Chapter 11
Towards the end of July, Stella was in the grocery shop in Breverton.
She’d been to the post office to post another batch of stories off, then had nipped in to get a few provisions and perhaps a weekend treat for Ted.
The woman in front of her was buying icing sugar, three bags of it, and was chatting away to Margaret behind the counter.
‘I didn’t get much notice for the cake so it’s not been fed much brandy.
I’ve just got to ice it now. I’m hoping it’s going to look all right.
They insisted they wanted me to do it. “You’re our cook, Daisy – why would we want someone else to make it?
” Mrs A said, but I’m not a professional cake maker. ’
Margaret looked anguished. ‘Oh, that would give me conniptions. I couldn’t take the strain.’
‘They only want it simple. A few little rose buds on the top. And it’s not a big one. Just a single layer. There’s only twenty guests.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d have such a small wedding.’ Margaret pursed her lips.
‘I know. I thought they’d do something big at Foxwood.’
Staring at the tinned veg, Stella froze.
‘But maybe … what with the son …’ Margaret shrugged.
Daisy sighed. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s what’s behind it.’
Edwin. They meant Edwin, thought Stella.
And they must be talking about his brother; the couple she’d seen in the churchyard.
Alfie and Clementine. She’d seen the engagement announcement in the Breverton Weekly News a few weeks ago.
Seeing it in black and white had chilled her.
Not that she wasn’t happy for them, but it brought it all back, everything that had slipped through her fingers, and she’d sobbed herself to sleep as quietly as she could, so as not to disturb Ted.
‘You’d think it had been long enough.’ Margaret was piling the sugar into Daisy’s basket.
Daisy looked anguished. ‘I don’t think they’ll ever get over it. Though perhaps things will change after the wedding. They’ll both come down to live at Foxwood, I expect. Mr Alfie will be working at the factory. And I suppose Clementine will be having babies before we know it.’
Stella shut her eyes. That could have been her. He’d painted her the picture so vividly, she had almost believed it was going to happen.
‘It’ll be nice to have babies at Foxwood.’ Margaret nodded her approval.
Daisy’s face lit up. ‘Oh, it will. It’s just what it needs. A bit of new life.’
Stella bent her head and stared at her list. She should get some jelly.
Ted loved jelly. Or what about some custard powder?
If she watered it down it would last a few days.
One day, she thought, she might have enough money to buy jelly and custard, and make a magnificent trifle, with Swiss roll and tinned fruit and whipped cream.
She could be asking this very cook to make a trifle now.
Something bubbled up inside her. She felt her throat tighten, and her chest. Oh God, here it was.
She turned and fled the shop. Sometimes she thought her grief had finally left her, sliding away in all its smugness, but it grabbed her when she wasn’t looking, pulling her down into a pit of despair that felt as overwhelming as the very first day she’d heard the news.
At the bottom of the high street, by the bridge over the canal, she stopped, took in deep breaths to calm herself, told herself she needed to pull herself together.
She wouldn’t let the grief win. It wasn’t real.
It was like ectoplasm, an other-worldly fog insinuating its way inside you, trying to take over, but you didn’t have to let it in.
She’d go back to the shop and buy the jelly.
There was a white ceramic jelly mould on the boat.
She couldn’t imagine what use Edwin had once had for it, but the thought of Ted’s face as she turned a pink, wobbly rabbit out onto a plate spurred her on.
That was what life was about. Rabbits made from raspberry jelly, not grey, suffocating grief.