Chapter 4
Later that afternoon, Mum and Dad popped by to ‘see how we were getting on’. Even though the shop was quite busy by then – well, busy compared with that morning’s humbling lull – I still heard them coming.
‘… lived in this town my entire life and now they want me to pay for the privilege of spending money in the shops. Two pound ruddy fifty an hour! It’s not on. I mean…’
‘Mum, Dad!’ I called, cutting off the next part of Dad’s rant, which I knew from experience would involve the much-promised and never-delivered wheelie bins, the time Dad got a ticket for ‘just stopping to say hello to Stanley from the pub’ and the former dog warden who’d been ‘having it off’ with ‘her on the council’.
‘Hello sweetie,’ Mum beamed, air-kissing me on each cheek.
She had to get up on her tiptoes to do it, despite her habitually high wedge sandals – worn in all weathers bar actual snow.
I’ve been taller than her since I was fifteen – ‘that’s your father’s genes’, she used to say.
My mother, who shopped the petite range until she was nine months pregnant and whose feet still fitted into children’s shoes, made me feel sometimes like a galumphing giant.
For years I had this little theory, brought on by too much Jacqueline Wilson and EastEnders, that I was actually Aunt Lou’s daughter and that Mum was raising me for her because Lou wasn’t married.
Even though it was the late nineties and, honestly, who would have cared?
Lou and I were both pale, turning pink instead of brown in the sun.
We had the same reddish hair and she was tall and curvy like me.
Mum was short, slim as a whippet and tanned to a crinkly mahogany.
Her hair was chestnut brown and she’d worn the same shade of sticky cerise lipstick and nail polish my entire life.
With her loud laugh and her clattering heels, Mum was tailor-made to be the ‘fun aunt’.
It seemed wrong that she was my mother and quiet, bookish Lou was my aunt.
I loved them both dearly, but sometimes I still wondered if there had been some kind of mistake.
Cosmically speaking. Sometimes I suspected Mum felt the same.
‘All right, love? Looks very smart in here,’ Dad said, peering around cluelessly.
Bless him, he didn’t know a crochet hook from a shoe horn but he always tried to show interest in me and my hobbies.
He’d worn his sunhat too – one of the first things I’d ever made him, from a pattern that was quite floppy and atrocious really.
A khaki creation in cotton yarn, but he’d had it for years and mostly wore it while sunbathing with Mum in the garden.
Just the hat, a twenty-year-old pair of ‘designer sunglasses’ he’d bought in Crete and his alarmingly snug denim shorts, which now buttoned under his fish-white barrel of a stomach.
‘It’s been a day,’ I said, and hugged him. ‘But we’ve had quite a few people in.’
‘Including us now. Wow, look at all the diddy little… things!’ Mum said, using her inside voice, so probably only the next street heard her.
I suppressed a smile as she looked over the unfamiliar collection of crafting items. She picked up a ball of fuchsia and violet marbled yarn. ‘I’ll take three of these.’
‘Mum, you don’t crochet. You don’t have to buy stuff,’ I laughed.
‘It’s for you – so you can make me another one of these fab tops.’ She did a twirl to show off the bust-hugging vest I’d made her. ‘Adriana from Pilates wants one too, so I’ll get you some more wool for that.’
It was pointless trying to fight it. I didn’t really mind making things for Mum’s friends but it did get a little overwhelming at times.
Like when she’d planned that girls’ trip to Majorca and told fifteen of her friends that I’d make them all matching beach totes.
I’d worked like a demon on those for weeks – Richard told me I was miming crochet while I slept.
Then some of them hadn’t picked theirs up in time and three more had ditched them at the airport because of the baggage limit.
Mum lost hers off a pedalo and someone else traded theirs for a jug of sangria from a stranger after the bars closed.
Mum pottered about gathering up ‘wool’ – I’d tried to teach her that not all yarn was wool but it landed on deaf ears – and Dad nudged my elbow.
‘Looks great, love. It really does. Richard did some bloody good work in here – I always said he was a good pick for you. Someone with a business head and hardworking hands. He’ll always be able to take care of you. Just like I do for your mum.’
I forced a smile. Dad was just a tad old-fashioned, at least where men were concerned.
Possibly because he adored Mum down to his bones and moved heaven and earth to give her anything she wanted – from decking to yearly holidays in the sun.
He’d been a big supporter of me going to university, working and living in my own place.
And he’d taught me to use Rawlplugs, a spirit level and a circular saw (hazards of being a contractor’s daughter).
He’d taught me car maintenance too. But he was still very much of the opinion that, even if I knew how to unclog a sink or tile a bathroom, I shouldn’t have to do so.
I hadn’t the heart to tell him that Richard had corrected the sign placement and that was about it.
Dad adored Richard and, anyway, what did it really matter who did what?
The shop was up and running now and it looked great.
‘Tabby.’ Mum appeared at my elbow, carrying a large brown paper bag filled with skeins of yarn, which she handed off to me.
‘I’ve just had your father bring the patio heater out of storage.
We’re having one last big bash before it gets too wet to use the garden bar.
You must bring Richard over. It’s been ages since we had you both there for a real knees-up. ’
‘We’d love to, I’ll check when he’s free,’ I said, privately thinking that her ‘luau’ had only been three weeks ago and I was still a little wary of downing any more of her ‘speciality drinks’ after whatever had been in that pineapple thing.
Paint stripper and neat acetone was my best guess.
Mum mixed drinks like a fresher at uni – everything went in, with unpredictable consequences.
‘I’ll be doing invites for Bonfire Night and my big Christmas do soon,’ Mum said, glossy pink nails tap-dancing on my arm in excitement. ‘You never know, by then I could be introducing Richard to everyone as your fiancé,’ Mum sing-songed.
