Chapter 6
Chapter six
Claire
It took Claire four days of moping around the house, venturing into Whitehaven by train for supplies, and randomly surfing the Internet for job opportunities, before she worked up the courage to try the village shop again on Tuesday morning.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with Dan Trenton on a daily basis, but since she didn’t have a car and train times were irregular, a job in the village really was ideal.
And if she got a job, even one stocking shelves at the post office shop, she’d have something to show her parents and brother, something to prove that she was actually making a life for herself here.
Even if it didn’t feel that way. She hadn’t seen Lucy or Abby or really anyone since her walk to the beach; the weather had been horrendous, at least compared to Portugal.
Gusty wind and spitting rain, although that morning the sky had been blue.
For about fifteen minutes. She’d forgotten how absolutely awful the weather could be here, although there was something strangely cozy about it too.
Sitting snugly inside with a cup of tea while the heavens opened did make one feel safe.
Now Claire stood in front of the village shop and checked that the help wanted sign was still in the window. Of course it was. Who really wanted this job?
Rain blew into her face, and she wiped her cheeks of moisture before stiffening her spine along with her resolve and heading inside.
No one was by the till, and the shop had an empty feel to it. Claire stood there for a moment, her gaze wandering around the shelves of dusty packets and tins, before she decided to go around to the back, where the post office was.
Dan Trenton was just coming from behind the post office counter with its wall of Plexiglas, and he was moving at a clip that nearly had Claire smacking into his concrete wall of a chest.
She took a hasty step backwards and Dan grabbed her by the arm. “Whoa.” He righted her even though she hadn’t actually been losing her balance and then released her with a scowl. “You again.”
“Yes, me again. I wanted to ask about the job. Again.”
Dan moved past her to the till and then turned, his arms folded. Claire glanced at one of the tattoos: the name “Daphne” with an intricate design of vines and flowers around it.
“I thought you weren’t sure how long you were staying.”
“At least six months,” Claire said firmly. “Probably longer.” She was lying, because she had no idea how long she’d end up being here. But she wanted this job. The more Dan resisted, the more determined she felt to get it, to actually achieve something on her own merit.
“Do you have retail experience?”
“I worked in real estate for the last four years, showing villas to prospective buyers. That’s kind of like retail.”
His lip actually curled. “You don’t need to showcase a tin of beans. I’m talking about handling money. Working a cash register. Basic stuff.”
“Well then, no. But I could learn. I’m a quick learner.
” Dan looked unconvinced and no wonder. She was a decidedly slow learner.
“I could really use a job,” she added, hating that she’d resorted to begging, and so quickly.
Dan Trenton did not seem like the kind of man who would be moved by pity.
“And I’ll work hard. Promise.” Still nothing.
“It’s not like you’ve a queue of people lining up to interview,” she finally burst out.
“I’m choosy.”
“Clearly.”
She held his gaze even though it was hard, and her breath too because this was incredibly nerve-racking. Then he gave one short, terse nod.
“Fine. You can work on probation for a fortnight, four days a week, at minimum wage. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday do you?”
“Yes—”
“You can start tomorrow?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Eight o’clock sharp.”
“Okay. Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
Dan Trenton didn’t answer.
She headed back up to Four Gables without seeing anyone.
The misting rain had upgraded to a downpour and the wind was starting to gust, which meant the handful of commuters trickling from the train station were walking with their shoulders hunched and heads down.
One man was uselessly holding a soaked newspaper over his head, the thin paper coming apart in his hands, and a woman had made the mistake of opening her umbrella, which immediately blew inside out, revealing its bent spines.
Claire tried to give her a smile of sympathy, but the woman wasn’t looking. No one was in this weather, and so she hurried down the street towards the beach road and then up to her house.
She had a job. After wrestling with the latch in the wind, Claire closed the front door of Four Gables behind her and leaned against it.
She actually had a job. The first job she’d gotten all by herself.
She knew her parents would scoff at her working in a shop; so would Andrew, for that matter.
They were all ruthless academics, but working in a shop was more her speed, surly Dan Trenton aside.
“Claire?”
