Chapter 64
Lottie drags her eyes away from the art gallery and follows on after Tim and Josh.
In contrast to the chi-chi studio, the newsagent’s shop hasn’t altered at all.
It is like a beacon of longevity; never changing, never closed.
The metal sign outside, showing signs of corrosion, swings creakily on its hinges and the faded canopy above the window is folded tightly into itself against the elements.
Inside is the usual mix of confectionery and fizzy pop, over-priced pre-packed groceries, canned goods, newspapers and old-fashioned postcards arranged on the wonky carousel.
Lottie wonders if anyone ever buys one and immediately decides that she will.
They say you must face your fears, wallow in them, allow them to flood and submerge you rather than avoid them.
Perhaps the sight of that picture-perfect bay will be a reminder that they survived the worst each time she looks at it, tacked to her fridge door next to Josh’s pre-school drawings.
Of course, the soft-serve ice cream machine is still fully operational despite the cold weather outside and Josh wastes no time in boldly wandering up to the counter to order his cone.
He’s so much more confident now, though he still hangs on to Tim’s little finger, she notices, and just once turns to look for her as she idly peruses the postcards.
She spins the old wire display, trying to decide which one to pick, half listening to Tim and Josh burbling away in conversation with the woman behind the till.
It’s the same one, not surprisingly. Lottie recognises her and manages to pluck her name – Jan – from the annals of memory.
She has the same open face, ruddy cheeks, black frizzy hair piled up on her head.
She smiles when she sees Josh, offers him a chocolate flake free of charge. ‘If that’s okay with Mummy and Daddy?’
‘Sure,’ says Tim. ‘Why not?’ And Josh is predictably ecstatic.
‘How’s business?’ asks Tim casually, as Jan takes a wafer cone and expertly pulls the ice cream into a creamy swirl.
‘Good, thanks,’ she says. ‘The summer was busier than ever. And my husband has had plenty of work too.’
‘Oh, what does he do?’ asks Tim in his typical way, always interested, always inquiring.
‘An electrician,’ she supplies. ‘He did the new gallery just down the road.’
Something in Lottie’s consciousness is pierced.
A feeling of familiarity, an echo of a long-ago conversation with someone else who lived here.
It worries at her brain like a toothache.
She tries not to go over the events of that summer too closely any more, for fear they will trigger some unpleasant thought, some unwanted trauma.
‘Oh yes, we were just passing. Looks great,’ says Tim.
Her kind, honest, well-meaning husband. Sometimes, more often than not, Lottie hopes that Josh will grow to be more like his father than herself, though Tim is always quick to quash this negativity, reeling off a list of her many strengths and good points.
‘I thought I recognised you both,’ says Jan. ‘And this little one,’ she says, winking at Josh who now has a face covered with a white, creamy slick.
Please don’t mention the Woolfs, please don’t bring up the house fire, prays Lottie internally.
Though it is receding into distant memory, the last thing she wants is to talk about it here, now, with one of the locals.
She imagines they’d all like to forget about it too.
Mercifully, the woman says no more and just rings up the ice cream on the till.
Josh has meandered towards the back of the shop now, unable to resist the magnetic call of the souvenirs, the knick-knacks and toys and, as he has just discovered, a small selection of Halloween-themed merchandise.
He lets out an exultant gasp and reaches out to fondle the plastic tat; eyeballs and dismembered fingers, magic wands and pumpkin-shaped baskets, monster masks and witches’ hats.
‘No, Josh. Sorry,’ calls Lottie. ‘We don’t need any of that on holiday.’
The woman chuckles and then moves around to the front of the counter.
‘I just do a small range at this time of the year. Local kids like to go out trick-or-treating. My son used to love it, right the way into his late teens, although I suppose it was just an excuse to dress up as he and all his friends went marauding about the town on a pub crawl.’
Tim frowns, trying to mentally calibrate this comment. ‘Oh right. How old is he now?’
‘Ah,’ she says, expiring the word along with a slow out-breath. ‘He would have been twenty,’ she says.
The words ‘would have been’ hang in the air like smoke and both Lottie and Tim exchange a glance while Josh continues to chatter away, exclaiming to himself over the macabre fancy dress.
The woman smiles at them, reassuringly.
‘He took his own life,’ she says softly, not quite in earshot of Josh. ‘Just over two years ago now.’
Tim and Lottie nod, make the same sympathetic sounds, apologise for the woman’s loss. But the death of a child, a young son, is not a subject matter they wish to discuss at length while on holiday and they respectfully, courteously make their way towards the door to leave.
‘Come on Josh,’ says Lottie, trying to keep the desperate edge out of her voice. She doesn’t want to have to drag him out kicking and screaming and she can see that his ice cream is melting swiftly, now that it has been ignored in favour of other distractions.
The woman moves forward.
‘Enjoy him, won’t you,’ she says. ‘Cherish him. They all say it goes quickly but you never believe it, not really. You always think you have time. More than enough of it.’
Lottie nods mutely. There is something about this woman’s intensity now. Her grief, so well disguised before, is worn across her body like an open wound.
‘I will,’ she says. ‘We will.’
And as she turns to take up Josh’s hand, feels his warm, sticky fingers in hers, she throws one last glance over her shoulder to check they haven’t left anything behind.
Her eyes range over the small, humble corner shop; the newspapers declaring national and local news, faded notices in the window selling unwanted items, shell novelties and seaside trinkets.
And finally, the tired old Halloween stock, taken out of storage for another year.
Monster masks and witches’ hats, ghoulish faces and, yes, she thought so: long, red wigs.
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