Chapter 5
‘Done!’ I finished sewing in the final end, tucked my large-eye needle away in its plastic tube and held the jumper up triumphantly. ‘I mean, aside from the final wash and block, but… done with the actual construction. Finally.’
Emma, counting our float into the till, beamed at me. ‘It looks gorgeous – sometimes even when I’ve watched you making things, I can’t believe they’re not from a shop, you know? It just looks so perfect.’
‘Thank you.’ I smiled to myself and stroked the supersoft cashmere.
‘I think this might be the nicest thing I’ve ever made.
I can’t wait to show Richard. He’s going to be so surprised.
’ I folded the jumper into a tote bag and stretched my back out.
I’d been sitting behind the counter working on it for several hours now and my spine and wrists were paying the price.
I rolled my wrists and winced as they clicked.
Emma pulled a face. ‘You should take more breaks. That is not a good sound for your bones to be making… sounds like breadsticks under a car.’
I snorted. ‘Maybe we should start selling wrist supports. I know I should take more breaks but I wanted to get the jumper finished before it gets really cold outside. It’s not like we’ve been busy otherwise.’
Emma looked like she wanted to argue, but the facts were not on her side.
Opening day had been sort of a high point, customer-wise.
I had a little Post-it tally going on behind the counter and, since then, the most people we’d had in on one day was seven.
Most days we only got one or two and the number of actual customers who bought things was even lower.
The jumper was a distraction if anything.
I didn’t want to confront the horrible truth – that, after only a few weeks, my business was failing. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
Richard had been so supportive over the past fortnight.
He’d dropped by three times to bring Emma and me coffees from the Costa on the roundabout outside of town.
He looked around the shop every time and said it wouldn’t be quiet forever and that soon everything would work itself out.
But him being nice only made me feel worse.
I could tell that he was tallying up how much money I’d wasted on this silly little fantasy.
Money that could have set his business up and ensured we were provided for in the years to come. I’d gambled our future away on a whim.
Emma was trying to keep me buoyed up as well.
She’d brought in a bowl of herbs and special crystals that now lived underneath the till.
Aside from smelling pleasantly of cinnamon and mint, it didn’t seem to be doing much.
She spent ages looking at the door as if trying to manifest someone walking through it and she’d added some ideas to my brainstorming pad, where I was trying to come up with ways to bring in some cash.
So far, I had ‘crochet/knitting classes’ and ‘beginner kits’ down in sparkly green gel pen, right above ‘fire + insurance fraud?’ and ‘pray for the Bake Off team to start a knitting show’.
Emma had added ‘coffee morning’ and ‘stitch and witch’, which I had assumed was a spelling mistake but it turned out she was being literal.
‘So many of my friends want to learn to make, like, tarot-card pouches, wand cosies, hats…’ she’d said, shrugging. ‘I could get half the coven in on a Wednesday night, no problem – just so long as we’ve got wine and some Stevie Nicks to listen to.’
I’d actually dug out several Fleetwood Mac LPs from my collection and had them on standby, just in case I needed to set up an impromptu coven meeting.
That was how desperate I was. But I couldn’t see how any of our ideas so far could save us.
Did anyone even want crochet classes? I’d floated it with Richard and he’d pointed out that YouTube was free. He had a point.
I had the first five months of rent covered by my inheritance, but by that time I needed to be in the black.
Otherwise, my short-lived tenure as a shop owner would be over and I’d be unemployed and stuck with a mountain of unsold merchandise.
I’d also have made my best friend jobless. Way to go, Tabitha.
‘Why don’t you take a long lunch and go and show Richard the jumper? Cheer yourself up a bit?’ Emma said, stirring one of her special tea concoctions with a Biro. ‘I don’t mind manning the fort.’
Well, the fort was empty, wasn’t it? It hardly needed manning at all. Still, the idea of surprising Richard, perhaps with something nice from the bakery as well, sounded like just the little lift I needed.
‘As long as you don’t mind…’ I said, still sort of on the fence about it.
‘I don’t. In fact,’ Emma crossed her arms over her chest, beads clattering. ‘I am ordering you to take a long lunch. As your friend. As your employee, I am merely suggesting it.’
‘Gotcha,’ I said, laughing. ‘Okay, well, then I will pop home for a bit. But I’ll bring you back something from the bakery – as your boss. Because then it’s tax-deductible.’
I gathered up my tote bag and handbag, then headed to the bakery.
Their boiled fruitcake was my favourite – moist and packed with shiny red cherries.
But Richard didn’t have a single sweet tooth in his head, so I got his favourite rosemary and sundried tomato focaccia instead, plus a sparkly flower-shaped cookie for Emma for later.
Maeve was the one at the counter, serving.