Andrew came around the corner from the kitchen, and Claire gaped, feeling as if she’d conjured him from her mind. “Andrew . . . what are you doing here?”
“How about ‘welcome home’?” he responded wryly, and Claire moved forward to hug him. Awkwardly, because her family didn’t really do hugs.
“Sorry. Welcome home. But I didn’t know you were coming. Last time we talked you were in Minneapolis.”
“That job finished.” Andrew’s arms had closed around her for one brief, tight hug before he stepped back.
Claire hadn’t actually seen her brother in more than two years; with her in Portugal and Andrew in America, their holiday times hadn’t crossed.
Or maybe they just hadn’t wanted to come home for a West Family Christmas, with all the awful, excessive trimmings.
“You didn’t say anything . . .” Claire began.
“Actually, I texted you. Do you ever check your phone?”
“Oh. No, not really.” She moved past him into the kitchen, and Andrew followed.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no one I want to talk to on it.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry,” she said as she turned around, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I didn’t think you’d call. You usually don’t.”
She hadn’t meant it as an accusation, but Andrew must have taken it as one because he answered, “I know I should be in better touch.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. But why are you here, Andrew?
It’s not like you to come back to Cumbria.
You were rubbishing Hartley-by-the-Sea to me a few days ago.
” She gazed at him, trying to see something in his expression, but as ever, Andrew was blank-faced, unsmiling, his dark hair a little damp from the rain.
“I have a couple days before my next project, which happens to be near Manchester,” he said. “So I decided to come back for a bit.”
“How long?”
“Four days.”
She nodded, taking a deep breath before voicing her fear. “Are you checking up on me?”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Claire expelled a frustrated breath. This was how conversations with Andrew always went. He won everything, even Monopoly. “I don’t need anyone being worried about me.”
“Sorry, but that’s not your choice.”
“I’m fine—”
“Really, Claire?” The words were a challenge, but his voice was gentle.
Claire’s strength to stand up to her brother evaporated. “I wish you hadn’t come,” she mumbled.
“Do you want me to leave?”
She didn’t know if the question was genuine—when did Andrew ever do what she wanted?
—but she pretended it was. “No, not now that you’re here.
” She realized she meant it, stupidly perhaps.
Four Gables was huge, but it was going to feel very small with Andrew watching her all the time, measuring how much vodka and whiskey was in their dad’s dusty bottles, thinking she was on the brink of toppling into alcoholism.
She hadn’t even been tempted to have a drink in the four weeks of rehab.
She’d barely drunk anything during university; hard liquor had made her sick.
But Andrew wasn’t going to listen to her feeble protests. No one was.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he remarked, and she sighed.
“I’m not. But like I said, you’re here.” Her earlier euphoria about landing a job had started to trickle away. It was such a small, silly thing. “What are you doing in Manchester, anyway?”
“Working on some repairs to the Ridgegate Reservoir near Macclesfield.”
“Right.” Which made putting bread on shelves for a wage definitely feel a bit less than.
“Claire . . .” Andrew’s voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “Look, I know you’ve been through a difficult time. . . .”
Claire winced at the prospect of some emotive spiel from her brother. Or worse, yet another warning about how she shouldn’t be alone. “Look, I need to shower and change,” she said. “I’m soaked just from walking here from the post office. I forgot how wet and windy Cumbria is.”
“You didn’t get water in your ear?”
For a second she was propelled back to school days, when Andrew had been charged with Making Sure Claire Didn’t Do Something Stupid.
“No, but in any case, a few drops of water won’t actually—”
“Remember, the doctor said you could go completely deaf if you got water in your bad ear.”
As if she’d ever forget. “I’m going to shower,” Claire said, and left the kitchen without waiting for a response.
Upstairs she turned on the shower full blast and reached for the earplugs she’d been required to wear since she was four.
It didn’t usually bother her; it was just her thing.
Claire’s thing, to be deaf in one ear, missing its middle bones, having had countless surgeries and procedures over the years.
No one in her family ever talked about it and hardly anyone knew.
Hugh hadn’t even known. As for being deaf in one ear, Claire had long ago learned to listen carefully and pretend she’d heard something when she hadn’t. Usually it worked.