Chapter 16
16
With a thousand thoughts hurtling like shooting stars through her mind, Charlotte hurried out of the churchyard and resumed her walk to the farm shop. To get to the store, she needed to walk through the centre of the village, and it was a good opportunity to get her bearings. When Gemma had dropped her off, they’d arrived at Nightshade Cottage via a series of labyrinthine back lanes, and hadn’t come through the village centre. Because she didn’t have a car, she hadn’t really had the chance to explore. Now, as she walked in the direction of Saints Farm, she began to notice how pretty and charming Lower Brambleton really was.
Much smaller than Roseford, its near neighbour, Lower Brambleton had a sleepy charm. The main road meandered through the village centre, and the dominant feature was a low-roofed thatched pub called the Star and Telescope. A couple of benches sat outside, and the front door was open, but it was difficult to see into the cosy darkness within. On the other side of the road was a small, independent charity shop called ‘The Purrfect Paws Rescue’, whose window was charmingly dressed with a selection of cat-related products and other donated items, including a particularly vibrantly patterned summer dress. Further down the road was a tea room and what looked to be a small corner shop, with a newspaper board outside bearing an eccentrically adorable headline about a rescued otter.
Lower Brambleton was small, pretty and the epitome of Somerset charm. However, there seemed to be very few people about to enjoy it, especially on a Saturday morning. She hated to admit it, but she could see why planning permission had been granted on Observatory Field. It felt as though the village needed an injection of new blood. If nothing else, a hundred houses above the woodland would achieve that.
A rumble from her stomach made Charlotte pick up her pace in the direction of the furthermost boundary of the village. It didn’t take long until she spotted the rustic looking outbuilding that served as the public, commercial face of the Saints Farm enterprise, and as the road widened out towards a more major thoroughfare at the boundary of the village, Charlotte hoped she’d find some enticing things to buy. The fresh air of the countryside was making her appetite increase, and she couldn’t wait to fill a basket with some locally produced, delicious food.
As she drew closer to the shop, she saw boxes and racks of fresh fruit and veg, their colours in strong relief against the pale oak of the building’s construction. Crates of reddish-brown potatoes, the first of the season, grown in the dark rich Somerset soil were piled up to one side, and on the other were various succulent soft fruits, including dewy raspberries in punnets and irresistible strawberries. Lower Brambleton was only a couple of dozen miles from the village of Cheddar, the home of English strawberries, and the sign on the shelf where they lounged enticingly in their small cardboard punnets proclaimed them to be from there. Charlotte immediately picked one up, ready to put in her basket when she got through the door.
‘Right, Comet,’ she said firmly, looping his lead over one of the hooks on the wall to the left of the entrance. ‘I won’t be long. Be a good boy while I get us something to eat for later.’ She noticed, with a smile, a stainless-steel bowl of water on the ground next to where the hooks had been fastened, for the shop’s canine visitors. It looked fresh, too, so Comet gratefully dunked in his snout and took several large slurps.
Entering the low-roofed wooden building that, from the outside, resembled a rather upmarket barn conversion, she was immediately assailed by the sights and scents of a well-stocked farm shop. Wafts of fresh bread drifted enticingly from a rack to her right, and to her left, lining one wall, was a fridge unit full of local cured meats and cheeses. On the back wall were several thick wooden shelves full of preserves and pickles, and in the two aisles in the centre were yet more local delights, including more vegetables, fruits and several varieties of confectionery and locally produced biscuits.
What a treasure trove , Charlotte thought, and immediately regretted not having a car to ferry her purchases back to Nightshade Cottage. She’d be limited by what she could carry, today, and she’d only brought her backpack.
‘Good afternoon!’ A cheery voice rang out from behind the counter, which was off to the right of the door. ‘How can I help you today?’
Charlotte turned from her perusal of a particularly appetising jar of pickled beetroot and saw a pretty, dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties smiling back at her. She was wearing a blue apron that had ‘Saints Farm Store’ embroidered in gold lettering on the front, and as Charlotte smiled back, she continued talking.
‘Gorgeous dog you’ve got there – I’m sorry we can’t let him in the shop, but after we had a Great Dane through the door who slurped up all of the samples of the local charcuterie’s taster, we decided it was probably best to keep our four-footed friends outside!’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘Comet’s not quite tall enough to get into your cabinets, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try!’
‘I’m Annabelle Saint,’ the woman went on, as she bustled about behind the counter, tidying away a few things. ‘Feel free to ask if you need any help – or any recommendations.’
‘Thanks, I will,’ Charlotte replied, and turned her attention back to the centre aisle. She was rapidly realising there was far more here that she wanted than she could reasonably carry, and was regretting not getting a supermarket order in.
At that moment, the door that led to the back of the building opened, and a tall, striking man with beech-leaf-coloured hair and piercing blue eyes strode through the shop. He was wearing a navy-blue polo shirt with the gold embroidery, and Charlotte watched him as he progressed across the shop to the counter.