Today her tabard was studded with a collection of enamel animal brooches – terriers, horses, field mice and fauns gambolling freely across the hills and valleys of her chest. Her hair was freshly tinted pumpkin-orange and she had a laser-cut necklace of autumn leaves around her neck.
‘Love that necklace,’ I said, as she was bagging up my purchases. ‘You’re all ready for the season then.’
‘I’m just happy summer’s over – it gets so hot in here.
Besides, Halloween is my favourite theme to bake for.
Apples, cinnamon, pumpkin pie and cinder toffee.
’ Maeve looked wistfully at the display case, still full of summer goodies – flower cookies, lavender cake and ice-cream-shaped cupcakes. ‘Roll on October, that’s what I say.’
‘Oh, don’t! I’m meant to be contributing to the harvest display at the library,’ I confessed, feeling a tinge of worry.
I’d promised to do it while I still worked there and it felt mean to pull out after I’d left my job to start the shop.
Every year all the local schools, shops and societies contributed something to the display in the giant bay window of the library.
I had volunteered to do some crochet pumpkins and felt-leaf garlands.
All the supplies were still sitting untouched in the flat. I’d been too busy to make a start.
‘It’ll be a good one this year. I’m doing a salt-dough cornucopia and my granddaughter’s class are making local points of interest out of cardboard.
She’s already robbed me of three Pringles tubes.
I wouldn’t have minded but I wasn’t done with them – there’s just a massive bowl of crisps in the microwave now. ’
I chuckled. ‘Well, if she needs any extra supplies, you know where to send her. What’s she making?’
‘Manor Park Farm – with the silos and loads of plastic cows – and a dragon,’ Maeve shrugged.
‘She’s very creative. Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle because one of the other girls wanted to make that boat that’s turned up near the viaduct, but some of the mums are doing a campaign to have it moved on, so they took it as an act of protest, so she’s put it on its end and turned it into the clock tower for the church. ’
I snorted. ‘Protest? Jesus… so it’s still up there then? Thought it would have moved on after a few days once whoever owns it realised there was nothing around here to do, tourist-wise. I mean our only claim to fame was the brewery and that shut down years ago.’
Maeve shrugged. ‘You still catch a whiff of yeast on damp days. But I’ve no idea what anyone would come here for, or whose boat it is.
I asked around and no one’s seen anyone on it.
My Ian went for a walk up that way – not on purpose, he got lost coming home from The Kingfisher in the dark – but he said there were lights on and someone was watching him out of the window.
Didn’t even blink apparently, just stared after him.
’ She shuddered. ‘Gave him the willies and had him home in double-quick time anyway. The shepherd’s pie was barely browned. ’
I could see why he’d been freaked out. The back of my neck was tingling just thinking about it.
How creepy. I was still thinking about it afterwards, while I walked to the apartment complex (why couldn’t we just say ‘block of flats’ like normal people?).
As much as I loved Leaford, a thriving holiday destination it was not.
Aside from the Travelodge out by the tiny two-platform railway station – used exclusively by travelling salesmen and family visiting for weddings and funerals – we had nothing around for anyone to visit.
People did not come to Leaford for their holidays.
They retired here to raise spaniels or grow courgettes that would only ever get second place in the yearly fair.
That got me thinking about the pumpkins for the display again.
I’d have to start them soon. We were already well into September and time was running out.
Maybe I could cheekily get Emma to cut out leaves for the felt garlands.
After all, it wasn’t as if we were snowed under at the shop these days.
My wrists twinged and I shifted my bags around to try and take the strain off.
Emma was right, I did need to start taking more breaks from the crochet.
Or invest in some of those icepack wristlets.
I had to put my bags down to unlock the front door, elbowing it open as I bent to retrieve my things. ‘Rich? I’m back for lunch, and I’ve got something to show… what the fuck?’
‘Tabs! You’re early!’ Richard exclaimed, leaping to his feet and grabbing the Moroccan tile blanket to wrap hastily around his waist.
The naked woman on the sofa discreetly covered herself with the matching cushion, her face a mask of shock.
She was very pretty, I couldn’t help but notice.
Tanned and toned and with a high blonde ponytail that was understandably a little crushed and messy from being smooshed into the sofa.
There were two coffee cups on the table – my hand-painted ones from the weekend course I did with Aunt Lou – and it was that more than anything else, oddly, that brought tears to my eyes.
‘I… I’m so sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I didn’t know he… Ricky?’ She turned to him for help and I could hear her bum squeaking on the leather sofa as she squirmed. The only noise in the horribly silent flat.
Richard just stood there, eyes darting about as if for inspiration. Finally he wetted his lips.
‘Now, Tabs… don’t overreact…’