‘All right, ease up a bit,’ Dad chuckled, using his sixth sense for when I was close to having had too much of Mum for the day. ‘We’ll leave you to it, love – all right? But we’re very proud, aren’t we, Pen?’
‘Very,’ Mum nodded. ‘And Louise would be too.’
I smiled at that, a mixture of happiness and grief twining together inside me into a strong cord wrapped around my heart. ‘I hope so.’
Mum gave me a hug. I knew she missed her sister as much as I did, probably even more so.
After all, they’d grown up together – sisters, best friends, total opposites.
I clung to her and breathed in Mum’s scent – vanilla body spray and biscuity fake tan.
In moments like this, she felt like my mum, rather than a glitzy aunt or sassy neighbour.
Then she pulled back and started trying to ‘make something’ of my hair.
‘I don’t know where you get this frizz from, probably your dad’s side,’ she muttered, stepping back and smoothing her own sleek bob.
I felt sad all over again. Just once I wanted her to just be content with me – not to jump on the scale right after to compare us and come out the ‘winner’.
Mum and Dad left to go and stock up on Malibu and amaretto (I winced, imagining the carnage unfolding around the cocktail bar in their garden already).
I let out a long breath and fiddled with my charm bracelet, tapping my fingernail on a miniature porcelain teacup.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents to bits, but they were just sometimes a bit…
much for me to cope with. We were very different people and sometimes I felt as if we were from different cultures, exchanging gifts and customs that the other side didn’t really get but wanted to appreciate nonetheless.
Emma shot me a sympathetic look as I retreated to the counter. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘I must be made of it at this point,’ I sighed. ‘But if you’re offering.’
She grinned, but then her face fell a bit. ‘Did they ask where he was? Richard, I mean?’
‘No… I suppose they just assumed he was off doing some-thing…’ the words ‘more important’ bubbled up in my throat like a pineapple-cocktail-flavoured burp. I suppressed them with a shudder, ‘… else,’ I finished, instead.
‘Yeah, probably that,’ Emma said, and smiled again, but not as widely.
I tried to send her a mental message to please not poke that particular sore spot too hard.
I’d never wish I didn’t have Emma in my life but sometimes – on rare occasions – she could be just a little bit too honest. A bit too perceptive.
I was trying to get my business off the ground and deal with Lou not being around any more.
I couldn’t add dissecting my relationship on top of all that.
It was like a car – if it was running fine and there were no warning lights blaring at me from the dashboard, why would I go poking around under the bonnet looking for problems?
That would just be creating stress that didn’t have to exist. As long as Emma didn’t tell me an MOT was due, I could ignore it.
Not that there was anything to ignore. As long as I didn’t go looking for trouble, I wouldn’t have to ignore it. That was the genius of my system.
All in all, I had seven cups of tea that day.
That was an average of one per two customers.
If we carried on like that, I’d probably end up drinking our profits away, one Yorkshire Tea bag at a time.
At least we’d had customers, though. That was something.
Fourteen of them! Double digits. True, one of those was Mum and another was Maeve from the bakery, who’d bought a single spool of white cotton. But still, they counted.
After five I closed up and we straightened the shop shelves and hoovered the place pristine again. There wasn’t much restocking to do. We’d sold quite a bit of yarn but Emma had already refilled the baskets from the wholesale cupboard beside the staffroom.
Outside, in the golden glow of the early autumn sunset, I finished locking up and Emma gave me a patchouli-scented hug. The church bell chimed for six in the distance, which meant it was five to. It’d be getting dark soon.
‘The hardest part’s over,’ Emma promised me, her breath tickling my ear. ‘First day all done with. From here on, it only gets easier.’
I squeezed her back and wanted to believe her, but I felt doubt closing in on me. As soon as she’d disappeared in the direction of the (extortionately priced) car park, I was alone with the little voice in my head that wanted to know exactly who I thought I was fooling.
I hated that voice. Mostly because it usually made really good points.
Fourteen customers, I thought, as I walked the sun-drenched road home, taking the long way via the park and over the bridge to see the ducks and their one adopted goose sibling.
Were fourteen customers enough to sustain my business, given the high rents in the area?
The spot had great foot traffic, sandwiched between the shoe shop and a little gift place, which was part of why I’d picked it, that and I loved the little shop front’s quirks.
But what were the odds of people passing by every day who needed yarn or buttons?
I hugged my arms around myself as a chilly breeze lapped over me, bringing the damp smell of rotting leaves and pond water.
It felt like I was waking up from a feverish dream.
All this time I’d been preoccupied with making the shop a reality, finally making good on the dreams I’d talked about with Aunt Lou, and now that it was real, I was left wondering if I’d made a big mistake.
Richard was coming out of the front door of the apartment complex as I arrived.
I smiled at him, clocking the gym bag over his shoulder with a twinge of irritation.
He was going out right now? I quickly checked myself.
He’d been working all day, first at the shop and then back here on his business. He deserved a break.
‘Tabs, how was it?’ Richard asked, stopping to give me a quick kiss.
‘Good… eventually. We had fourteen people in,’ I said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as I’d felt when talking to Emma.
‘Your parents stopped in then,’ Richard smiled. ‘I rang to remind them.’
That stung a bit. Had they needed reminding? ‘They did, yeah. We’re invited to Mum’s final garden party of the season, by the way.’
He pulled a face. ‘I probably won’t have time but we’ll see. Got to get to the gym but I’ll be home later, okay?’
‘Cool, see you then,’ I said and he hurried off, putting his earphones in as he went.
It was fine. I didn’t really want to give him the blow-by-blow of the opening day anyway. It would be nice to have some time to myself. Open a bottle of pink wine, put my feet up in front of the TV and work on Richard’s jumper. I couldn’t wait to surprise him with it.