Chapter Four #2
seen him in, a once-white T-shirt, and one of his several crumpled khaki shirts. This one had faded quite badly, he noticed
now, and the pocket had started to become unstitched. Also why was his T-shirt so dingy? Could it be that washing your colored clothes separately really was a thing?
Ross didn’t separate his whites. And he didn’t do ironing. So sue him . . . But—hmm—the shaving and showering? The occasional
haircut? Yeah . . . he should really raise his game. Not because he had a reputation to maintain; not because he was an award-winning
writer; not because he was Ross McCloud; but purely because he thought he might like to have further conversations with this
bookshop woman, who made him laugh and knew her Milton. And he had a sneaking suspicion she seemed interested to know him
too. Just him. Without that crushing “literary genius” nonsense, a label hanging around his neck like he was a prize bull.
First impressions counted, wasn’t that what people said? Oh dear. It might already be too late to persuade bookshop woman
that he was someone worth knowing. Although she currently believed he was a grown man who thought it was cool to dress up
as Bluebeard, surely one of the most misogynist of all the serial killers. Which might be even more off-putting than the truth.
And hey, from such a low bar, the only way was up, right?
On Saturday morning, Petra was feeling refreshed, purposeful, and maybe a little bit optimistic. Actually, the optimism might just be relief, because she knew Flo was going to be in. Whatever . . . Petra skipped down the stairs bright and early to get everything perfect before Flo arrived.
“You’re here!” she blurted witlessly, finding Flo looking elegant and serene, waving a duster around in the Booker Prize short
list compilation.
“I promised I would be,” said Flo, raising impeccably arched eyebrows. “Just having a whizz ’round, before we open. I hope
that’s all right?”
“You don’t have to ask me! This is your shop.”
“Was,” corrected Flo, sounding perfectly cheerful about it. “I know it will benefit enormously from what you have to offer.
Jules tells me you’re a literary agent.”
“Was,” said Petra, inadvertently echoing Flo. “Long story,” she added, shaking her head repressively. Thank goodness, Flo
took the hint and was too well-mannered to push for more.
Checking her watch, Petra went to turn over the sign and noticed how bustling Portneath was, even though it was barely nine
in the morning. Today a central spine of dark green awnings had sprung up along the wide cobbled street between the two rows
of shops. It was hard for Petra to see what each of them was selling, as they were obscured from view by a mass of shoppers
in brightly colored coats, hats, and scarves, muffled against the chill.
There was a man in a dark blue coat, with a small child hanging off each hand, both of them wearing matching woolly hats with pom-poms. He and his pretty blond wife looked as if they were laughing together at something one of the children said.
She pinched the child’s nose fondly before packing another white-paper-wrapped parcel into the backpack her husband was wearing.
Petra was overtaken by a wave of longing to be that woman, with her partner and her children, doing normal Saturday morning
things. She imagined them all going off to a café for coffee and—for the children—hot chocolate with whipped cream and grated
chocolate on top. Maybe they would have a late breakfast there too: pancakes with bacon and maple syrup or eggs Benedict.
Perhaps then they would take their dog—a fox-red labrador, Petra decided—for a walk on the beach, before returning home for
homemade vegetable soup and fresh bread bought from one of the stalls that morning. She pictured what they would do later
too: perhaps a family board game, or baking, or an invitation to another child’s birthday party, then supper and bedtime,
and the couple finally sitting down in front of the fire with a glass of wine, sighing in relief, and settling to watch something
on television together, snuggled up in each other’s arms.
Petra blinked away her daydream and made to move from the window, just as a graceful older lady in a trailing aquamarine scarf
and tumbling blond-gray hair waved cheerily in at her. Petra turned to see Flo waving back before the woman carried on up
the steep hill of the main street, a basket on her arm already packed with goodies.
“That was Diana,” Flo explained. “A great friend, and tremendous fun. You’ll meet her soon, but she looks like she’s on a
mission this morning. Probably heading up to see Vanessa in the flower shop.”
“Talking of shopping, I was going to ask you where there was a supermarket so I can stock up with some groceries,” said Petra,
“but I hardly need a Sainsbury’s with all this on the doorstep.”
“Oh yes, Portneath is famous for its food. You’ll see everyone in town on market days,” agreed Flo.
“But for the boring stuff, you’ll want to pop over the bridge to the Co-op.
And there’s Finn’s deli next to Freya’s too, of course.
I shouldn’t say this, but he stocks goods from half the market stallholders, so he’s very convenient if you don’t manage to buy from the producers direct.
His prices are slightly higher, naturally enough. ”
“Of course,” agreed Petra vaguely, still half lost in her daydreams about what a wonderful life she would have if she lived
here properly. She felt unable to pull herself away from the window, such was the allure and vitality of the scene.
“Why don’t you pop out now, with my basket, and find yourself some nice things to keep you going,” suggested Flo. “Now’s the
time, before the baker sells out.”
“But I don’t want to leave you on your own,” said Petra.
“People only really drift in here once they’ve bought their fresh food and had a coffee in Finn’s shop. We won’t get busy
until late morning at the earliest. You’ll see.”
“Really?” said Petra guiltily, but Flo had turned away, returning quickly with an old-fashioned basket like the one Diana
had been carrying.
A minute later, wrapped up against the chill and giving Flo a grateful look, Petra launched into the crowds.
There was one stall selling nothing but mushrooms. She had never seen such a variety of shapes and sizes.
They were all quite beautiful, but to Petra they seemed prohibitively expensive.
The stallholder was a red-faced, beefy man, stirring a huge pan of steaming risotto that was glistening with mushrooms and speckled with herbs.
It smelled absolutely delicious—earthy and rich.
He was ladling it into paper containers, with little wooden forks to eat it with, and several people were standing around, warming their hands on their pots as they tucked into an unconventional late breakfast.
Petra bought a small portion of oyster mushrooms wrapped in a brown paper bag. She would fry them with butter and garlic and
make them into an omelet for her supper that night. With her purchase stowed away in the basket, she moved on to the baker,
who was standing, beaming, in front of shelves piled high with crusty loaves of bread. It was the huge trays of pastries in
the stall in front of him that had piqued Petra’s interest. She sniffed appreciatively while she waited for him to deal with
another customer, breathing in the delicious aromas of toasted almond, apple, cinnamon, and caramelized sugar, overlaid on
a warming base note of yeast and flour. She was determined to have one of the puffy, lopsided, and utterly delicious-looking
cinnamon buns. In the end, she decided on two, so she and Flo could have them with their coffee later and then—on impulse—she
added a foot-long skein of Danish pastry twist, threaded through with chocolate pieces and dusted with a snowfall of icing
sugar.
Speckled brown eggs from a comfortably plump and aproned lady at the next stall completed her supper plans, and there was
milk and yogurt from the stall at the end of the street nearest Freya’s. The live crabs and lobsters at another stall made
Petra feel terrible about the linguine she had eaten at Freya’s. She vowed to eschew seafood henceforth. With all these delicious