacement soles simply wouldn’t be the same.

I always think Flash walks with little springy fairy feet, though his, of course, are also
very
hairy.

That Friday night was the first time I opened late by appointment, though it was only about an hour after my normal closing time of four thirty. Bella, of course, had long gone home.

I had the shop lit and ready well before my potential customers were due and it looked like an Aladdin’s cave of loveliness. I’d put out a bottle of pink fizz in an ice bucket and a plate of fairy cakes iced in white and sprinkled with silver edible stars. I wanted to make the bridal shoe selection process
really
special.

The bride arrived with both bridesmaids and they all chose shoes for the wedding, including, to my surprise, her mother.

‘Belinda’s father’s paying for her wedding – he divorced me last year, the bastard,’ she confided, after selecting an expensive pair of cream high-heeled shoes. ‘He said Belinda could have anything she wanted – guilty conscience, I suppose – so we might as well get our money’s worth.’

Then she triumphantly added chocolate shoes, and silver and pearl shoe necklaces for the bridesmaids to the heap.

‘What about one of these tiny enamelled silver bluebird charms, to sew inside your wedding dress for luck, Belinda?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, yes! I need something blue.’