‘I think that’s all the deliveries done,’ he called out as he reached Annabelle. ‘Any more I should know about before I knock off for a coffee?’
‘Let me just check the logs,’ Annabelle replied, tapping swiftly on the iPad that was by the till. ‘Just one for Mrs Stokes at Owl’s Barn for this afternoon. She’s requested a bag of those Maris Pipers and a few other bits and bobs – I’ll put a box together.’
‘Thanks, sis,’ the guy replied. ‘Coffee?’
‘Yeah, that would be great,’ Annabelle replied.
Charlotte, hearing their exchange, had an idea.
‘Um, can I ask about your delivery service?’ She approached the counter with her potential purchases and placed them down.
‘Sure,’ Annabelle smiled at her. ‘We charge a small fee for orders below fifty pounds, and it’s free for orders over that. Usually, deliveries are for online orders only, but we do get a few customers who come in and request their shopping delivered, once they find they’ve bought too much to carry home!’
‘That would be me, right now!’ Charlotte grinned. ‘I only came in for a couple of things to tide me over, but I’ve fallen for a whole lot more of your stock.’
Annabelle smiled back. ‘It happens to the best of us.’ She turned in the direction the guy had wandered off. ‘Nick!’ she shouted. ‘Can you do another delivery this afternoon?’
Nick poked his head back through the door. ‘So long as it doesn’t interfere with the cricket – Roseford versus Lower Brambleton – it’s a proper grudge match!’
‘I’m sure you can fit it in before you have to bat,’ Annabelle said dryly.
‘I’ll add it to the list,’ Nick replied. He glanced at Charlotte. ‘Where’s it to?’
Charlotte smiled at the West Country turn of phrase. ‘Nightshade Cottage, Buttermere Lane.’
‘Oh, Lorelai’s gaff? You the new lodger?’ Nick inclined his head in recognition.
‘Yup, just for the summer,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And I’d love to be able to take home more than I can carry. A delivery would be great.’
‘Leave it with Annabelle – I’ll drop it off on my way to Owl’s Barn.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlotte said. ‘That’s great. I can really go to town now!’
Annabelle laughed. ‘That’s what we like to hear. We do love a happy customer.’
Charlotte, leaving her first handful of purchases by the till, set about finding more delicious things to stock her fridge and her cupboards. She had to keep reminding herself that shouldn’t be too extravagant, since the prices in the farm shop were a little higher than she’d usually consider, but there were so many things she found herself itching to buy. In the end, the local lavender honey, a loaf of strong, golden-crusted sourdough and a block of butter were among the many items she added to her pile. She even picked up some freshly baked dog treats for the patiently waiting Comet to try.
‘Wow, you really have gone for it!’ Annabelle observed as Charlotte returned to pay. ‘You’re very welcome to visit us again.’
‘Well, I’ll be here until the start of the next academic year, give or take a week or two, so I absolutely will.’
As she tapped her debit card on the terminal, Annabelle asked her what had brought her to Lower Brambleton. Charlotte tried to give her the potted version, as she had a tendency to get too caught up with explanations and risk boring people, or so she always feared. As soon as Annabelle heard the words ‘Observatory Field’, though, she looked intrigued and thoughtful.
‘That development’s been a long time coming,’ Annabelle remarked as Charlotte paused. ‘There’s a lot of people round here who tried to stop it from going ahead at all – said the observatory should be preserved as a site of special historical interest. Of course, most of those were well over sixty and just didn’t want the village to change. We don’t all think like that.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ a gruff voice interceded from behind Charlotte, and she glanced over her shoulder to see a tall, silver-haired man standing a little way away. He’d hefted in a wooden boxful of raspberry punnets and was clearly on his way to put them out the front of the shop. ‘There’s some of us who still think that.’
‘Change happens, Dad,’ Annabelle replied. ‘And you can’t stand in the way of it, especially when people need places to live.’
‘People need places to live where the jobs are,’ the man replied. ‘What’s anyone got going for them all the way out here?’
Annabelle sighed. ‘You’ll have to excuse my father.’ She turned back to Charlotte, who was observing this exchange with interest. ‘He forgets that not everyone can afford a house in town.’
‘Wouldn’t want to live there anyway,’ the man grunted as he picked up the crate of raspberries once more. ‘Let me know if anything else needs bringing up from the cold store, Annie.’
‘I will.’ Annabelle rolled her eyes. She met Charlotte’s gaze with an apologetic smile. ‘I, for one, am glad the observatory’s going.’ She paused and Charlotte felt that she wanted to add more. ‘If you ask me, it’s about time. Then maybe a few people around here can move on with their lives.’
As she paid for her shopping, and arranged with Annabelle to have what she couldn’t carry delivered later that afternoon, Charlotte realised that the tragic history of the observatory really was ingrained. Annabelle wasn’t old enough to have had many memories of it, but it had obviously still left its mark. She wondered how many other people would be glad to see the back of the place when it eventually came down.